Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s a war, and it’s one hell of a war, and it twists Alex. It forces him to look Death square in the eyes, and he hates it. Wants to crawl into a hole and cry for the rest of his life, as he watches first his NCO, First Sergeant Edmund Moore – a pretentious fucking scholar from Cambridge that had too many words in him, and was too concerned with everyone else to fucking look behind him and see the fucking grenade - get killed not too far away.

He can still feel the blood splatter.

He watches Jones die next. He’s a Technician, and he’s 23, and he has a bird back home. Sweet, sweet Eliza Ray, Jones tells him one night. I’m gonna marry her, Al, I’m gonna marry her and shower her with love until she forgets this war, and so I can forget it too, and Alex thought it sounded like a plan until stupid, stupid Jones gets himself killed with Kraut artillery. A bullet to his head, a bullet to his main artery in his leg. Nothing the medic could do.

He can still hear the gasp from his friend’s lips.

He watches the most of his platoon die, in the most horrific ways, and he himself remains unscathed. Pretty much. A bullet grazes his neck but all it does is bleed, and he can wrap a bandage around it, and he moves on; he doesn’t bleed out like William does. He doesn’t die screaming, in incredible pain, like Emma – Emanuel, but they thought it was way too long, way too complicated, and they already had a Jones, and Emanuel hated Emma, so naturally Emma it was – had, grenade having torn up his stomach.

There’s not enough time to even mourn for his fallen comrades, his dead friends, and this, more than anything, makes Alex hate the Kraut scumbags with a fiery passion. He wants them all to die. He wants them to move out of France; if they have to fight a war, couldn’t they then fight in Russia? Long away from France, and mostly, the United Kingdom. It might be selfish, but he’d rather be selfish, a prick, egoistical, fucking stupid than he’d be dead. Dead like Sergeant Fraser. Dead like his best mate Matthew.

He’s not alone, though; there’s so many people dying, dropping like flies. People he knows, people he cares for, and people he had hoped would make it through this war. They die and die, and he goes on because he’s not alone. Everyone hasn’t left him yet, and that’s enough a reason to keep on fighting as any he’s ever heard from his CO’s. They all speak of how this war, this defending of France, will determine the outcome of the war; and that too makes Alex more bitter because they’ve send a half million young men to defend a country with half a plan and not even half the artillery that the Krauts have, and now they’re sent on the run.

They’re getting killed, fucking slaughtered, when they were supposed to defend a country against Germany, Kraut-land as Tate used to say, but now they’re on the run same as the Frogs, and Alex wants to throw up, because it’s such a disaster, and it’s so embarrassing, and his parents must sit at home, shaking their heads as they watch the news.

Our boys let us down and bring the war to out doorsteps.

It’s not a thought he can bear to think of for long. He thinks of his sister – 12 years old, 11 years younger than him. He hasn’t seen her in a year.

He’s afraid she won’t be able to recognize him if ever comes home. God knows, he can’t recognize the Alex from before he was deployed. It scares him how much he’s already changed, especially because he knows that this war is far from over, and if he doesn’t die, he’ll be shipped off to some part of the world again, and he’ll see even more people he cares about die, and he’ll turn even more bitter.

He hates war, he decides. Fuck war, fuck nazis, fuck Germany, fuck this fucking war and everything involved.

He takes a deep breath, in and out, in and out.

“War,” he whispers, “war is fucking hell.”

They get to the beach, and if he thought hiding in French fields and forests and villages were shit, then it’s nothing compared to the fucking beach.

They’re sitting ducks.

If the Krauts take the city, they can hide snipers in the buildings, and there’ll be nowhere for them to hide but behind the corpses of their friends.

If the Krauts come from the sea, there’ll be nowhere to run because the city is already taken by the Germans, and there’s not enough space in the Allied’s half of the city for four hundred fucking thousand soldiers to hide.

When the Krauts come from the air, there’s nowhere to run. All they can do is fall flat and hope that they by some miracle won’t get hit by a falling grenade.

As soon as they are trapped on the beach, he knows that there’s two ways out of here; one that is fairly easy – get killed and fly out of here with motherfucking angel wings. And two, get on a ship that miraculously won’t get torpedoed or bombed.

He knows, as soon as they get trapped, that there’s no way he’s going to survive this. He could survive the French country side because there were others to take the bullets meant for him; here there’s barely anyone he knows.

He knows Smokey is somewhere close to the mole, hoping to get on a ship. He thinks that maybe, maybe he could join Smokey and it’d be like old days; third platoon against the world.

And then there’s bombs raining from the sky, and the man next to him flies everywhere, and he falls to the ground, trying to make himself as small as possible, tries, if possible, to dig himself into the sand by just pressing.

He doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to die, and he could care less about Lieutenant Andrews and his ‘the only way to not go insane is to accept that you’re already dead’, because damn it, he wants to live. He wants to see his mum again, he wants to see his sister again, he wants to get an education – maybe a stuck up degree, as a tribute to Sergeant Moore. He wouldn’t do well in Cambridge, not like Moore had, but for a war buddy, as pretentious and arrogant as he had been, Alex could try. Heaven knew he had nothing better to do with his life, if he ever made it home.

“Hey soldier,” a shout made him startle and he looked over to his side. A Highlander with ashblonde hair waved at him, “you wanna go home?”

Alex raised his eyebrows, before a smirk settled on his lips, as he pushed himself up from the sand, deliberately not looking to his side, to where he knew there would lay corpses of soldiers, medics, and already wounded.

“You could say that, yeah.”

The other soldier grinned at him and stuck a hand out to him as they walked to the Mole, “name’s Joe, by the way. Joseph, a real son of Abraham, yessir.”

Alex shook his head, already liking the fellow. “Name’s Alex, not any Alexander, no thank you, and if you want, I respond to Al.”

Joe nodded and mumbled a little ‘nice to meet you’ which Alex nodded agreeing to. A friendly face in a sea of downcast eyes and hopeless faces was a rare sight, and it already did wonders for his mood to walk alongside someone else full of hope once again.

“So what brought ya here?” Joe broke the silence once more, and Alex got an inkling that silence did not settle well with the other man.

He frowned. “Krauts and their fucking grenades. N’ you? You just took a lil’ vacation or wha’?”

“Nah, not like that, you dafty”, but he didn’t sound mad. Actually, Joe was laughing like he was having the time of his life, and Alex couldn’t resist smiling. No cause is lost as long as there’s one fool left to fight for it, he remembered vaguely a text saying once.

Maybe, not all hope to go home is lost, if just one still holds onto it, he thought with a strange, new warmth in his heart.

“I meant, why’d you join the army?”, Joe elaborated his earlier question, explaining himself, “I joined because why the fuck not, yeah? It’s war, sooner or later we’re gonna be drafted, enlisting makes it all easier, I think.”

Why did he join the army? To get away from home? To experience some action?

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully, eyes downcast. “Just seemed like the right decision, is all.”

“Yeah, yeah” the other mused, “yeah, I can understand that. Lots of things seemed right, that in hindsight perhaps wasn’t as bright.”

Alex couldn’t help but grin, “quite the poet, aren’t ya?”

A laugh, and the easy banter between the two of them makes Alex feel at ease in a way he hasn’t since Matthew got killed.

“Nah, not really, not yet,” and at Alex’s raised eyebrow, Joe explains, “I was getting a degree in literature before this war, am 21, and I wanted to be a writer.”

That’s fair. Alex can understand that. Putting one’s life on hold, giving up one’s dreams, to fight a doomed war.

“So what,” he tries to clear the air, he wants the lighthearted mood back, he doesn’t want this gloomy Joe, he wants the Joe that hoped to go home. The Joe that still dared to hope that despite all evidence, maybe they could go home. “You going to write a memoir when you get home? Just rat us all out, tell them all our dirty stories?”

Joe shrugs as they near the Mole. “Maybe. Maybe not.” A wink, and Alex feels himself relax minutely by the action. “Best not tell me anything juicy, though. Never know when I’m gonna run out of my own stuff to put in there.”

“Just my thinking,” Alex agrees with a smile, and just like that the dark mood has dissipated.

They stand at the Mole for what seems like ages; around them is anonymous soldiers, all looking like they’re on their way to their doom, when they’re really on their way to freedom, to home, and Alex wants to scream at them to cheer the fuck up. They’re going home, and if they’re not, he’s blaming it all on these fuckers’ negativity jinxing it.

Turns out negativity is just the thing that draws in German bombs, because suddenly they can hear the Jaegers, and they huddle closer, try to appear as small as possible, invisible even, and Alex closes his eyes. Tells himself what Lieutenant Andrews always said, that he’s never had a chance at going home, that he’s already dead. He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead.

Everything’s silent for a little while – turns out when you scream so loudly on the inside, very few sounds from the outside can make it past it – and then the bombs drop once again, and everything’s shaking, and he feels his hands go sweaty, he feels all blood leave his face, he feels like he might faint.

And just as quick as it’s begun, it’s over, and he opens his eyes, doesn’t look for Joe. Can’t look for Joe because if he does, he’ll see his friend lay somewhere with empty eyes and blood running down their face.

He’ll look at the body and see the person, the life, that’s been gone to waste.

The longer Alex is part of this war, fights in this war, he learns more and more how unequipped he is to handle all this. He can’t handle not going home one day, he can’t handle having to mentally forfeit his life, he can’t handle this fucking war taking and taking, and giving nothing back

But he waits on the Mole, he waits on the ship that will take him home, because Alex is a soldier, and no matter how rotten a soldier he is, that is what counts at the end of the day. That is all he has left.

So he functions as a soldier is meant to function, hopes he’ll make it through, forces himself to think that if he doesn’t make it through? That’s okay as well. It has to be. There’s really no other way.

And then there comes along a ship, and it’s big, and most of all, it’s freedom because they usher him aboard, and he’s finally going home. He’s going home, home, home, and he could fall on his knees and cry out of relief, but he doesn’t. He is a soldier, and soldiers are tough, they don’t cry.

Soldiers should be allowed to cry, he thinks.

They’re going home, and he’s so happy.

And then, all of a sudden, and he really should’ve seen it coming, they’re not.

They’re fleeing for their lives, and he jumps over board. The water is cold, and it’s dark, and he has to fight because his gear is damn heavy in water, damn it, and he’s breaking the surface, and he’s fighting against all odds because has he ever been a good swimmer? No way, never, and it’s heavy, his uniform, and the ship is coming closer, so fucking close, and just before hands drag him away from the water and the enclosing ship, he thinks of his mum, wants her to know that he is brave. He just wasn’t good enough to survive, lucky enough.

He is saved by two boys with hair as dark as raven. One has brown amber eyes. One has eyes, he thinks as he beckons his heart to calm the fuck down – he isn’t dead, like the ocean. Blue, so fucking blue, and he really does not fucking need this right now.

But they saved him, and he doesn’t say anything to them when they take a quick dip in the water, and he doesn’t say anything to the officers, and nothing to the captain, when they’re ushered to another ship; he doesn’t say that they haven’t served their time on the beach, because the beach is hell, they’re sitting ducks waiting to be bombed and gunned down, and well, they saved him. So he feels a little in debt to them – and that’s it. Now it’s even. Now he can think of his own survival.

He’s going to survive.

Fuck Andrews and his suicidal philosophy. Alex is going home, like Andrews isn’t, and he’s going to live because he’s a soldier, and he’s served his time in France this time ‘round.

He wants so fucking bad to live, to go home and live his life, so when the trawler probably won’t float, he votes for sacrificing Gibson – fucking Gibson, his name is not fucking Gibson, it’s Jerry, it’s Hans, it’s not fucking British and they’re dying because of a fucking Kraut, that’s apparently a Frog. Doesn’t change that his name’s not Gibson; it’s Pierre, it’s Javert. it’s Eugene, and he begs Tommy – with the blue, blue, blue, blue eyes to understand, that they won’t float, and he, they all, everyone, needs to go home.

They need to live, can’t you understand, Tommy?

He wants to scream it at him, but there’s Krauts out there, and they’ve probably figured out that there’s Brits in the trawler, and they’re shooting it up, and they can’t hold the water out without being in danger of dying, and everything’s so confusing, and Tommy doesn’t fucking understand him.

Well, fuck him then, he’s not part of Alex’s regiment – he makes sure to tell him that, with a casual voice that does not reflect how turbulent his head is, how sorry he is, how angry he is that another Brit can’t understand that Brits deserve to go home, because the Frogs couldn’t defend their own country and now they’re all going to die because of it, and the Frogs can fucking wait their turn.

He’s so confused, and desperate, he’s really fucking desperate, he knows that, but he just, wants to go home. Home, home, home, home.

It’s only when he sees Tommy come down the stairs, wet, oil washed off his face, but blessedly alive, and he wants to cry, that it stands clear as crystal, that the best would be to go home alongside Tommy.

And then they see the cliffs, the English cliffs, and he has to force himself not to reach out for Tommy’s hand, squeeze it, tell him they’re coming home, because the boy with the ocean eyes – and now they match, now that the sun shines on the sea, he can see how beautiful (not beautiful, you aren’t allowed to say that about another male, not in the army, not now, not in this time, maybe in the future, he thinks) the colour of his eyes is – looks out at the ocean like it’s the secondcoming of Christ.

Maybe it is.

Realizing they’re going home could be like witnessing God, his angels, his Son, his Spirit – Alex isn’t really big on the whole religion thing, but his mother is, and he knows, in his heart, that for the rest of his life, he’s going to be listening to her proclaiming that their rescue is the work of God.

Maybe it is.

He doesn’t think so.

If there was a God, then he is a cruel, selfish God that could never be worthy of worship. The things he allowed to be done, the things he will allow to be done in the future of this war, were and will all be evil.

If there is a God somewhere, Alex decides as he and Tommy, side by side, watch England – home come closer and closer, he surely must be the Devil in disguise.

He closes his eyes, rests his head on the glass, pretends that they’re going home, that they’re not being rescued from some military disaster, that they’re not begging for the Krauts to attack their homes and take their women, that they’re not going to fight in any more battles.

It’s a lie, and he knows that because the guilt is eating him up, and he wants to smash something, a glass, a window, anything that will splinter as much as his soul.

He talks, instead of freaking out – he’s not fucking shellshocked, he’s not going crazy or anything, even though he can see how little Tommy cares for his words. He would care little for his words too, because they’re poisonous and bitter, and Tommy survived Dunkerque as well, and he knows how bad it was down there, so all Alex’s really doing is just dragging back uncomfortable memories.

Then again, Tommy never tells him to stop. Perhaps it’s because then he himself has to fill the silence, and Tommy doesn’t look the fellow to just strike up casual conversation.

Alex remembers himself as that fellow and thinks of dumb, unaware, naive, and innocent he was at that time. Never seen another human being die. Never seen any being die, really, that wasn’t an insect. Not even a fucking cat.

“So,” he prompts after a little while, Tommy still looking out the window, eyes far away and still looking as blue as the sea, “what did you do? Before this?”

Tommy takes a deep breath before turning his eyes on Alex. “Waiting. I was a waiter.”

A smirk spreads on his lips. “Ah, should’ve guessed that. Your small talk skills are off the charts.”

Tommy’s lips curve into a soft smile, and it’s warm, and yeah, he really should’ve guessed that Tommy was in the service industry. That smile.

“You?”, Tommy turned the question to him, and Alex turns his gaze to the window.

“Carpenter,” he says, shrugs. “Pa’s a carpenter, I’m a carpenter. Family business and all.”

Tommy nods like it makes sense, and it kind of does, and his eyes are faraway once more, and Alex wants him to come back, not to leave him all the time, to just leave those thoughts alone for a little while and let Alex get to know him.

He wants to know him better.

He wants to go to war with someone he knows.

“You think they’re gonna ship us out again?”

Tommy looks like he’s gonna laugh.

“Sure.” A beat. “We're either going to stay here and defend England, or we're going to the Pacific to break the war over there.”

And Alex goes cold at that, remembers the newscast. Remembers the awful descriptions of how the Japanese fare war. It’s a cruel, cruel way, and it kills, kills, kills, and even the fucking Krauts are to prefer over those sons of bitches over there.

He nods, thoughts faraway, gulping. He’d rather die in France than ever be sent to the Pacific, hopes to God that the Allied forces will never join that war, and looking at Tommy’s closed off look, he reckons he’d rather the same.

“You think they hate us?” He asks, has to, he needs to get it off his chest. “Them back here in England?”

Tommy looks at him, thoughtful, before shrugging. “Doesn’t matter, d’ya think? We’re dying like flies for them to enjoy the five o’clock tea. They best not cause us any trouble.”

Alex looks away. But they can still hate us, he thinks, doesn’t say anything because Tommy is turning and turning, and he looks ready to pass out, and he needs the sleep.

The thought doesn’t leave him, however, only when they get their hands on that newspaper, only when he gets the apples, the beers, and Tommy is reading out loud, and the people are cheering, and he feels warm again, and he smiles.

Their fellow Brits don’t hate them, they don’t blame them. He thinks his eyes are wet, and he doesn’t even think about wiping the tears away. The rest of the train, the rest of their cart at least, feels the same way.

Some even looks just as stricken as he feels.

He locks eyes with Tommy, with the blue, blue eyes, just as he’s finishing reading the article.

“We’ll never surrender,” Tommy reads with a soft voice, and if it sounds like doom, like a sealing of their fate as lambs for the slaughter, then he’s too happy to care.

Your life is already forfeit. Accept that, Andrews used to say, it’s the only way a soldier can function properly as a soldier.

Locking eyes with Tommy, none of that matters.

Chapter Text

The war continues because when does it not. This world has not had enough of pain, of misery, of suffering, of pointless death. Obviously.

He’s sent to Europe, in the end.

No joining those in the Pacific; not for him, thank you, sir.

He’s sent to Europe, to Normandy, and it’s honest to God, hell upon Earth. When they first land with the ships – God those fucking ships, when do they learn to not use fucking ships? Everything always goes wrong when the army chooses to throw ships into their already way too messy concoction of a plan.

Their operation is called Operation Overlord, and he hopes to God, that it’s not just a fancy name, because they sure as hell were not the Overlord last time. Maybe that’s why they named it that, to try and save what was left of their dignity after Alex and every last damn soldier of the British army dragged their already muddy honour through the soil.

He’s sent to Europe, to help liberate France because he and everyone else could not defend it, and it feels like rubbing salt in the already infested wound, that he is only here because they failed so spectacularly last time.

France is a facade, he decides; cozy villages, pretty countrysides – and behind it, infested with Krauts, and their Nazi artillery, and their Nazi murder minds, and everyone is dying, and they’re surrounded by Yankees who pretend like they know every damn thing there is to know about France, and they boast of how they’re here to liberate the country that they couldn’t defend – and yelling of how England sure is past its glory days of conquering, and damn it all to hell, those bastard weren’t here last time.

Everything is different from last time, and he’d much rather fight in the Pacific, if he is to be honest. In the Pacific he’s not fighting because they failed last time.

In the Pacific he’d fight alongside Tommy.

And that really is the center of the matter, isn’t it? He’s back in France, fighting an uneven fight, surrounded by enemies, but this time he’s completely alone. Even Smokey is sent to the Pacific, and he’s surrounded by fucking replacements – young, naive things who die like flies because they’re so goddamn foolish and want to prove themselves, and, as he writes in his letters to Tom, they don’t understand that surviving is enough.

Listen, Tom, his letters say, scream, between the lines, if you are over there trying to prove yourself, that you’re a good soldier, you have to stop. These kids do just that, and their baby faces are mattered with blood, caked with mud, and they die screaming in trenches – and if you do that, you fucking bastard, if you do that to me, I’m going to personally drag you back to life and kill you myself. You bastard, you stay alive.

In reality, because you can’t write all that to another soldier, his letters say stay alive. Come home, and that’s understandable, and his Lieutenant never says anything about it.

He clings to the hope that Tommy is alive out there. Every time they get the chance to read about the war in the Pacific, he clings to that hope – that the horrific things he reads about isn’t happening the same places that Tommy are. That Tommy is far removed from all danger, and that he’s laughing at how worried Alex sounds in his letters.

He doesn’t know, really. Because Tommy doesn’t write him, and he pleads to God every night – something about this war makes him want to believe that there is a God somewhere, as horrible and selfish as he must be to let this war continue – that Tommy just ignores him, thinks he’s embarrassing, doesn’t want to associate himself with Alex, everything but the cruel, cruel, all to real, alternative.

That he’s gone, and dead, and that it doesn’t matter how good a person you are, because Tommy was the best person he’d ever known – is, he is the best person he’d ever known because Tommy cannot be dead, he’s alive, goddamn it, Alex.

He must be.

Otherwise Alex doesn’t know how he’ll find the motivation to survive; he writes letters to his parents but he doesn’t know what to write other than exclamations of love, he doesn’t know what to tell them because they won’t understand, they won’t understand the fear that isn’t cowardice, and the motivation that isn’t bravery – how surviving a war depends on just that, wanting to survive, not taking any risks. Being brave gets you killed, being a coward gets you killed, being impulsive gets you killed, being smart gets you killed, being anything but willing to survive at any costs – gets you fucking killed.

It gets you shot. It gets you exploded. You die, and there’s nothing left but a wasted life, wasted opportunities. A sad, tragic story for generations to learn from.

This young lad, with a whole life ahead of him, fought in a war and died. He died for nothing at all but the cruelty of humans. Be smarter than him, kids. Stay at home and be safe.

“Don’t panic,” is what he tells the young men in his platoon. “To panic is to get killed. Stay calm, because we’ve got a plan, and we’re sticking to that plan unless we lose our CO or NCO.”

He knows he’s bitter; he knows his platoon is damn tired of it, but they don’t get it. He realized this with a heavy heart and a heavy stare on the second day of training; they don’t get that fighting in a war is the Devil’s way of taking control of mankind.

He tells Tommy this in one letter, at D+4, four days after the invasion of Normandy, of Europe, a day he’s feeling particular poetic because life is shit but they’re safe and he’s reunited with his platoon, and they’re pretty much all safe, but they’ve lost their Lieutenant, and what is a platoon without its CO?

He also tells him of the beautiful countrysides, and he tells him of how he hasn’t seen one beach since those first days, and how that means that some days he sleeps through the whole night.

At Operation Epsom, they lose another three replacements in his platoon, and suddenly after Epsom they aren’t replacements, aren’t kids any longer. Suddenly, united in their grief for Allan, Floyd, and Jenko, it doesn’t matter that he’s the most experienced one, it doesn’t matter that they weren’t there for Dunkirk, because they’ve seen so much death, and they’ve soon too many paratroopers hang in the trees for the young ones not to know the dangers of war, of this war. Of the hostile environment they’ve been sent to liberate.

They fight, and fight, and fight, and along the way, Alex feels himself relax around these men, and he feels himself smile, and it pains him to remember that the first thing he thought of after they got their first bath after getting to France, was to write to Tommy and gloat. His heart aches, and that’s so very wrong but here in this little French village it suddenly doesn’t seem as wrong to think that, with the very thought that he thought such a letter would finally break the radio silence there’s been from Tommy since he was shipped off to the Pacific. He doesn’t even know for sure what front he’s fighting on because the damn bastard won’t write him any letters.

Soon he doesn't have time to think of Tom, because the war in France is nowhere near over, and just as they catch their breath, they're sent off to the front lines again. This time around, they fight under the name, Operation Jupiter, but they're still at Caen, a little shit village that Alex hates with his whole heart, and here he gets another taste of real danger; they're hiding from a sniper, when he suddenly feels a piercing pain in his leg, as he looks down he sees a well of red blood ooze from the wound, and he bites down a scream. Don't scream, don't let them know you're here. He crawls all the way back to CP, has to keep moving, if he doesn't he'll be killed, the bullets will finally hit somewhere fatal. When he arrives, Captain Williams takes one look at him, shakes his head, smiles softly, and sends him with a truck to the aid station with the words 'good job, soldier'.

He spends a month at the hospital, trying to act the willing patient, and the nurses smile at him when he flutters his lashes like a pretty gal, and they believe him when he vehemently denies having any plans of escaping. But he can see the orange mark on the end of his bed sheets, and he knows what it means, and he'll rather die than let them turn him into a replacement and stuff him into the replacement depot until they need him to die at the front lines because too many kids bite the dust. He'll, of course, let his wound heal so it doesn't get infected, but he refuses to be here any longer. He can't run the risk of being moved to another platoon. He knows that Tommy wouldn’t be content to waiting around either, and so after a month and a week, and a nice chat with his bedside comrade, a fresh Private First Class, like himself, he makes the plan to escape. In the middle of the night, they sneak out of there, make a run for it, and Alex feels a seldom thrill in his stomach at going AWOL.

Two days after he's reunited with his company, and Captain Williams welcome him with a headshake and a dry 'welcome back, soldier'.

It’s after Operation Pegasus, where his platoon and him, alongside many other from all Allied armies, are sent to rescue the participants of the failed Operation Market Garden, that he gets a letter. They’re situated a little further west from Caen than where the Allied forces tried to take the city under Market Garden – which went wrong, so very fucking wrong – when he gets the message, passed from Sergeant Christopher - the other guys call him Mellow, Alex knows, because he refused to shoot a German PoW.

After so much time apart, though, and after so many letters sent with no reply, his first thought is that it’s from his mum. She sends him letters all the damn time, but he really didn’t think that she’d continue after what he wrote in the last one – that she should really, really stop bugging God with prayers of his return, because there was no way he was gonna return alive (they’d just finished Pegasus, and it was hell when they came to rescue the soldiers, and there were bodies all over, and he was feeling especially negative about his chances of survival, and his mother’s letter had arrived and she’d been so damn optimistic, and it just made him snap).

It’s not a letter from his mum, though, and when he decodes the name of the sender, he almost gets a heart attack then and there. He dares not open the letter.

“Who’s it from, Al?”, a voice booms in his ear, and he looks over to see Smidge – because he’s so damn small, second platoon had decided it was a good name – look grinning over at him. Probably thinking it’s from some bird back home in England, he had neglected to inform them of.

He shakes his head at the childishness. “A pal from Pacific.”

Smidge’s smile disappears slowly, “shit, he okay, Alex?”

Despite the fact that everyone’s adamant to say that their specific battlefield, their specific experience of war, is the worst, that they’re always on the front lines, they’re ones to bleed and bleed for the rest of the regiment – everyone also secretly agrees that even though Europe is a bit too far on the hellish side, it’s nothing compared to Pacific.

Not yet, at least.

Alex waves the letter and shrugs, trying to calm his beating heart, trying to tell it that of course, Tommy’s alive. He survived Dunkirk, he can survive anything, even if Pacific is way worse than anything they ever saw in Dunkirk,or so the newspapers say. So the massive stream of wounded from the other side of the world says. “Was when he wrote this, at least.”

Smidge nods, at loss for words. His brother is fighting at the front over there, Alex vaguely recalls.

The letter is short, and so Tommy that it almost has Alex crying (almost because Alex wipes away the wetness before it can materialize into tears) because anything so Tommy was written by him, which means he’s alive.

He’s alive, and Alex hugs the letter close.

The letter says that he was first in Burma, alongside many other British forces, but has since been sent to Japan after the Japanese army had upped its game, and this makes Alex feel like he’s passing out, but he has to believe. Believe that even though the Japs fight crueler than anyone else, that somehow Tommy has just managed to dodge all grenades thrown at him, and bullets fired after him. That Tommy is alright, safe.

Otherwise he’ll go mad.

I hope you’re safe, Alex, and that you’re staying warm this winter. Please, stay warm, keep your feet moving so you don’t get trench-feet or anything, keep breathing, Alex.

War is war, Alex, it takes and it takes and it takes. Don’t let it take you, alright? Just stay alive, for everyone back home, for me. I don’t think I can handle receiving your tags or anything like that.

Keep the letters coming. They keep me moving.

Please, keep moving too.

Your friend,

Tommy

He’ll keep moving, through Europe will he keep moving, he will keep breathing, he will keep on fighting. At Bastogne he looks to Tommy’s letters, keeps his feet moving just as he advices; not that he wouldn’t do that anyway because not a single day goes by in the desolated, winter wasteland, in the freezing cold and the all-eating fear, that Doc doesn’t scream at them to keep moving or soon you won’t be able to.

He writes to Tommy after six days. It’s a harsh, cruel letter, and Alex is sure that he will regret having written it by the time they’re taken off the front lines, by the time he’s warm again, but right now, in the chilly forest with the snowflakes falling peacefully around them, creating an image that does not look the battleground he knows this place to be, he frankly doesn't give a damn.

At the bottom he doesn’t sign his name, he figures that Tommy would be able to know it was him, so instead he uses the last bit of paper to issue a plead to his friend on the other side of the planet:

We'll never surrender.

He makes Sergeant the next day, and he doesn’t remember the last time he felt so hollow. As Private you die alongside your friends, equal; as Sergeant, when someone dies, you bear part of the pain. He doesn’t refuse the title, but his Lieutenant nods knowingly at him as he, lying through his fucking teeth, accepts the promotion with gratitude.

Later, Mellow, he can call him that now that he is his fellow Sergeant, comes to him with a dry smile. “It gets easier, Al. Hang in there, we’re all here with ya, buddy.”

He doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve such comfort. Plenty of people have died without such soothing and gentle words to calm their racing fear. He doesn’t answer, just nods curtly, and turns on his heels.

They’re lucky. They don’t stay at Bastogne for long, quickly relieved by the Yankees, who look just as tired as they feel, and there’s no more talk of the Yankees having to do what the Brits failed to do. They’ve all suffered too much for their age, seen too many friends die in horrific ways. They’re in this together, Canadians, Yankees, Brits alike. They have to stand together, they have to stand strong, or the Nazis will get the better of ‘em at some point.

That can’t happen.

It mustn’t happen.

They’ve fought too long, too hard for this to fail. They’ve sacrificed too much.

So they resume fighting, they lose dear ones, and Alex feels like before all this is over his heart will either have turned to stone or break beyond repair. He will either never be able to feel, or he will drown by feeling too much.

War leaves no middle roads.

When it all ends, when they quest has succeeded, they’re in Germany, and it’s just as terrible as he’s always imagined; the people are starved, and the very sun seems dim in comparison to home in England. They’ve all lost their all to the war, and as his company travels through the war torn country, it’s easy to see that it’s not only the soldiers that has lost, lost, lost time and time again. The people of Germany is tired, is spent, has been squeezed for all they have, and the towns only hold sickly elders, women, and small children; everyone else has been recruited, and it’s a devastating sight, a devastating thought.

Alex can’t bring himself to care about the German people, as the news of those camps begin to flood in, and it takes all his willpower not to spit at the people in the streets.

They should have known, they should have helped, they should’ve fought.

It doesn’t matter now, he supposes, and lets his head fall in his hands as the truck continues its long road till their next check point.

In Germany, it all ends.

“Happy VE-Day,” Mellow singsongs as they open up the crates full of vodka, of whiskey, of wine, and they drink, and drink, and drink, and drink, until the moon stands full and tall and proud and beaming on the night sky.

In the night, with alcohol flowing through his veins, he feels comfortable. He feels free, and he almost wants to scream. Scream out in joy because finally, finally, finally, they have won.

The Allied Forces, the newspapers say, received yesterday the formal and total surrender of the German Army. Our boys did it. They won over the Third Reich.

“Can you believe it,” his fellow sergeant says, and it’s not a question, and Alex turns over to look at him. In the moonlight Mellow’s eyes shine, despite the obvious haze of alcohol being prominent too, and Alex, briefly, thinks he looks like a work of art. “We did it.”

Alex shrugs, takes another chug of his vodka flask, it burns but not as much as the burning knowledge that this sanctuary they have found, this peace they experience, is temporary. “Yeah, until we’re off to the Pacific.”

“You never were a ray of sunshine, sergeant,” Mellow laughs and shakes his head, “thought you did wanna go the Pac, though?

Alex frowns. “Me? Never. They say it’s worse than here.”

Mellow hums his agreement before elaborating, “just thought you’d wanna go over there to your lover.”

At that everything stills, and Alex’s entire body tenses, and in matter of seconds the world begin to move so quickly, and he moves quickly, and he can’t quite remember doing anything but snarling and thinking that if Mellow ever says another word he’ll cut him, but suddenly he’s on his back, and Alex is straddling him, and he feels a burning anger roar inside of him

“What did you say,” he demands it, he doesn’t ask. He wants Mellow – fuck, he can’t even call him a nickname anymore – he wants Christopher to repeat it, so he can feel justified in punching him. “what did you call us!"

Mellow’s gone whitepale, and he’s shaking his head, eyes pleading. “No, no, I just- I’m not going to get you discharged, Alex, I just thought – You always light up when you talk about him, and it’s like seeing my-” he cuts himself off, looking away, looking ashamed. “Doesn’t matter.”

And just like that all his anger is gone, and Alex is staring like he can’t understand English, and his grip loosens, and in instant Christopher’s scrambling away from him.

“You too?”, is all Alex manages to say, and Christopher – or whatever he is supposed to call him, Chris, Mellow, whatever – nods, strangely mute.

“He back home?”, Alex inquires as he settles himself in the grass, fiddling with the vodka flask that is almost empty now, having been spilled all over from his lashing out.

Chris shakes his head, eyes soft, but dark, and Alex feels himself drawn close. “Haven’t got anyone, mate. I jus’ know, y’know?"

Alex shakes his head, he doesn’t know, because if it wasn’t for Tommy he’d never thought in such a way about other men, Tommy is the key to all this. Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, and that name should be all he thinks about, but the vodka is rushing through his bloodstream, and Chris is leaning in close, and it’s a lovely evening, and they’ve emerged victorious from the war, and Tommy isn’t here.

Tomorrow, he’ll feel guilty. Tomorrow, he’ll feel dirty and wish he could write to Tommy, confess it all, but he knows how prying his Lieutenant is, so he just has to find Tommy when they get back to England or go to the Pacific. He can do that. Tomorrow.

Tonight, though, Chris’ lips are red, and the moon is bright, and he’s drunk, and they’re alone.

“You ever done this before?”, Chris asks, and suddenly looks unsure, and Alex wants to hit him. He’s not here for feelings, he’s here for the rush, for enjoyment.

He nods, “come on, sergeant. Come on.”

Tomorrow, he promises himself, he’ll regret it.

Tonight he closes the space between their lips.

The next day Alex and Mellow, to his big dismay, are assigned patrol together, and he decides, against all judgment, to break the news as soon as they are left alone.

“We can’t keep doing it,” Alex informs him with a casual voice, or so he hopes it sounds.

Mellow looks at him with an amused smirk. “And why not? Because of your Pacific boy?”

“Because I don’t want to face a discharge,” he grits out, well aware of the implications behind such a statement, “and yes, because of him.”

Mellow looks away, face closed off, and nods. “Yeah, yeah, I suspected that to be the case.” A deep breath in which they just stare off in each their own direction. “But a guy can hope, yeah?”

Alex snorts, and tries to disguise it with a cough. “It was never going to last on the other side of this war, anyway.”

Mellow turns to look at him, eyebrows raised, eyes hurt. “And you think your dear Tom is just gonna welcome you back with open arms? That he hasn’t changed?”

Alex doesn’t answer, tries his best to ignore the poisonous words thrown back in his face.

“Because I think, Alex,” Mellow says, a final punch, “you’re in for a nasty surprise.”

A truck rolls up to their outpost, and Mellow casts one more look at Alex before turning around to greet the driver and check his papers, leaving Alex to gaping after him.

The sentence stays with him until the very end; he never spends another second alone with Christopher, never Mellow again, but his words ring loud and clear in his mind, and the times he makes eye contact with Christopher, he smiles like he knows exactly how much his words are haunting Alex.

He wants to hit him because of it.

He writes a letter to Tommy two days before they get the news. They’re not going to the Pacific. It’s VP-Day, and they’re going home. Japan has capitulated, and World War 2 is officially over. Victory in the Pacific, and every last soldier in every last corner of this world's many, many battlefields is finally being discharged, is being sent home to good ol' England.

His first thought is of Tom, and he really wishes, because it's not right, not right at all, but it feels so true and good, that he could just have thought the happiness of his ma when she's him again. But Alex is haunted by blue eyes and black hair that he hasn’t seen for years.

They're loading the trucks, and Alex always has a little smile on his lips. He's going home, home, home. They've lost many, they all know that, and they raise the flag one last time, the morning they depart, one last honour to all those whose life was lost in service. To all their friends they lost, to all their friends who they have left behind across Europe.

At the docks, they stay for a little while. It's reminiscing of Dunkirk, of how they all waited to board a boat, but instead of constant fear, constant life-threatening danger, they're all safe now. They truly are the Overlords, the Allied forces. At Dunkirk they were cruel towards one another, here at the shores of Germany, they are relaxed, friendly, and Yankees, Canadians, and Brits celebrate together as one, united force.

They are all going home.

He throws one last cigarette in the water, before he smiles over at Leo, and together they board the ship that’s there to take them home. As he looks out over the waves, he closes his eyes, lets the rain drench him. He’s going home, he’s going home, and only with two minor wounds. He has survived, survived, survived, he’s here breathing, living, and he’s going home, home to England, his pa, his ma. Home to Tommy.

We’re going to meet again, he thinks as he leans against railing, just you wait, Tom.

Chapter Text

When he gets home, and he really can’t quite believe it when he wakes up and looks out to see his childhood village, goes downstairs and greets his mum; he doesn’t contact Tommy. He tries to, writes several letters, but without the war to bind them together, he finds himself at loss for words.

It’s not better with his mum; he still doesn’t know how to describe to her what happened in the war, and that his leg wound really isn’t that big of a deal, never was, and that she should just leave it alone because for fucks sake, he still has a leg alright? Many veterans don’t, so leave me alone.

He hates the person he’s become. Void of emotion. Stressed. On the verge of crying all the time, and he just wants to lay down, leave the world alone, because he’s been there for the entire war, from the beaches of Dunkirk, to the beaches of Normandy – Juno, to be exact, to the rescue of Market Garden, some of Bastogne, for VE-day. He’s been there for OE-day, Occupation of Europe, and he’s been there for Victory in Europe, and it hurts because he’s left so many behind.

Some days as he stare at letters he tries to write Tommy, he wishes he’d been left behind as well. It’d make it all easier. He wouldn’t have to see the ghosts of his friends as he closed his eyes in the night; he wouldn’t have to drug his body to even get a full night of sleep without him waking up, screaming, crying, gasping for breath – he’d be eternally asleep.

Another new thing about coming home from war, he never sleeps. The mattress is too soft. The dreams are too harsh. His mind is too busy. The world is too slow. Everything here back home moves so slowly, and whenever there’s a loud bang in the city, it’s because a dumper had been knocked over by the wind, and not because the Krauts are shooting at them, not because the Krauts are firing mortars at them, or throwing grenades.

That’s another thing he has to learn; he no longer has to fear for his life. He is home, he is safe, and yet he can’t make his brain fucking remember that – even as he tells it, screams at, that he doesn’t suffer from grenade-shock, and that it needs to get a fucking grip, because doesn’t it recognize England? Doesn’t it recognize the bakery down the corner, doesn’t it recognize Allison, the girl next door that he grew up with? Doesn’t it recognize that there are no more Krauts? That they’re gone from his life, that they’re either back in their shitty Vaterland, or they’ve gotten a bullet to the head? And as a matter of fact, no, his brain does not process that his little home town really isn’t another French city, that there isn’t a tank waiting to kill around the corner, that there isn’t a sniper hiding in the window in the grey building the left. He himself, in the moment, doesn’t remember it either, and that’s a problem. He doesn’t tell anyone about it, though. That is how it works in the military; if you ain’t got the balls to take, toughen up. That’s how it’s been at Dunkerque. That’s how it’s been all through France, to Holland, to fucking German.

But the very worst thing about being back in England, far away from all those war buddies that survived to board the boat back home, is the silence. There’s no one to say anything, because for the first time in years, years, years, Alex finds himself at a loss for words.

And that silence, above all, is really what makes him pack his things one day and tell his mum quickly before leaving with all his soldier pension safely tucked in a wallet – or, well, most of it – that he’s leaving. That he’s going travelling. That he’s going to meet up with a war buddy.

He nearly misses the look in her eyes, but only nearly, and the look makes him want to yell at her. That she does not have the right to look so disappointed at him because fuck, if he chose to feel this way. He didn’t. All he wanted was to come home again to the life he’d been, so he could return to the Alex he used to be, and then everyone was changed, and he was changed, and he can’t find peace. He can’t find rest.

Damn it, he needs to sleep, he needs to calm down, he needs to smile again. He misses smiling.

“I’m coming back,” he tells her just as the door closes, and he doesn’t even think about what big a lie that probably was, because that house has been so silent, and they’ve been so silent, that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to return. To the house, to the village, to the countryside.

He hates noises, hates that he’s feeling so scared and panicked because of it, but the silence keeps him on his toes more than anything, and always being paranoid really takes off your energy, and he’s done feeling this tired all the damn time.

He needs to live again. Somehow.

It’s only when he gets on the train that he has the time to think about what he’s doing, and it’s only when he gets to London and finds himself content to just sitting on his hotel room, writing. It’s not silent all the time, but it’s not too loud, and he isn’t flinching every two minutes – only like every thirty – and he has the time to really calm his mind, and that’s the first time since he shipped out to war the first time around, and suddenly he has so many thoughts and they’re all going through his head too quickly, and he has to put them somewhere to remember them, and so he begins to write.

He files the first text away, thinks of how Tommy would react to all those words, how he’d laugh with his crooked smile that exposes his slightly crooked teeth, and Alex feels like he might actually overheat with the thought, and he falls, honest to God, asleep that evening with a smile on his face.

He doesn’t sleep the whole night through, and that’s alright, because he’s taking things slow for the first time in years. He is not in any rush, not at all. There isn’t Krauts waiting for him in the forest, and there isn’t wounded men he has to help to the medic so they can be driven to safety.

The next day he goes into the city, spends most of his day at a café with a nice waitress always making sure he has everything he needs, and she smiles at him when she sees his dog-tags peek out from his shirt, gives him a firm nod. When he asks her, she tells him her fiancée got home a couple of months ago from serving in Europe. She tells him that the man she got home, is not the one she waved goodbye to at the haddocks all those years ago, but, when she sees his smile dim, that she loves him just as much, and that he, with time, with care, has learned how to smile again.

Alex is shocked, heart in his throat-shocked, when he finds his lips curl into a smile. He almost wants to thank her.

It makes him feel hope once more, and it reminds him of the feeling he had when he saw England again after Dunkerque. It feels like freedom.

When night falls, when the sky grows dark, and he goes through the city, he can almost smile at the how alive the city is. The teens grinning, drinking, being out after bedtime? That’s what he fought a war for. For them to

He spends a week in London, before he’s boarding the train again. As it moves across the countryside, he begins to write once more. In London he’d gotten a lot of words down, and he’s feeling better, because getting to say things as he wants to say them without worrying about if someone will misunderstand him, or won’t understand him at all, is liberating. In this train, though, he’s not writing for himself, he’s writing to someone he knows, wants to think anyway, will understand him in every way. He doesn’t dare consider another possibility.

For the first time, he doesn’t struggle with the words he’s choosing for Tommy; he’s writing in a careful language, trying to hold back, but he’s overflowing with words, and he wants Tommy to know just how much he’s missed him. He’s holding back on how much the war has fucked him up, prays that the war hasn’t changed Tommy one bit, because that would be unbearable.

He, as he finishes the letter with his signature – too pretentious, too much like Moore, and he winces at the thought –, hopes with closed eyes, that the letter won’t be delivered to an empty house.

Be safe and alive, Tom, he thinks as he sends the letter, neatly decorated with the last address Tommy had informed him.

That’s one year ago.

He hopes that he hasn’t moved.

Ten days later he finds a payphone and decides, despite all cells in his body screaming otherwise, to call his mum. As the phone rings, and rings, and rings, and rings, his stomach fills with dread for some reason, and as soon he hears his mum pick up the phone, he’s blurting out: “Have you gotten a letter addressed for a Thomas?”

A moment of silence, and Alex feels his world slowly crack at the edges. Then, “yes, Alex. It got here yesterday.”

He bites his lip from screaming, but he thinks he must’ve made some sound because he hears his mother sigh.

“He was the friend you were going to visit, yes?”

He can’t answer, he can’t think, what is words?

Fuck, Tommy. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking shit!

“He could have just moved, Alex,” she tries to reason with him, “he doesn’t have to… Alex, dear, please, talk to me. He could be just fine, just please, please, Alex, for once in your life, for once since that fucking war, talk to me, love.”

And his mother never swears, and he wants to tease her for it, and he doesn’t understand where that urge came from, because he hasn’t had such a childish thought for seven years, and he can’t stand turning back into a child now.

His best friend is fucking dead, alright. His best friend is fucking dead, and he didn’t know, and he didn’t know, and he kept on writing to him and those letters probably ended up at his poor mum’s house and she’s probably absolutely devastated and hates him for reminding her of her son, and he feels like something is missing. His heart misses something.

“He kept me going,” he whispers, because he has to say it out loud, and he hears his mother sniffle a sob.

“You did good over there, okay, darling,” she tells him, “and your boy was just as good. Where did he serve?”

“Pacific,” Alex says with a hollow voice because he’s spent so many months, years, telling himself that that hellhole would never get the best of Tommy. Not his Tommy. He’d survive. He’d survive anything this fucking world threw at him.

And he was so fucking selfish. Why did he want Tommy to survive? Because Alex, because he couldn’t stand the thought of losing him. Did he ever once in the years they spent apart wish for Tommy to be safe, because he wanted Tommy to be safe so Tommy could go home, and not just to him, but in general? He’s so fucking selfish, so selfish. He doesn’t dare think of how selfish Tommy must’ve thought him in the bottom of that trawler.

“Oh, baby,” and if she thinks Alex’s grief is odd for Tommy being only a friend, she doesn’t comment on it, and for the first time, he actually feels like he can open up to his mum, and he kind of is a little afraid of the prospect of not keeping everything internalised any more. “The Pacific, I don’t know how much you could read back there in Europe, but it was the most awful news we got from the Pacific. It was hell.”

And Alex knows this, has always known this, and he should have known better. He really should have.

“Oh, Alexander,” his mother speaks softly, and he hear her pity, her concern, and her love for him bleed through in her voice. “I truly am sorry for your loss. Please return home, so I can care for you, please, my darling.”

Alexander. It’s been so long since he’s heard that name and he can’t even remember if he ever told Tommy that his full name was Alexander.

“I can’t, mum,” he mutters, unable to even think of going back to that place of silence and too loud thoughts, “I have to visit him.”

“How-”, and he doesn’t even think before he gives her a curt goodbye and hangs up. The phone is almost out of money too.

As he tries to wrap his head around the bit of information he just got that suddenly put everything in perspective, he’s walking, without remembering deciding, to the train station.

In the train he writes a letter. This time he holds nothing back.

Dear Tom,

I hope you’re well, wherever you are, please be well. I can’t bear the thought if you aren’t.

I’m never going to send this letter to anyone, because it’s for you, and you’re dead, so who could possibly receive it? I thought you’d want to know, for some reason, because I still can’t believe that we were just what we were, two survivors of Dunkerque. Screw the fucking Frogs. Dunkirk. I’m not going to conform to those bastards any more. It’s Dunkirk now.

I am a free man, Tommy.

A free man that’s losing it. Without you, Tommy, I don’t know what I’m going to do. You, and this, this is so wrong to write, no one can ever know of this, so if you read this from heaven, you fucking bastard, you keep your angelic mouth shut, or I’m gonna come up there and beat your ass. I think you were what kept me going through the war, what kept me sane; the thought of seeing you. I even got fucking religious praying for your safety.

God is not fucking real, I’ve always known that. He could have never wanted to kill you. Not you. I’m going to kill him for killing you if he’s real. When I myself get to Heaven, to Saint Peter, the bastard, and say, “another soldier reporting, sir. I’ve served my time in Hell”, and am let indoors? I’m going to go fucking crazy. I am. This is not a joke, Tommy, so if you’re religious, and want to protect the old man? You better wake up and stop me here in the real world.

Tommy, Tom, Thomas, I never know what to call you. I tried, once, to only think of you as Tom but for some reason it only seems fit when I can look you in the eyes. It only has meaning when I can see your smile, and fuck, Tom, I don’t even talk to birds this way.

I’m losing it, Tom. I’m losing it so fucking much, and it’s so wrong, and I can’t function. Please, if you can hear me or whatever? Please, come back.

I need you.

Even though, you’re not Highlander.

Please, Tom.

Your friend, your brother in arms, always,

Alex

P. S. My full name is Alexander. Thought you wanted to know that when you’ve told me yours is Thomas. Now we’re even.

P.P.S if you come back? I’ll tell you all my dirty secrets. You’ll be able to blackmail to the end of my days. All you need to do is come back. Please, Tom.

He has to say goodbye.

This one time, he wants to say goodbye to a brother in arms. In the whirlwind that was Operation Overlord, he didn’t have time to even look behind when German bullets tore into his friends’ bodies. In the disaster that was Operation Epmos, he didn’t have time to do much more than move forward, forward, forward, never look back. At Jupiter he was shot before anyone else went down and directly sent off to the hospital. In the cold of Bastogne, he could barely get out of his foxhole before the mortars began falling from the sky like rain.

As a soldier, you never have to time to say goodbye when it counts, so you gotta say everything you want your friends to know beforehand. Otherwise you’ll live with the regret for the rest of your life.

He learned that quickly.

But now, he has the time to sit in front of the grave, to speak to Tommy, tell him everything he couldn’t back then.

Tell him how he means to him. Tell him how much he misses him. Tell him how little he deserved this war. Tell him how he was what, really, kept Alex going through the frozen hell of France.

It’s a quiet little village that he comes to, a nice little facade to show newcomers, and it’s so like Tommy that he wants to cry, and he lets himself imagine walking the streets with him. Having him tell him of his childhood in the city, of how the bakery with the old ladies were much, much better than the one with grumpy, old man, and how the lake is most beautiful at sunset, and that the cornfields are like an ocean of fire as the sun rises.

He experiences it all as he stays at the local inn, thinking of how better it would be to have Tommy tell it.

Being in the childhood village of his, perhaps, best and only friend tears at him. It’s like walking around a ghost village, everywhere he sees traces of him, he sees him in the crowds, at the pub, at the bakery. He sees him in the corner of his eye, and when he turns around, looking, searching desperately for him, he’s gone.

It’s like he’s so close, but just beyond reach. A smidge longer, and he’d be able to touch him, but Tommy always moves one step backwards, as he moves one step forward.

Of course, it’s all in his mind. There is no Tommy haunting him and the town streets. Tommy’s dead, he chastises himself.

Tommy’s dead, and he stands alone. Left behind, like always.

Five times he passes the house that supposedly is the one Tommy’s ma lives in. It’s built of wood and the curtains are always drawn; if he’d lost such a kindhearted son he’d probably too live in grief. Wallowing in the cruelness of the world. He already is.

On the third day, he goes to the cemetery. It’s quiet, desolated, and he can’t help but think that it always was in their cards to end up here, here in the tranquillity of eternal peace. He wants to stay here forever, can’t help but think that if he just ignored everything else, centuries could go by without him realizing, without the cemetery ever changing.

The living world changes everyday, he has found, but the world of the dead stays the same throughout the centuries.

As he goes through row after row after row of gravestones, not finding anything about a Tommy or a Thomas that didn’t die twenty years ago, he’s on the verge of crying. Did he give him the wrong city? Did he hear wrong? Read wrong? Has he never had the real address of his friend?

Is he even dead?

Of course, he is, you absolute twat.

“Argh,” with a groan, he lets himself fall heavily onto the stone bench, “I’m never gonna find you, Tom.”

He covers his face with his hands, trying to get his turbulent inner under control. “Where are you?”

There’s no answer, not that he expected anything. He had hoped that Tommy would return from the corner like in some fairytale. But no other than him had dared to go into the graveyard, probably because too many new graves had been dug within the last years for anyone to be comfortable to come here in fear of a new grave for a friend, a son, a brother, a father.

“I don’t suppose you know where I can find Tom?”, he asks the grave in front of him, but as he expects, no answer is heard from one Geraint Pratt, born in 1897, died in 1919. He hopes he got a merciful death. So young, younger than him, younger than Tommy. “Though, I guess, you’re at the same place? In heaven? Tom can’t be anywhere else.”

He lets out a breath, looks at the sky, tries to look for his Tommy.

“Could you tell him that I hope he’s safe wherever he is now?”

Geraint doesn’t answer but Alex feels like he might’ve heard him because the skies begin to clear, and sun is shining, and he gives the grave a proper salute.

“Nice talking to ya, mate,” Alex smiles and turns around.

He’s ready to leave. He tells himself that. He’s ready to leave and finally leave the war behind. Go home to his ma and just forget everything that happened. There’s no one left to understand him, so he really has to bury it all in the past where it belongs.

One more thing, he promises himself as he turns left at the inn’s front door, down the street he’s been so many times, one more thing and he’ll go home.

He has to hear the final confirmation. He is that selfish; he has to hear it from his mum.

He has to ask.

He has to know.

He has to know for certain whether Tommy is dead or not, or if he’s just skipped town, or if he just doesn’t want to ever talk to Alex again.

He doesn’t blame him if it’s the latter. He’d prefer it to the former alternative, any day.

So he knocks on the door, breathes, reminds himself to keep on doing that because he has to breath for both Tommy and him now that the former can’t. Knocks one more time, closes his eyes, turns around himself, fidgeting with everything that’s in his pockets and loose threads of his jacket.

And then the door opens. Slowly, so ever slowly, like it’s tormenting him, like it knows what he’s here for and wants to drag out his misery.

He can hear small taps.

Tap, tap, tap. It sounds like wooden footsteps.

The door opens fully, and he’s face to face with a woman who looks like a slightly older version of Tom, like he’d be if he was a girl. She even smiles at him like Tom did, and Alex can’t stop himself from smiling, even if it is just a tiny, tiny smile that doesn’t even resemble his smiles around the actual Tommy.

“Hello,” he greets with a polite tone, coughs once, takes a deep breath, mentally kicks himself for not being able to just say it. Alex, just say it. Ask. Put yourself out of this misery. Ask, for fucks sake!

He opens his mouth once more before his eyes are drawn to a shadow behind her, and he finds himself at loss for words.

Suddenly feeling lightheaded, fainthearted, and like he might pass right out if someone doesn’t give him water, sugar, or a fucking logical explanation.

It’s like time stands still, as he leans forward to take a better look at the dark figure, as he learns, slowly, how to breath again.

“Tom?”, he whispers, and he doesn’t think he’s ever heard himself so soft, so unsure, so hopeful.

Everything that happens after that happens so quickly that his confused brain barely has time to catch up, before he hears those tap, tap, tap again, and he hears that voice, that voice, the one he has missed so badly and thought he’d never hear again, and then the door is slammed shut.

At the sound of the door closing and finally being locked, his brain speeds up to the speed of reality, and he’s by the door, knocking, yelling pleading and desperately at whoever is inside.

“Tom, Tom, please, Tommy”, he tries as hard as he can to keep his voice steady, but if its pitch is a little too high, a little too close to a wail, then he really doesn’t think he can be held responsible.

Tommy’s alive and he’s refusing to look at Alex.

He doesn’t how long he stands there, yelling, but it’s long enough to make people on the street stop and gape at him, people he, as he looks back in frustration, recognizes from all over the city. It’s long enough for his heart to break into a thousand pieces, as he slowly sinks to his knees, leaning his head on the door.

“Open the door, please,” he whispers and lets a tear fall, feeling his soul splinter all over again as the tear rolls down his cheek. It feels like the end, to sit here. “Don’t let it end here.”

Maybe it’s pity, maybe it’s embarrassment, but suddenly, as he braces himself to wait here the whole night, the door opens, and he sees the mum once more, and he’s scrambling up, trying to smooth out his jacket, trying to look respectable, trying to not look as pitiful as he feels. Trying not to look as broken as he feels.

“Come in,” she speaks harshly, and he nods, out of breath, like it’s knocked out of him, “quickly, boy!”

He rushes in, closing the door behind him, looking around, to the pictures on the wall – three boys, one of them Tommy, the other two slightly older, and they’re all dressed in uniforms. On a desk at the end of the hall, there’s two pictures of what he presumes to be Tommy’s brothers, with a rose in front of them, dry and withering.

Dead in service.

“Tom..” he begins, but the mother waves away whatever he was going to say, he doesn’t even know it himself. He doesn’t know anything but that he has to see Tommy, has to check for himself that he really breathes, that he’s alive.

She points, and he’s almost running to the door she’s pointed out. Breathless, shaking, he closes his eyes as he pushes the door open.

“Alex,” a dry voice greets him, and everything stands still as he opens his eyes to lock eyes with eyes so blue, so blue, that he is sure they put the ocean itself to shame.

“Tom,” he breathes, like the name itself is oxygen, that all he needs to survive is getting to say that name again, and again, and again, and again, and again until the end of his days. Looking into those eyes, he feel like he can breathe again, and he feels like flying. A burden has been lifted from his shoulders, and he’s laughing, smiling, feeling like everything might be okay again.

Tommy lives, and he breathes, and they both survived.

“Tom, you’re here,” he says, and he can’t even be bothered to think of why Tom might have pretended to be dead, because they’re both here, and they’re reunited, and nothing else matters, and he- he feels like himself again.

After so many years, he finally feels like he’s reconnected with the Alex he knows he is.

Tom always has brought the best out of him. Even in the dark water of Dunkirk, he remembers wanting to do right by the dark haired boy, with eyes like the ocean, and whisper like home.

“I’ve missed you,” he admits, not able to hold anything back. This world, he’s learned, can so easily change and they’ll have no chance of reconnecting before they’re shipped out-

“Why are you here”, Tommy’s voice cuts in, and it’s not quite a question, it’s more of an accusation, and Alex finds himself empty for words.

Is he intruding? Does Tommy really not wish to see him?

Has he finally realized that Alex is poison, that Tommy always was so much better than him?

“I can’t breathe without you,” he finally says, “I can’t sleep.”

“Why’s it my job to make sure you cope?”, Tommy spits out, and he wants to scream, wants to pinch himself. This is a nightmare. Has to be a nightmare.

He can’t handle it not being a nightmare.

Not when Tommy’s sitting right in front of him.

“Tom..” whatever he is about to say, and it’s probably bullshit, and nothing important, because Alex doesn’t really say important things, he’s not philosophical, no scholar, it all dies on his tongue on the way out, as Tommy stands up with the help of two crutches.

His face is set in stone as he with his face held high stands with one leg firmly planted on the ground, and Alex feels all the blood leave his face as his eyes wander down Tom’s body.

No, no, no, no. He wants to scream at the unfairness that reigns this world.

“You think I care, Alex?”, Tommy speaks again, and this time his face is wavering, and he looks just as broken as Alex feels, and Alex tentatively takes a step forward, trying to cross whatever chasm has formed between them because of that. “You think I care you can’t sleep? Can’t breathe? You’re alive, Alex, you’re alright. You’re as dazzling as ever, and – Look at me, fucking look at me, Alex! Who would ever want me?”

Alex comes to sit at Tommy’s foot, eyes pleading with him. “You don’t have to care, Tom. Never did. Just please, please, don’t cut me off. I want to help.”

He snorts at him, eyes piercing him with a poisonous stare. “Help? You can’t help me! Nobody in this century can! Unless you want to donate your leg?”

“Anything,” he says instantly. “Anything for you, Tommy. Anything so you won’t draw away from me.”

Tommy sits down, teeth biting hard into his lip. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“Help me understand, then, Tom,” he whispers, taking his hands in his, squeezes, pleadingly. He’s a beggar and Tommy is the king, the one with all the answers, all the money. He’s the only one who can save Alex. “Help me understand, please, Tom. I’ll do anything for you.”

He repeats himself, he can’t do anything else. Tommy has to understand, has to understand that Alex won’t ever leave him, will stay by his side.

“Nobody wants a bitter, young man with one leg, Alex,” he says, as to emphasize his point, bitterly, and Alex feels like crumbling, shaking his head ferociously.

“I want you,” he cuts in, “I always want you, to help you, listen to you. Just don’t cut me off, Tom. I’ll do anything for you… for you, for you mean everything to me.”

It sounds like a song, like a tragedy, and maybe it is. It certainly is no love story. Maybe it’s just a tale, a tale of reality; where two broken men have life, and pain, and suffering thrust upon them, and they try to deal with as best as they can.

“Just let me stay, Tom.”

There’s a silence, and Tom’s blue, blue, blue eyes, and he won’t ever not miss looking at them, stare at him, empty for emotions, but also empty for the piercing wrath that seemed to have consumed him, and that’s a start. He can work that. Neutral is always better than negative. They can work from there. If only Tom will let him, he’ll do his best.

Maybe he’ll even be able to heal himself along the way.

He knows he will. All he’s ever needed was Tommy. Tommy keeps him anchored to reality. Just being in his vicinity keeps the nightmares at bay, that was how it was in the camp, the barrack, they shared before they were each shipped out to their corner of the world.

“I’m a mess, Alex,” he finally says, and Alex’s nodding along, desperate to keep him talking.

“So am I, Tom,” he reassures him with a soft, rushed voice, “so’s the world. We’re gonna get through it all, okay? We’re going to live.”

They’re going to live, and that’s the most important thing. They’re going to take opportunities instead of wasting away, they’re going to move on instead of hanging on tight, they’re going to grow instead of staying the same in the dirt, six feet under, and they’re going to live instead of being dead.

“Anything you want, Tommy,” he says, “we’ll do.”

Tommy just looks at him with a soft gaze, and that’s a start, and a smile is shining on his lips, and so the fuck what if it’s not big? It’s a smile, and it’s true, and Alex thinks it’s the best smile in the whole world because it’s on Tommy’s lips, and everything Tommy does is Alex’s favourite thing.

“Where do you wanna go? Climb the Everest? - I’ll carry ya, don’t worry. You wanna go to the beach, you wanna swim – no, not the beach. You wanna go to Yankee-land, dontcha?”

And Tommy’s smiling for real now, and Alex feels a warm feeling of pride and affection swell in his chest.

“See, there’s that smile,” he whispers, and he leans his forehead against their joined hands, and he’s smiling himself now, and everything seems like it might just be alright because Tommy’s here, and he isn’t bitter, at least not right now, and so what if he doesn’t have one leg? He’s beautiful, and Alex feels something tighten at that thought, and he’s Tommy, and that’s all that ever matters. If he’s Tommy, then he’s perfect. He doesn’t need a perfect Tommy, because being Tommy is what makes Tommy so bloody perfect, and his thoughts are making him dizzy with all these repetitions, but it doesn’t really matter because his gaze is fixed on Tom, his blue eyes, his smile, and yeah, everything’s going to be alright.

“You want me to go to America?” Tommy asks, lifts an eyebrow, smirks, and he can see those crooked teeth, and Alex’s smile widens.

“Only if you want to, but I ain’t ever been there.”, he confesses, “it’d be a fresh start. A new beginning, for us.”

Looking at Tommy, he can believe they can make it. It won’t be easy, and he looks with moist eyes at the stump that’s left of Tommy’s leg, and he thinks of the insane pain, of how even the most basic routines turn into a daily fight, and he bites his lip.

What comfort could he ever hope to offer Tommy? He has no real idea of the aftermath of the war that Tommy’s experienced.

He looks up, locks eyes with Tommy’s eyes, so very blue, he can never get enough of that colour. They’re deeper, darker, than they were at Dunkirk, he notices.

His fingers caress Tommy’s hands, as he whispers an urgent question. “What happened, Tom? Would you tell me?”

“No.” The answer is quick and curt, and Tommy looks at him with hard eyes, and takes his hands from Alex’s, covers the stump almost instinctively, and he wants to take all the words back. He doesn’t ever want to make Tommy uncomfortable, but he’s out of his element, he doesn’t know what to do.

Alex shakes his head, “don’t hide from me, Tom. I don’t need to know, I only need you.”

“Why are you like this, Alex?”, he looks so confused, and Alex feels his face redden with shame. “You’re so affectionate, why? You weren’t like this in ‘40.”

“In ‘40 I hadn’t lost all my friends twice,” he injected, fumbling with his fingers, “in ‘40 I hadn’t lost everyone but you.”

“Well, you lost part of me.”

Alex shakes his head, how can Tommy joke about something like this? Then again, how else do you deal with it? You can’t sew it back on, you can’t do anything but grasp, desperately, for something, anything at all, that will help you come to peace with it.

“I’m sorry, Tom.”

“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, “you didn’t throw the damn grenade at me, Alex. It’s war, right?”

A pause, and then he looks at Alex again. “I know it’s not what you expected, coming here. You expected to find me at the graveyard, yeah?” Alex can’t even answer, struck as he is. “Yeah, haven’t really said sorry for returning your letter, did I? Figured I might as well be dead than having to face anyone like this.”

He gestures weakly to his leg, before crumbling in on himself, hiding his face in his hands.

“I wanted to go on to do great things when I returned, yeah? And now I can’t do nothing, Alex, nothing without help!”

“But you’re alive, Tom,” he whispers, “this is something you can learn to live with, because you’re alive, and breathing, and fighting, and damn it, Tom, that’s all that matters.” He wets his lips before prying Tommy’s hands away from his face. “The war took everything from us but each other. That’s how I see it anyway. Do you-”

“I do,” Tom whispers urgently, and Alex looks at him in surprise before a smile spreads on his lips.

“We’re going to be alright, Tom”, he promises, “you’re going to be okay. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Yeah,” Tom agrees with a soft voice, smile playing on his lips, “yeah, I’m sure.”

They’re not quite friends, they’re not quite in love. But they’re something, and that something, for now as they tentatively learn to know each other again, is just enough.

Chapter Text

They’re both damaged goods; relics of the young men that once was sent to France to defend it. All there’s left of the easy smiling and easy going young boys, that shipped over the Channel for the first time, is horrible memories and even more horrible dreams.

They stay close to each other because they promised each other that after the evacuation of Dunkirk. In some form or another they promised each other a forever, a reunion, a friendship, a companionship.

In the end, he brings him to Paris. He was here once, during the invasion, and walked every street, ate each bite of food, thinking of how much Tommy would’ve liked it. Thinking of how better it all would be, the street lights, the flowers, the Seine, if he just had Tommy by his side.

Come to think of it, everything he has ever experienced, ever seen, ever encountered, would be a lot better, a lot more beautiful, a lot more enjoyable, if only he had had Tommy by his side.

In Paris they can start again, he tells himself as he watches Tommy, fast asleep in their train cart, in Paris they can leave all the horror and death and pain behind. They can figure it out, in Paris. They can figure them out, in Paris.

The journey down to Paris is a long one because they don’t have that much money, so by the border of France, after they’ve come off the boat that sailed them across the Channel, they rent a car. It’s not a fancy car, not at all comfortable to sit in for so many hours during the day, and after two days of constant driving, their bums hurt so much that Tommy, who never ever complains, laments about having gotten bruises down there. Alex can’t stop the laugh, and he looks over at Tommy, as he tries to stop laughing, and a warm feeling spreads as he sees Tommy smiling.

Tommy smiling will never fail to light up his world.

“I’m hungry, Alex,” Tommy says after two hours of driving, and Alex looks at the clock. 11:45. Almost lunch time too, and he blinks in at the very first cantina he sees by the road.

It’s a dirty little place, but Tommy doesn’t seem to mind, so Alex doesn’t suggest to just stop at another place. He supposes whatever

The waitress is a pretty little thing, and she’s beaming at them, and Alex can’t really concentrate on anything she’s saying because talking to her Tommy is the most relaxed he’s seen him since, well, since for ever actually. He can’t take his eyes off of him.

“What about you, Alex?”, Tommy brings him out of his thoughts, and he’s left blinking, slowly, at Tommy, not really processing what the hell the guy’s asking him. With a raised eyebrow, he slowly nods to their waitress, and Alex’s brain finally gets the hint. “What are you having?”

He gulps and looks down at the menu he hasn’t even bothered looking at, desperately trying to find something that doesn’t sound like it’d make him vomit. He finally lands on a pizza that sounds sort of interesting. “Uh… a, what does it say? un cing fromages pizza?” He looks at the waitress with a painful expression, not knowing if she even understands anything he’s saying, because fuck if he ever learned French, eyes flickering over to Tommy for help. Tommy just looks at him like he’s torn between trying not to laugh and being angry at Alex, for whatever reason he can’t quite figure out.

She looks bewildered for a second before just nodding and smiling. “Of course, merci. Drink?”

Her English is tinted with a heavy French accent but he admires her ability to even know English, so far out on the country side as this is.

Again he looks down at the menu like he’s never seen it before before deciding to not even bother with it any more. “A coke?”

She smiles and nods, and takes their menu cards. Her eyes lock with Tommy’s once more and her smile brightens, and something tightens in Alex’s belly.

He almost wants to sneer at her to make her go away. He’s mine. Mine, mine, and that’s a lie because they’ve never discussed what they are.

When she’s gone, Tommy is staring at him with a quizzical expression. As he talks, his voice is dry, dismissing. “Why are you staring like she stole your firstborn?”

He wants to protest that he does no such thing but something about Tommy makes him swallow his words. The anger in his eyes makes him bite his tongue.

“Jus’ tired,” he says softly, and looks out the window. France has changed, but it’s still a shit country, and looking at Tommy’s detached look, he almost regrets ever going here.

France looks the same, no matter where you go, and he can’t remember where he’s been, and that forest on the other side of the road looks like the forest where Tate was killed, and he remembers the scream that had erupted from his friend’s mouth before he fell to the ground.

They couldn’t even get to him, say goodbye, because those fucking Krauts were shooting like there was no tomorrow, and he couldn’t concentrate because Tate was screaming, and his Captain was screaming at him to keep moving, private!, and he had no other choice but send a silent prayer to a God he didn’t believe in that Tate would soon be relieved of his suffering.

How war transforms death into a blessing instead of a curse so very quickly.

He bites his lips and looks down at his hands, pressed hard together, and as he loosens them he can see clear marks from his nails.

Fuck, being with Tommy was supposed to make him alright. Tommy was supposed to make everything alright like he always did. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, what game was he playing at? He was a mess, had been for years, he couldn’t expect Tommy to take time to actually try and sort him out. They all had their own battles to fight in their minds.

A plate is placed in front of him along with a glass and a bottle of coke.

“Bon appetite,” the waitress tells them, smiles once more, but seems so very careful not to look too closely at Tommy, and certainly not at Alex at all.

He feels a twisted, triumphant spark inside of him.

Then his eyes turns to his plate, and he feels his mouth hit the floor.

“What the fucking hell is this?”, he asks, gobsmacked, horrified, really. Looking up at Tommy with eyes full of betrayal, he repeats, “what the hell’s this?”

Tommy bites his lip, trying not to let the obvious smile onto his lips as he obviously still is mad. “That’s your pizza.”

“This is not a pizza,” he underlines with disgust, pushing the plate away from him, “this, this is an abomination!”

Tommy shakes his head like Alex was a bloody fool. “How could you, who has spent fucking years in this shite country, not know that cinq fromages means five cheese? You’ve got yourself a crowdfavourite, mate, a pizza with five cheeses! Good going!”

“Never needed it, mate. French’s shit, anyway, and so is France, just look at this! What the fuck?”, he splutters, shaking his head, “have you ever heard of anything like this?”

Tommy wisely turns his attention back to his burger without answering.

They don’t talk that much for the rest of the time, looking at each other in intervals, waiting for the other to say something, and this silence is just what Alex left England to escape, and he hates, hates, hates it, and he just needs Tommy to say something, anything really. Tell him why he’s so upset, tell him what Alex can do different.

Anything but this choking silence. He can’t stand it any more.

“Sorry,” he whispers after about twenty minutes of staring at that bloody forest, that he gets more and more convinced is exactly the one Tate got killed in, even though logic says the exact opposite. “Need to use the loo.”

Tommy waves him off with a bored handgesture, and Alex wants to sneer at him, wants to make him react, wants him to fucking look at him properly. Like he used to do back at Dunkirk, back in England, before the bloody war in the Pacific tore him away from him.

He finds himself walk to the bathroom in a sort of trance; it’s a little room, almost a cell, with a green-ish light that’s blinking heavily and threatens to either make him blind or make him throw up. His head is spinning and he goes to the far wall to get some support. His eyes locks with his mirror self, and he looks as miserable as he feels, and it’s not fair that Tommy can be nonchalant about rejection when Alex turns into a fucking mess when Tommy won’t look at him.

Tom survived getting his leg blown up, and you can’t even handle a cold shoulder? Some sergeant, you are, he’s chastising himself, and he knocks his head back against the wall. Get a fucking grip, Alexander. A fucking grip.

He goes to the mirror, splashes some cold water in his face to clear his turbulent mind, he can’t stand being here alone any more, this fucking light is killing him slowly, and he points an accusing finger at himself.

“Don’t fuck this up, Alex,” he says resolutely, can’t stop the thoughts of how he’s said that before, that he always does no matter his intentions.

He’s a walking disaster just waiting to happen. A grenade just waiting to be set off.

He’s a fucking bomb and it seems like Tommy’s the one with the detonator.

One last glance at the mirror before he decides to go back to Tommy, convince him to get into the car so they can get a move on. So they can sort out their mess, their big, big mess, in the car. In the car they can scream at each other, and Alex can make it clear that he never, never, ever intended to make him angry in any form, in any way.

All he has ever wanted, it seems to him after all these years in war, waiting to die like he was on the death row, was to live a peaceful life with Tom. Just the two of them. He could even build them a house, a nice little house with big windows so they never live in darkness.

“Get a grip,” he says and leaves the bathroom.

At the table, the waitress, who has no other customers at this hour, has taken his seat, and her and Tom is chatting happily, and he feels a sting in his heart as he can’t recall the last time Tom seemed to have shed all of his worries about him.

As he watches, he can’t help but think of maybe it is really better for Tom to be with someone that doesn’t know anything of the hardships of the war? That doesn’t have their own nightmares, their own burdens to heavy his shoulders with?

He deserves this, Alex decides, to have a life with someone who can’t hear the echo of grenades in his ears all the time. To have a life with someone innocent and whole, and, he thinks with a breaking heart, a fucking gal.

Fuck if Tom deserves to be twisted by Alex’s perverted thoughts.

He almost disgusts himself with his selfishness, that he had hoped, wished, actually fucking believed, that Tom was feeling the same as Alex. Was as twisted as Alex.

It doesn’t feel twisted, perverted, this warm feeling inside of him, but it must be. Society says so. Military says so. If they get discovered-

No, Tom deserves to live in peace. No more troubles. No more hiding. He decides that then and there.

So he tries to bite down the pain when he goes over to the table, sees Tommy’s smile fade a bit as they lock eyes, sees the waitress look irritated at him.

“Sorry,” he mumbles and coughs, trying to shake the shake from his voice. It’s just Tommy. “Should we get going?”

Tom stares at him with dark eyes for a few moments before shaking his head. “I’m tired, actually. And Claire says that her family owns a motel not far from here, if we could sleep there?”

Alex is nodding before Tom has even finished his sentence, as much as it pains his heart.

It’s always been about Tom, this trip.

He’ll accommodate Tom, always, even with a bleeding heart.

“Yeah,” he’s still nodding, like an idiot, “yeah, we can do that. You want me to bring the car around? Or..” he looks to the waitress, not that he’s ever going to remember her name, call her by her name. “How far is it?”

She looks confusedly at him before Tom says a few choice words in what sounds like French, and Alex is gaping, as Tom turns to him again. “Upstairs. Shouldn’t need the car for that.”

Dumbfounded, he shakes his head. “No, suppose not. You need my help?”

Tom bites his lip, before shaking his head. With a tentative voice, he just says, “would you bring our things up to the room? Claire’ll show you the way. I need… I just need to sit here a little longer, yeah?”

Alex nods accepting. “Yeah, of course, whatever you want. Help yourself to my disgusting cheese nightmare if you want to.”

He’s left alone with his thoughts soon after, and that’s a dangerous thing because the thought of Tommy sitting downstairs with the pretty waitress, laughing, smiling, feeling a whole person again, without Alex, not even thinking about Alex, makes him want to scream.

The silence of the room, and it is a neat little room, with Tommy here, he would be content to stay here forever, taunts him. Every whistle of the wind that he can hear, because no one else is making any sounds, taunts him. Reminds him that the one person he had counted on to finally break the silence was in another room, planning his whole future. Without Alex, because once you go home, once you face reality, war and war buddies only bring out the very worst memories.

Somehow, Tommy only brings out the best memories.

“Alex and Tom,” he says, just to say it once, out loud, without having to lower his voice. He needs to say it, one time, just to try it out.

It sounds like heaven.

“Tom and Alex,” and it sounds just as good the other way ‘round, and that really isn’t fair.

“Alex and Tommy,” and even though Tommy is not Tom, it still sounds like the song of angels.

He doesn’t know how long he spends on this, just trying out different combinations of their names, but it makes his heart flutter, and it makes him forget that Tom has left him, has chosen some waitress over him.

“Thomas and Alexander,” and he’s smiling now, and he takes a deep puff of the cigarette that’s resting between his lips. “Alexander and Thomas.”

And the letter he wrote for Tommy when he thought he was dead weighs like a ton in his pocket, and he wants to scream out in frustration.

More than anything he wants to call for Tommy. Beg him to come back to him.

He falls asleep sometime after, he thinks, because the last thing he remembers is wallowing in self-pity, and, generally, being pathetic, way too pathetic, and then someone’s knocking on the door.

And he’s laying, just trying to ignore it, ignore the swelling pain in his chest, just trying to ignore the image of Tom and the pretty waitress, and he wants to claw the image of them laughing out of his fucking mind.

“Alex, you dumb twat!”, and it’s the charming voice of Tommy that finally wakes him up, and he sits in bed, staring at the door. Daring it to once again speak in Tommy’s voice.

Tom’s together with the waitress.

He can’t be here.

Wanting to be with Alex.

It’s clear by now, he gets it, now, okay?

He doesn’t need the taunting any more.

“Alex, open the bloody door!”, and it sounds like Tommy, and his heart is practically hopping out of his chest, urging him to just open the door.

See if it really just is the universe doing him one last dirty deed.

“Alex...”, and his voice is even more tired, it’s more of a whisper, and it’s more like Tom than he can recall having heard in the last four, five years.

He’s opening the door, and Tommy’s blue, blue eyes, no matter how many years and grenades later, those, blessedly, never change, are staring back at him, and he’s swaying on his foot, and the crutches aren’t helping him loads, and the pretty girl stands a foot behind him.

“Tom,” he whispers, unable to really truly function.

His dark, dark hair is slightly dishevelled, and the girl’s blouse askew, and his breath is catching in his throat, and he can’t think of anything but that Tom perhaps does not love him, not at all, and that thought makes all his dream of Paris, and late night walks, and pretty gardens, and museums, and café visits, all burn up in a roaring fire.

All there’s left is ash, and he can’t focus, because his heart hurts, hurts, hurts, and Tommy’s asking him questions, and he can’t focus on them because all he can hear is the loud, clear ringing thought that: Tommy doesn’t want him.

The pretty girl is saying something, trying to grip Tommy’s arm, but he tries to, weakly and disoriented, shake it off, and something inside of Alex just clicks. He’s still Tommy’s friend and he’ll be damned if he’s going to let this Frog girl make him fall and break him even more because he can’t even stand upright, and so he’s finding himself standing between them, taking Tommy tentatively by the shoulders, just enough to keep him upright.

“Back off,” he’s hissing and he’s throwing dagger eyes at the girl until he moves to look at Tommy, “you alright?”

He nods, and then smiles, dazedly, dazzlingly, and it makes Alex’s heart jump in excitement. “Yeah, yeah. I just need to get to bed, Al. Help me?”

He’s nodding before he can even process all the words. Tom never has to even ask, Alex will always help him.

As he’s manoeuvring a clearly drunk Tom into his room, he throws one last dark glare back at the girl. “What the fuck were you thinking, getting him drunk? He has one leg, the man could barely stand when he had two.”

Tom almost falls onto the bed as soon as he is able to reach it by himself, and he’s cackling, and grinning, and Alex’s inner softens, and his smile brightens.

And then Tom is bolting upright, and he’s staring at Alex with wide eyes. “Wait, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex,” and his name has never sounded sweeter than on Tommy’s lips, tongue, even though his voice is concerned, and that’s never a good thing. “There’s only one bed.”

And Alex is laughing, letting go, and he’s smiling, although the truth of it still hurts. “Think your pretty waitress thought you’d spend the night with her.”

“Yeah,” Tommy sighs, and he’s looking at Alex like he holds all the answers. “I was going to, you know? I was so angry at you...”

And that doesn’t make sense, but he knew it, and he just wants to know why.

“But you weren’t there, Alex,” and his voice is soft, pleading, and Alex never has been strong, “and it’s like you said, you know? I can’t really function without you, you, in some way, and damn, I can’t even think straight, but you’re it, you know? Does it make sense?”

Probably not, to many others, but to Alex it is the most perfect sounding logic he has ever heard, and he can’t help but nodding at the words.

“But,” he wets his lips, and he knows that this conversation is not for now, Tommy is pissed as hell, and still mad at him, “why, why did you go to her?”

And he has to know, has to have Tommy confirm that he’s not damaged for feeling this way, and if he is, that Tommy then is just as damaged as him.

He needs to know.

He can’t go on without knowing.

“Because,” and his hands are ruffling his hair, and his eyebrows are furrowed, “because I don’t know what to do, Alex!” and he’s yelling now, and Alex wants to reach out to cover his mouth. Claire could be at the other side listening. She could be their downfall. “God damn it, Alex, I ain’t ever heard of two men like us, you know? I ain’t ever heard anyone, at all, not even my own ma, say that it was alright, this… this thing between us!”

“Tom...”, and his whisper is pleading.

“And then you go around glaring at any girl that as much as looks at me, looks at me, Alex, me without one fucking leg!”, and he’s pointing to the stump, and Alex can’t help but think of how long this agony has been growing inside of his Tommy. “Like you don’t give a damn if people find out about this!”

This. A name for a thing so undefined that they can’t even put a proper label on it.

“But-”, and he bites his tongue as Tommy looks at him with burning eyes.

“And that’s alright for you, you’ll live,” and his voice is getting weaker, and Alex is stepping towards him, and falling to his knees in front of Tommy. “But me?” and he’s crying, and Alex is resting his head on Tom’s knee, “if I lose my soldier salary, they’ll take it all, you know it, I can’t even work to get more money, not yet. I need an education. I need, need those money, and you can’t, I can’t have you cost me that.”

And Alex understands this. Remembers having threatened his fellow sergeant, the first fellow he ever kissed, ever had sex with, with the same; or, well, not threatened, but made him hyper-aware of the dangers of what they did.

If they get discovered and reported, he could lose his rank as sergeant. Be stripped of both his Purple Hearts.

“But we’re in France,” Alex whispers, “who could ever find out, here?”

Tommy doesn’t seem to have a reply as he just falls back against the bed with a groan and a flipped bird in Alex’s general direction.

He climbs into the bed, lays as far away from Tommy as he possibly can. He’s not sure of anything, he’s not sure, and he needs Tommy to outline his own borders. What Alex can do. And… what Alex can’t do.

“Would you rather go back to Claire?”, and his voice is tight, and he knows it, too hopeful for a no, but he has to ask. “I can help you over there if you want. Just… just give me directions, and I’ll help you there. Or bring her here? I can do that too. Just what-”

And then suddenly a hand is on his mouth, and Tommy’s head is inches away from his own.

“Shut up,” he says, and his voice is low, and Alex is paying attention like never before, “for once in your life, Alex, shut up.”

Hesitantly, Tommy lifts his hand as Alex nods reassuringly. He won’t say a word.

The silence is thick, as they just lay in and look at each other. Each second Alex expects Tommy to lean away, to roll to his side of the bed, and push him away once again, be angry with him once again.

He never does.

For a long time, it’s just their breaths that can be heard, and for once, the silence isn’t all consuming, it’s just… there, and Alex finds himself roped in by the Tommy’s eyes, and he can’t help but let a smile flicker past his lips. Like a shadow.

“Tom,” he whispers the name like a prayer, he thinks, “I never noticed. Your eyes are blue, so blue.”

And Tommy’s smiling, and his hand is caressing Alex’s hair, and cheek, and jawline, and he thinks his breath is hitching but he can’t quite hear over the beating of his heart.

“Yours are green,” Tommy confides before ducking his head, so their lips are mere inches from each other. And Alex’s nodding, both as a confirmation, because yes, his eyes are quite green, and because, yes, yes, yes, just a little lower, Tommy.

And Tommy’s smiling, and their lips collide, and Alex is smiling, and Tommy’s lips are so soft, just like his very being, and it’s everything Alex has ever imagined.

He can’t help himself to wrap his hands around his neck, press him closer, he needs him closer, closer, closer, and that hair, the black, thick hair so soft, like his lips, and his attention is suddenly brought back to them, and he can’t stop smiling, and he thinks he’s gone quite deaf over the sound of his beating heart. It’s racing like it’s trying to sprint a marathon.

“You kiss that Frog girl like this?”, he whispers and tucks at Tommy’s hair, and Tommy’s smirking, and he hates that he can see it in the dark, and that it’s such a good look on him. Damn him, damn him, but not to hell and back, just to here, in the darkness of their room above that fucking diner.

“Not quite like this,” Tommy’s whispering, and he’s positioning himself on top of him, his leg pressing into his side, and he’s leaning upright, and Alex finds himself desperately hunting after his lips. “This is much, much better. Because you, you I actually care about, yeah?”

He’s smiling before he knows and he leans up to recapture those soft, red lips for his own. “Don’t go around kissing any more girls, yeah?”

“Never again,” Tommy vows, and Alex echoes the sentiment before kissing Tommy again, because now he can, he finally, finally can, and it makes him smile, and his heart is dancing, and now that he can, he can’t stop.

They sneak out at the break of dawn, and Tommy leaves a little money at the bedlinen and Alex doesn’t comment on how the girl might take it, because he’s still glowing from their night, and even though he hasn’t slept in what feels like a thousand years, he can’t quite seem to actually care. His eyes are wide open, and the only hazy thoughts are those of last night.

They walk too closely, and he sends a silent thank you to the Heavens above that it’s too early for anyone to notice them, because he knows that Tommy would then walk with a two meter distance between them if he could help it. He doesn’t want think it’s only him that can’t stay away from Tommy, because their hands are brushing against each other; Alex’ own outstretched, and Tommy’s clutched around his crutch.

They don’t talk and maybe that’s well enough, but they share long glances, and Tommy’s smiling at him, a stark contrast from yesterday, and it crushes the little seed of doubt in Alex’s heart, and he’s smiling back at him.

“Where do you wanna go?”

Sign after sign to a new city each time passes him by, and each new town name makes him imagine a thousand new possibilities.

“Aren’t we going to Paris?”, asks Tommy amused, and Alex shrugs.

“We don’t have to go right away,” a new sign, a new city, his eyes are flicking from the road to the signs, “we can go anywhere you’d like.”

“Yeah?” Tommy sounds hopeful, and hope sounds like a future. Like healing.

“Yeah.”

He purses his lips, and Alex grins at the thoughtful look on his face. “Well, then, you can pull over at the first hotel you find.”

He thinks his face might break from the smile spreading on his face.

They drive for about five kilometres, with Tommy’s hand resting comfortably at his thigh, and his touch burns oh so sweetly, and when they finally get there, he has to take a deep breath before he gets out the car to help Tommy out.

As he orders the room, the weight of their backs killing his shoulder and his back, he keeps glancing over at Tommy, making nice conversation with yet another French girl, and he can’t quite concentrate on placing that damn reservation, and the lady at the desk seems so done with him,

“Sir?”, her voice is tired, and he understands.

“Yes?”, he shakes his head, clears his thoughts. Goddamn it, Alexander, get it together, “yes, I’m sorry. What did you say?”

She gives him an unimpressed look. “What kind of room would you like to get?”

He looks at the clock. Just over 7 in the evening.

“Just,” he waves his hand, shrugging, looking over at Tommy, “just a single with two beds.”

She nods, looking at her board. “I have two bed rooms, separately, if you want, sir?”

He shakes his head, gaze focused on Tommy, and he does such a shit job at not drawing attention to them, and he should be more concerned than he is, but he’s so happy, he can barely contain himself.

“Nah, that’s,” he gulps, focusing on the lady once more, “that’s fine.”

He gives her the money she asks, get handed two keys to the room, thanks her with a smile and goes over to Tommy who’s still talking. He’s throwing him smiles, and Alex is tripping by the side, the bags killing his bag, and he coughs once, loudly.

“Tom,” he says clearly with an impatient voice, “Tom, we need to go to the room, remember?”

And all Tom’s doing is throw the gal a pretty smile, a promise of ‘don’t worry, absence of a leg does not mean absence of anything else’, and it makes Alex want to throw up. Makes him want to drag Tom by his hair to their room, so he can throw him into their bed. Keep him there. Make him remember last night.

And as soon as the door closes, and he clicks the key, he does just that; throws the bags at one of the beds, where they belong, and grips Tommy by his neck, drags his mouth to his, and Tommy’s grinning, and it’s infuriating, but he prefers it over the devastated Tom he had found, cowering at his mum’s house, believing himself a failure.

“In a hurry, Alex?”, and he’s shaking his head, and Tom’s laughing as they, as hurriedly as they can, manoeuvre Tommy onto the bed.

“And you said, that no one would want a man with one leg,” a kiss, two kisses, three kisses, four kisses, one very long, heated one, and Tom shrugs.

“Yeah, in England,” hands drag Alex back to Tommy’s mouth, and suddenly they’re flipped, and Alex is in awe, is proud, of the way Tommy has learned to handle his handicap, and he wants to tell him that, but damn, if this isn’t the worst time for such heartfelt conversations. “This,” and his hands are working to get Alex’s shirt off of him, those damn buttons, and finally he just gets tired of it, and Alex would be mad if it didn’t look so damn good on him to use his arm muscles. He needs to tell him how fine they are, too. He files that away for later because right now Tommy’s staring at him with heated eyes, and he can’t really think straight. “- is France, Alex.”

And his name has never sounded better than on Tom’s lips in that moment.

It’s all so perfect.

“My full name’s Alexander,” he whispers into the darkness, laying entwined with Tommy in their one-man bed, and it’s crowded, but it’s comfortable, and honestly, Alex could lay here forever.

That’s the first secret of the night.

All Tom does is smile and kiss him once more.

The second secret is spoken a few minutes after.

“I think,” Tommy whispers hoarsely, “I could very well be falling in love with you quite a lot.”

Alex smiles sleepily at him, his heavy eyelids threatening to close at any second.

“I know”, he says, “that I love you quite a lot.”

As he falls asleep, he feels Tommy plant a light kiss on his forehead, and he feels warm.

A little over four in the morning, the third, the magic number, secret comes out, and it comes in the form of Tom suddenly gripping onto him for dear life, while thrashing around, gasping, crying, and Alex is horrified.

All his dreams has always made him wake up.

He thinks.

He can’t quite remember, and it’s not the time, and he whispers Tommy’s name over and over again, and he can’t get him to wake up, and he’s trying to shake him awake, but Tommy’s got him locked in place.

“Tommy,” he whispers, says, urgently, “Tom, for God’s sake, please, please, please, wake up. I can’t help you, love, if you aren’t awake. Tommy, Tom, Thomas, wake up, darling.”

And he does, and he’s still crying, and all Alex can do is hold him close, whisper sweet nothings into the night, and try to calm his shaking frame down, and he feels wetness in his own eyes, and he’s crying too, and he can’t do much but whisper and hold his beloved.

“You’re alright, Tom,” he whispers, caresses his hair, “you’re alright, we’re alright. There’s peace.”

Tom never answers him but he holds onto him just as tightly and that’s enough to keep Alex going. Anything to calm him down.

As he falls asleep, Alex just lays awake, looking at him, drives his hand through the black hair, draws lines from his forehead to his mouth, touches his forehead with sweet kisses, and holds him close.

Tom’s breath evens out, and he looks peaceful, and Alex still hasn’t stopped crying but he’s trying his best to wipe off the tear tracks of Tom’s cheek, because he needs no memory of this awful night.

He wonders, here in the dark, how often Tom has these night terrors. What they’re of, this he ponders upon too, but briefly.

In the end, he comes to the conclusion that it doesn’t really matter, any of it, because he’s here. He can help Tommy, and helping Tommy is helping himself, and if just the world would allow them, they could find true happiness.

They made it through the war.

They can make it through life too.