Warning: Contains strong language and some sexuality. Slash. (Liebgott/Roe)
A/N: The little piece at the beginning and then at the end is the Prayer of Saint Francis (which I'm sure most BoB fans are familiar with). Based on some random prompts I gave myself. This is fictional. Well, I mean, yeah, the war obviously did happen, but...I don't think this ever did. :p There are some derogatory terms that I certainly don't condone using (kraut, not fuck; fuck is a beautiful word), but for the sake of keeping this more realistic than sugarcoated, I didn't censor anything.
Sorry about any inconsistencies with the plot. :( I tried.
I mean no disrespect by writing this. I just wanted to see some love in wartime.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
Oh, divine Master...
1. A.M.
There were late nights. Everything felt heavy. I could still feel it on my hands, the lost life, and the shared water of Liebgott's canteen washed only so much off. It was still crusted underneath my fingernails. Reddish-brown, crushed and messed with granules of fine dirt.
I thanked him quietly and housed myself in his foxhole without asking. I wasn't sure he noticed until he spoke in a small voice, too quiet to have not heard, if that makes any sense.
"How long are you gonna stay here, Doc?"
It was okay. I wasn't really planning on staying the rest of the night. I had to keep moving or else my blood would freeze, I was sure.
The thought thoroughly disgusted me more than it should have.
A harsh whisper broke from him, and I shivered.
"How long?"
I didn't know.
I watched as he made himself toward me a little awkwardly. His eyes were shining, real bright, and I couldn't stop looking.
"How long, Doc?" he repeated. He was quieter, but no less demanding. I felt his breath, tried to ignore how much I just...needed right now, and answered as best I could.
"Until someone else needs me." I replied a little awkwardly. I couldn't recognize the sound of my own voice and it scared me a little.
I regretted the words as soon as I'd said them. I was implying something he'd never hinted at, maybe something he could even take offense to. Insult some part of him that prided in independence, even in the worst of conditions.
He chuckled lowly. I relaxed, and decided speaking without thinking didn't matter so much, at least with Joe Liebgott.
2. Beautiful
There was something undeniably wrong with how I was smiling. I could feel it twisted on my face, and I didn't like it, but I couldn't stop.
The red was slowly being swallowed up by the white. I watched and I wondered if this was it; maybe I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted more to give, but I wasn't sure if I could.
It was one good thing about Bastogne about this time of year, I thought. The snow was everywhere. It covered up everything. Nothing was left untouched by it. Sometimes I thought it was beautiful, but mostly it was just blinding. The darker we became, the easier it was to see. We adapted.
There was the blood of our fallen brothers, what we could see before the snow hid it, and that didn't matter, because we all saw it even after it went away; even after it was able to blend into everything else.
"What are you looking at, Doc?"
I immediately recognized the voice, but not the slight breathlessness to it. It sounded like he'd been running. I couldn't bring myself to look at him just yet. I straightened my posture and closed my eyes for a brief moment, trying to lighten the sudden heaviness in my chest.
I cleared my throat. I needed my voice back.
"Nothing. I just..."
And then I did look at him, couldn't stop staring at the wind-blown hair flecked with gleaming snowflakes, how dry and cracked his lips were, and his cheeks flushed from the cold, and then...eyes, alert and terribly invasive. He didn't look as rough as I was used to.
I couldn't be sure why it all stood out to me today.
"...needed a breather." I forced myself to continue.
He had an expectant expression, like he wanted me to keep going. But I didn't have anything else. I could tell him what I thought, what I'd been thinking about the red dying with the white and how sometimes, it was really beautiful, but it was just so ugly right now, and it made me really sick inside.
But I couldn't say that. I wouldn't. I knew well enough that none of it made the slightest bit of sense. He would think that I couldn't stand it anymore, that I wasn't meant for this...and while I wasn't, he wasn't, either. I didn't think anyone was.
I could explain that to him, I thought, but it would just be a lot less complicated if I didn't have to. I was getting tired of thinking, anyway.
Besides, it was important to me that he didn't think I was losing myself. Maybe I was. But it mattered that he didn't know.
He didn't say anything else.
He stepped closer. The crunching of the half-frozen snow under his boots sounded strangely loud to me, but I ignored it, distracted by how level his fearless gaze was with mine. That is, until he broke it to stare at the red-and-white, how it was not at all beautiful in its chaos, how it did not matter who the red belonged to.
I think that's when he understood.
3. Color
I hoped it wouldn't get any colder. My muscles ached from the constant shivering and the strain of that day, and at that moment, there was nothing higher on my list of priorities than to get warm.
Finding a pair of scissors even ranked below that.
Shifting closer to the taut body against mine, I wondered if there was even a point in trying to conserve body heat if there was no body heat to conserve.
"You asleep yet, Joe?" I whispered, my voice faint with exhaustion. I'd planned on leaving when he did finally nod off, because I really wasn't supposed to be here, anyway.
After a few moments of unbroken silence, I figured he was. There was something weighing heavy in my bones and it kept me from wanting to move or get up. I didn't like the feeling.
Suddenly, I jolted, hearing him croak lazily against my shoulder,
"Uh-huh."
His voice sounded gravelly; tired, and instinctively, I found myself twisting around to see if his face matched it. I'd expected it would, but...it didn't. Maybe it was the lighting, or the way the patchy fog obscured my vision, but I thought I saw him the softest I ever had.
His eyes were half-closed and he looked tired, but I had a dark feeling that he wouldn't be falling asleep any time soon.
He smiled lazily, but there wasn't much behind it.
"How long are you gonna stay here, Doc?"
I'd heard it before, I suddenly realized. But it wasn't his repetition. It was mine, coming here when I shouldn't, staying longer than I should.
My answer, this time, would change.
"Until you fall asleep." I told him, not sure if I should or not. My chest felt tight.
I saw his eyes widen, just slightly, and then go back to normal when he gained control again. He obscured too much. But I wasn't frustrated—just a little disappointed. I always wanted to see more.
"Now I'm feeling pressured. I can't fall asleep if I'm pressured." he said laughingly, but it sounded rehearsed. Still, I appreciated it.
I decided to play along, for his sake more than mine.
"I'm sorry. Do you want me to leave?"
I tried grinning, but it was difficult when his expression suddenly fell to be so serious. I wasn't sure what prompted it, and a small part of me began to panic when he didn't say anything.
A fleeting thought came to me, about how Liebgott's shivering seemed really contagious, or maybe it was the other way around—maybe it was me.
He spoke, finally, just loud enough to be heard.
"No,"
I felt every nerve in my body, I thought, and then wondered again about the red and white, about the snowflakes gleaming in his hair and his dry lips in a belated surge of nostalgia. And then I couldn't focus on anything but the racing of my heartbeat.
He gnawed on his lip for a moment before he spoke again, but it was okay. That's how long it took for me to think about it.
"I mean, I'll freeze if you do..." leave me.
I wouldn't.
I saw the moon stain everything through the fog with black and white, the guns with red and white, and Joe with everything.
4. Headcase
"Let me," he would plead. His eyes shone brilliantly in my dreams, always, and it seemed that reality was catching up with that.
"Let me, please..."
His cheeks would be flushed, not from the cold this time, and his skin and lips gleamed with sweat and saliva and everything of us.
I would be left wondering how the images seemed to hug my brain even in waking, and what it meant if I began looking for those traits that my depraved mind conjured up in the real thing. Because I did. I was looking, seeing if any part of him could allude to what my snatches of sleep had been granted.
Gradually, I did find things. It was fuel for my unconscious. I felt flushed with shame, and the part that visited me nightly was angry to be hidden, but what else could I do? I liked it too much, liked the feeling of my blood pulsing so hotly, so satisfying, when everything else felt so frigid. I loved it. I thrived on it.
There were times it shouldn't have happened, though. But it did whenever it could. Drifting off for a few moments brought my relief. My flesh remembered things it had no way of remembering. There was nothing to remember. But there was always so much more during sleep. I didn't understand it.
Some days, I feared he knew. The imprint etched in my mind and the phantom feeling of calloused fingertips dotting an uneven trail up my neck felt too real to have never existed.
But I knew better.
5. Empathy
It was the basis of our connection. Without it, not a word exchanged would mean anything; and a gaze would be just that—nothing to look deeper into. But that's not what it was. I started thinking maybe everything having to do with Joseph Liebgott meant more than what it seemed to. Not because of excessive paranoia on my part, but because of the expert I was becoming on his subtleties. Expressions; breathing patters when I was close enough to memorize and predict; what it all did to open up his head for me.
He wasn't exactly transparent—far from it; I was just becoming more focused.
I disturbed myself. My fixations were being shifted to something dangerous and I felt helpless to stop it. Sometimes it seemed like I was desecrating him, though he had no idea, and I was pretty sure that was mostly just me getting to myself. But I couldn't help but wonder how much truth there was in my worrying.
It was growing every day. It scared me.
There were ways I could escape from it. While I rested against him, wishing again for more warmth, I could occupy my thoughts of hours earlier. My hands still felt sticky. My ears continued to ring.
"Medic! Medic! O-Over here! Medic!"
And my mind was still swimming.
"Oh, Christ, Doc. Fix me."
But I didn't have the right hands.
I felt the desperation; the urgency and commands firing in my brain to undo the damage and take away the sting. I wanted to be deaf to it. I needed quiet. I needed everything to be still for just a few moments. And then I could stop thinking.
My breathing halted for a nervous second. There was a ragged whisper; uneasy, and the breath was warming the shell of my ear.
"Calm down. You're makin' me nervous."
I shivered, feeling him too personally. Just right. God...
What was I doing?
I felt something brush my cheek. Fingertips. A split second. Warm, calloused, my mind supplied immediately. My thoughts slowed, and I fleetingly, I decided maybe that was his intention.
He felt tense. I wanted to fix it. I tried to forget all of today for him.
If I couldn't even out my breathing, I thought he would probably still appreciate the effort.
6. Fog
It only thickened. It was relentless, and sometimes, almost...suffocating. But that was only sometimes. I felt I could breathe better through snatches of frigid air.
He broke away for just a moment.
I heard my name spill from his pinkish lips.
"Eugene..."
His tone was bewildered, but his eyes asked no questions. If they had, I knew it would have been justified. I'd instigated it with an impulsive tilt of my head; the reckless fluttering of my hands, one at his shoulder and the other at his hip. Now, my fingers twitched with anxiety and longing.
I licked my lips nervously, and instantly regretted it at the sight of his widening eyes.
An apology was brimming behind my lips, but I thought it would be too loud for the silence thickening the air.
All I could think of was how his visible breath looked, and how he appeared against the backdrop of the awakening sky, how none of it was for me, no matter how deeply it all dominated my thoughts. I would have changed it long ago if I could have. But, now...I wonder...
I closed my eyes for a brief moment, still seeing his apprehensive gaze in my mind, and...he was upon me. I couldn't detect an ounce of aggression, which was strange because it was him. I was paralyzed with cold shock and a tinge of fear even though my blood still pumped warmly within me, as he tried to feel and hear that with lightly wet lips at my jugular and desperate fingers gripping my wrist, still firmly palming his hip. He made no move to give my hand back to me. I thought it was strange, and it thrilled me.
He was breathing harshly against me. Through the onslaught of sensations, the delightful awakening of dead flesh, I heard myself hum deeply for a small moment. And I didn't care who else was awake at this hour, so early, so new, though the sun never greeted it. I didn't care. The blanket of fog, this morning, didn't feel oppressive. It hid us. It protected us.
My head fell back as his hands explored—my face now. His fingers were rough, but his touch was gentle, and I loved all of it more than I ever thought I could. An utterance of my name could be heard again, barely permeating the thick fog that felt like cotton in my ears; my half-mast eyes; my searching mouth.
He leaned forward with a brightening face, and those the pinkish lips, and hushed me. It was all quiet for a moment. If I listened closely enough, I could hear the falling of snowflakes. At least, I thought I could.
He shifted, pushing against me—almost firm—and I felt his lips part against mine. My hands were quaking; my heart was racing, as a harsh breath of air escaped my mouth into his. I didn't mean for it to be like that. I was flustered and nervous and I didn't...I didn't know what to do.
Just then, I realized I probably should have thought this out before I decided to commit to doing it. But it was an impulse. My thoughts were cluttered with too much. I wanted too much. I never thought he would give it to me.
I wondered if he felt the same palpating throughout his extremities, the same enlivening of death like I did, the same aching nervous excitement.
I hoped he did.
We held that way for some charged moments, until he meshed us together, even deeper. Unintentionally, I had given him the lead. I suppose it was okay that way. I started it. It was only fitting that he finish it.
I felt myself relaxing as he did. I began to grow aware through the thick headiness of my brain of a couple things. First, the warmth permeating between us that somehow came to be—a miracle in Bastogne's winter. I couldn't liken it to anything else, and I didn't want to. It was inexplicable relief. I think he felt it, too, by the way he was softening under my hands, and then there was the occasional slow sigh through his nose. He leaned into me.
And then, second, was the strange sensation of my bottom lip being drawn between both of his. Dimly, I realized what he was doing, but it didn't register as boldly as it should have. What I knew is that it felt nice. Fantasies of it happening again and again swam in the forefront of my mind. It really was all that comprised of right then, for me...for him.
He began to draw away to breathe, slowly enough so that it didn't alarm either of us. His feverish-feeling cheek rested against my neck, and he made no sound. He hadn't stopped touching me. I still wasn't sure what to think, but the moist spot on the bottom of my lip was getting dried by the crisp breeze, so I decided to think about that.
I was still touching him when he lifted his head to look at me. My hand was still on his hip, clutching the rough fabric of his trousers, and his hand was still on mine. I didn't want to slip through his fingers.
I wasn't sure if this was supposed to make it any easier or harder to finally look at him.
Easier?
I decided not to move, just in case.
When he looked at me, I could tell it took all he had. He was weary. Unsure, I could see. Maybe it was just very easy for me to see this because it was what I was feeling; or maybe it was because I saw too much when it came to Joe Liebgott, even when I wasn't looking. Either way, his disposition was unsettling.
I wondered if I regretted it. Decided I didn't. It had happened, and I'd liked it, and there was no way to undo it, anyway. Right and wrong never seemed as relative and blurred as they did right then.
I didn't want to have to deal with the questions I knew I'd be asking myself, like why him, and why start this here?
Looking at him, I knew he wanted those questions answered, too. He wanted to ask them. And I wanted to answer them. But I couldn't. I didn't know why it was this way, how it turned into this; it just did.
It had been a quick encounter, just a brief unification, but it felt heavier. He knew it, too. His breathing was shallow. His eyes were level, but I had a hard time focusing.
All I could see was his breathing, exhaling, clouding and then just disappearing in front of his face.
"Christ," he breathed quietly. He looked captivated and he sounded scared.
Everything seemed to linger—all of it. I felt it on him. I wonder if he felt it on me, too.
7. Faith
I prayed when I could. I didn't always use words, because it was never really necessary. But saying the words...that was something I did every time I could, too. I liked hearing it. I liked how real it felt and sounded whenever I opened my mouth for to plead for the help I'd hoped was coming.
I did not pray to God. I just prayed. I prayed, and I hoped someone was listening, even if nothing could be done about taking the pain and hate away. I just wanted to be heard.
Through the barrage of artillery, somewhere beyond the exploding trees and the fire, I heard other men pray. I saw them clutch their crucifixes tighter than they'd ever held their guns, and I saw them whisper and plead urgently while their eyes followed everything.
Sometimes I would lie, tell them I could fix it even though I knew I couldn't, even though I knew the bleeding was too heavy—and I hated how it was etched in my mind, the dirt caked to their stained cheeks, the blood gushing to a dribble, dirtying their pores and teeth and long gone smiles. And I would pray with them, even if they couldn't say the words...
Because it was never really necessary.
It had all ended by now. I still chanted in my head all I could think of, all I could hope for.
Everything had settled as best it could. I wandered from man to man, offering help when I could and how I could. I had next to nothing. How could I heal with nothing?
I sensed his eyes on me long before I approached him. And as I did, walking toward his hunched form at the edge of his foxhole, I couldn't stop thinking about all that I'd told myself I wouldn't. I couldn't be thinking that, no, when he was looking at me that way, when I couldn't tell what he was thinking.
I tried to focus on the blood and snow I knew must be filling the grooves of my boot's soles as I walked. I tried to remember my grandma's healing touch, and then I realized I wanted it more than I ever had right then.
I stood over him. Swallowed. Met his wide-eyed gaze bravely.
"Are you hurt?" I asked quietly, internally relaxing when I couldn't see that he was. He looked frighteningly pale, but his eyes shone brilliantly under the partial shroud of his helmet.
His mouth morphed into a tight grin. I didn't like it very much—rather, I preferred his softer smiles, but I knew it really shouldn't bother me.
"Nah," he murmured. "I'm fine, Doc."
It was starting to sound like my name.
"Will you sit with me?" he asked, grin no longer in place.
Suddenly, I couldn't stand thinking of the dirt and grime and death that lingered on the soles of my boots. I hated it.
His expression was unreadable. I hated how evasive he was being.
There was a draw to him I felt...and it pulled the breathless words from my mouth.
"Okay, yes."
I lowered myself to the ground awkwardly. I was glad to be sitting down because my joints felt so unstable. I wasn't sure if it was the constant strain or...or something else, maybe with the way Joe was looking at me with an odd sort of weak relief.
As my knee brushed his, the words broke from him.
"What do you think..." he breathed, staring at me with a scary kind of seriousness. "...What do you think they think about? The krauts, I mean..."
I was rendered speechless. I didn't know what he expected me to say. I wanted to answer, though. I had to. This didn't seem irrelevant to him.
His eyes fluttered shut, and I noticed his words growing faint. I wondered why, desperately, and carried on in almost a whisper,
"When they're not fighting. When we're not fighting."
"I...I don't know." I murmured, my eyebrows furrowing. "Maybe the same things we think about, like when they're going home, or...or when the fog's gonna lift."
Unthinkingly, I'd created a parallel between us and them. The words left me; I'd done nothing to filter myself. I wondered if he would get angry at that, protest that they were nothing like us, because...well, if they were, why were we fighting in the first place? What were we doing here?
I tried to stop thinking so much when I finally saw his soft smile, very slight, but unyielding. It was the one I liked. That one.
"Yeah, maybe. The ones that are here because they want to be, at least. Not because they have to be."
He murmured the string of words, just like that. And it echoed in my head, his tone, the perfect syllables and the sound of exhaustion and relief, the whispered way he said it and meant it all.
I thought it probably wasn't a very good thing that I couldn't focus on the words nearly as well as I could his voice
I shivered, and I couldn't keep from smiling to myself.
I didn't stop to over-think what I was feeling as his sleepless eyes opened back up and peered into mine. He was fixated. I thought of what he might think if he knew how irrepressibly happy I was beginning to feel. I wasn't quite sure why.
This felt fine with him, and we were drunk on death and too happy to forget it for a second. And that's all that mattered to me, even if we were praying to a god I wasn't sure I could ever know, and even if we were hoping this was all there was and ever would be for us.
8. Hero
If you asked any of us if we were, we'd say no. It wasn't a matter of humility. I saw the reason why at every moment a soldier hesitated pulling the trigger on an easy target, or when we acted like there was a substantial difference between German casualties and American casualties.
Gradually, we began to realize that there wasn't.
No amount of propaganda or brainwashing or government interference could change the fact that we were fighting against our brothers. And then we weren't really fighting for freedom; we were killing for it.
I wasn't, at least. I just patched things up, even though I knew it would break again later. But I figured I was lucky. I wasn't expected to kill anyone. The red cross strapped to my upper arm read my new name, and I wore it with a sense of twisted relief.
I just fixed people or let them go if I couldn't. It seemed simple, but it really wasn't, not ever. But then there was Joe Liebgott. And he was at the other side of the spectrum. I didn't think the gun fit with him well. His hands knew what to do, but his mind was almost unwilling. I thought maybe he had it worse than most of us because of that.
It wasn't a fault. It most certainly wasn't, not if he used that hesitation as a companion for inherent human compassion. But that was not something that was very valued here.
So I hated watching him during combat. Not that I was supposed to, but it was okay if I was just looking for blood and broken skin. And I was.
I was able to look up close when he let me, and he always did.
It was usually hard to see very well in the dark, but the stars were bright tonight. Tomorrow would show a break in the fog; I knew it, and then, finally, we could all get what we needed. Supplies. Help.
I stared at his hand, and it almost made me feel it more on the outside of my thigh where he held it. I felt my eyes beginning to flutter closed, but I fought against it. I wanted to keep watching, to keep seeing what I could of him.
I had a fleeting thought—a wish, really, that I could feel this on my bare skin. I jolted and gnashed my teeth together, and I wasn't sure if it was out of astonishment toward myself for thinking that, or if it was the feeling of his nose brushing my collarbone as he whispered something against my skin I couldn't quite make out.
My nerves felt inflamed. My core was intensely warmed, so strange for Bastogne this time of year, I knew.
I felt his jaw tighten as I touched it. I wasn't really sure what it meant, but he was letting me touch him; he was letting me, so I wouldn't stop. Not yet.
His skin felt so smooth under my palm. When I wondered where he got the time to shave diligently everyday, I felt myself smile.
I was fascinated by the feel of him—the heat of his neck, and on my own, his mouth faltered as I touched him there. Lips twitched against my skin. He groaned quietly, and that's when I decided I really didn't want to go without this if I didn't have to. Or...even if I had to.
The revelation scared me more than I let on, and if he noticed—and I think he did, by the way he slowed down until we simply stayed so still—he chose not to comment on it that night.
Neither of us would know what to say, anyway.
9. Immune
I saw a lot of me in her. There was a partial unwillingness to do that job—a dirty, lifeless job. And it wasn't because we didn't want to help people. It wasn't that at all. It was being there when another man slips away, but not before he tries to get his last words in. But he can't speak through the blood in his mouth.
Some had glassy eyes even as their hearts continued to sputter and pulse sporadically. That was easy. Some stayed alert and all there until the very last choked moment. And that was the worst part, looking up briefly as our hands worked together, and we knew, Renée and I. Every time. It was either save me or let me go.
Later, we would try not to talk about it and sit outside when everyone was either securely dead or alive.
She offered me chocolat, and when I went to grab it more out of habit than actually wanting some, I could see nothing anymore but her hands. I could see how the blood filled the crescents of her broken nails, that she hadn't washed her hands at all and had let the red grow dried and stickied on her skin.
She had brought the death and violence with her. She was holding the chocolate with it.
"You didn't..." I started quietly; awkwardly. I looked away from her hands and looked at her. She was quiet, staring at me unblinkingly like she suddenly couldn't understand English.
Maybe it didn't matter. I had just felt the last heartbeat of the man whose blood her hands were covered with.
It didn't change a damn thing about the chocolate.
I accepted what was left of it; she was still eating her share, and I murmured a thank you I'm not sure she heard.
It did taste the same as it always had, and as it always would. It was the same bitter-sweetness that came with cocoa; and the milky texture. I tasted it, forgot to enjoy it when we started talking about the emptiness of what we did. Somehow, I couldn't feel it today.
She was a distraction. She was a lot of what Liebgott wasn't, because a part of her was immune. I believed she didn't take the loss of life with her, even when I looked at her hands. But he always did. He brought all of it with him. It worried me when he stayed up, staring at the falling snow and me sometimes, like it's all he was thinking about. I knew it wasn't.
I wasn't sure what was better; breaking down in the middle of a crisis when you can't do anything about it, or breaking down after a crisis, when you still can't do anything about it.
I could never figure it out for the life of me.
10. Ink
"He looked exactly like my grandfather," he breathed, eyes searching mine almost possessively. "I mean, a younger version of him. Like if I'd known him when he was that age or something."
The rest of his words were rushed and they almost broke, but his gaze didn't. I had to force myself not to flinch under the weight of it.
He leaned against a tree; the one next to it was blown to shreds, inky black and splintered. My blood was still pumping. Rushing. He looked flushed, too.
"I...I looked in his pockets. I looked in those. There was a piece of paper, and I tried to read it, but the ink was so smudged, I couldn't really make out much, you know?"
I nodded a little, not sure what else to do. And then I took a full step and a half closer to him and reached for his reddened nose and cheeks flushed from the cold. I forgot about everyone else, decided it didn't matter whether or not there was someone around right now to draw those unthinkable conclusions.
He looked wild, and I swear, I almost heard his pulse fluttering.
"I don't know...why. I mean, I didn't know him. I guess I couldn't see much of him, anyway..."
I saw him trying to bring himself out of it in the narrowing of his eyes and the helplessness of his features. I tried not to move. He leaned into my palm, just a little, and did not stop seeing me. I kept him here.
I wasn't sure what he expected to find stuffed in a dead German soldier's pocket. I guess he didn't, either.
"I didn't kill him." he whispered harshly at last, like I'd accused him of it. I hadn't, not even in my mind.
I really didn't know what to do with him except to fervently assure him that, "I know; I know,"
I didn't know what else to say or how to act. I wanted to do something right for him, something perfect that would blur everything else except for this, right now. I wanted to look at his fingers to see ink instead of blood.
His eyes softened just slightly as the snow not caught from the trees continued to fall, and I held on.
11. Kraut
It was dehumanizing. Some of us were so far into it that we couldn't see beyond the disgusting word. Those men especially made the best soldiers.
But then there were an unlucky few that clung to the notion of humanity. They saw that void on this earth we all filled by being human. Joe Liebgott saw it, and he fought against it. But it was engrained. I knew it caused him a great deal of pain when he had to go against that to serve his country—that was according to the government, anyway. I lost sight of it out here.
But it still remained...I was grateful for how feeling he was. I thought perhaps if he could drop to the darkest edge of anguish by being here, he could reach the other side of the spectrum of insurmountable happiness, maybe. I liked to believe that.
If I didn't, I would fall, too.
I would think of that when he would growl in a voice that wasn't really his, "...We'll get those fuckin' Krauts. We will. Real soon, I know."
Then what? I wanted to ask. What will we do after this is over?
I remained quiet and listened to him ramble on. Gradually, I heard his tone soften with each word he said. Even kraut.
The next morning, when I stood below the break in the clouds and glared up at the patch of blue that didn't match the red and white that I was used to, I stopped thinking about that all for a few moments.
Then, it was just him.
12. Remember
I thought there was nothing beautiful in the way he broke. But I couldn't stop watching it happen. I imagined I could feel it with him—it was empathy. I could feel the jagged embrace of an oncoming migraine, or the seizing of my heart when I awoke from rare sleep with a start, and I thought he could, too.
Those times, he just looked at me, eyes gleaming with insomnia or paranoia—I couldn't discern between the two anymore, and he reached for me when I couldn't move. Those nights, he would run his fingers down my palm and wrist, and sometimes even along the ridges of my knuckles, and he would tell me things like about how pretty the rain in San Bernardino was—when it did rain, that is, because of how washed out it made the city.
He always knew what to do, it seemed like. But I never did. I would stare at him, shaking from the cold and the awful sensation of what felt like my blood curdling in my veins, and I would try to think of what to say.
I was quiet.
I stared at him just to see his breath crystallize when he exhaled.
I wanted to ask if he'd dreamt. And if he had, what had it been about; was it about San Bernardino and the clumps of hair littering the ground from the proud older men at his grandfather's barbershop? Was it about the rain, when it did rain?
I hoped it was.
He looked distant enough to have been there, but empty enough to always be here.
I noticed my thoughts returning to what he'd told me about that scrap of paper he'd found in that long-gone man's pocket. My brain leeched off of itself. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Maybe it was a letter, I theorized. Who was it for? A mother? A friend? Maybe a lover?
I imagined it had to be for someone he loved. What do people send back to their loved ones? I miss you. I'm cold; I've seen way too much out here, but I'm okay. I love you.
Something like that, maybe.
And then I remembered that this man was dead. But then I thought maybe the letter was for him, then. How beautiful must it have been to die with that, I wonder? To keep it in his pocket, close to his hardened heart, while his blood smudged the ink as it all happened as he imagined it would when he'd first enlisted.
That was when I decided I would write my own letter.
It was in my pocket, and I always wore it.
You will let me be forgotten. But please, God, don't ever let me forget.
13. Necessary
Their voices were beautiful. The choir echoed within my head, even as he gathered me up; as his hips brushed against mine. I felt myself cringe a little, and then smile.
I refused to acknowledge the bitter irony of this.
I stared through hazed eyes at the bottles of communion wine. The glass shined from what filtered through the window behind its own glass; the nighttime. The shiny perfect labels were in a language I didn't understand. Some I did. There was some French in cursive gold, German in silver, flowing on the label, and something I didn't recognize in red.
I looked at him, saw that his lips were parted, and he didn't speak. Not English, not German. He never spoke German, not unless he was translating. But when he did, I never understood why anyone thought it was such a harsh language.
I wondered what he thought when I spoke French, whether or not he thought the words were sharp when I cursed under my breath like they were supposed to be. I wondered if he liked it or if it bothered him because he didn't know what I was saying, or maybe he just didn't think about it at all. But that didn't seem like him.
I liked the rush of words being whispered against my chest. I couldn't hear most of them very well, but I caught please and good god among them as he gripped my hips in trembling hands and pulled us flush and breathless against each other. My skin was heated, and my heart was beating so fast, it felt like my body was throbbing, and I waited. I needed it.
Tonight, when I looked at him, I didn't even try to stop myself. We were bare, because for the first time, we could be. It was warm, we were stowaways in the convent's small winery even though we should be sleeping like the rest of Easy Company in the rooms we were given, but we didn't. We weren't. Maybe we were being overly hedonistic. But who could blame us, really? I wanted something to keep with me when this was all over.
So I stared. I looked as long as I could, and I saw him up close as he squirmed closer and shivered; as he pulled our heat and excitement together and groaned hoarsely while I thought of lacquered wine bottles and languages and the bliss roughly attacking my deprived body.
There wasn't a single clinging sense of doubt or uncertainty anymore. I knew what this was. And I knew it was what I wanted to be, and what...he wanted it to be. That was the most astonishing part of this. When I looked at him, I saw his dilated eyes, sincere and serious, if nothing else. His lips were flushed in a deep color that reminded me of the wine—pristine and rich inside its glass. I still felt his mouth everywhere he'd pressed it to me, against my jaw, my cheek, my temple, and rushed and warm on my chest.
My body felt tight and warm. It was such a beautiful contrast from the cold of Bastogne that seemed to freeze the marrow in my bones. And now I felt how the warmth became a part of me.
It excited me when his fingers brushed against my chest and neck like they were, and I think he knew it by the way his breath caught every time I shuddered. I liked how warm his palms felt against my chest and the slight way the sinewy muscles of his thighs tensed when I shifted on his lap, just to feel the friction of our skin. This rapture had been stirring within me long before now. All of me wanted it. This was something neither of us had to fight for, even though we were willing.
He was slow, like he was asking me if it was still supposed to happen this way. As if I knew any better than he did. I didn't, but I did love this much more than what was good for me. And when I felt him pushing inside when we aligned ourselves just right, asking in a low whisper through parted lips if that was okay, and I answered yes, because I meant it and I wanted to see him beam like he did. There was nothing I had ever been more happy or anxiously overwhelmed with in my entire life.
There was a striking ache that I did feel, but it wasn't as painful as it was uncomfortable. I wasn't used to the feeling. I wasn't used to any of it, but I was sure I wanted to be.
I could see that his eyes were intently following every expression I made; every twitch or spasm of one of my muscles as he moved within me in a way that made my thoughts of war and communion wine drain away like nothing.
I would not worry about returning to the cold. I would not think about leaving this perfect isolationism to go back to being among the sick and bleeding and pleading.
I would think about this, his half-lidded, though still alert eyes, and how it felt to be watched like that; I would think about the hypersensitivity, and I would think about his voice peaking through his choppy breathing as we both left everything for awhile.
I would think about it when I could.
Because it was necessary.
...Grant that I may not so much seek as to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
- Prayer of Saint Francis