The Warmth of Dead Men
November 1941, London
...
There was a whisper in the air, hovering over the silence. The city lay still as though listening and waiting. As silence always painted this city and her slaughterhouse history, this unwonted silence also hung like gentle crepe, crinkling softly as the city purred in her sleep. Her people were restless, worrisome, and troubled. The end of the world—they whispered, they worried—was waiting, lurking around the corner.
And god be damned if this man simply sat there, watching the tendrils of smoke curl about his face as the city likewise went up in flames. He could nearly imagine it from where he was perched by the window, above the city lying in anticipation. There was a faint, orange glow over one of the buildings—the reflection on the thick glass of the smoldering fag's tip. The man before the window blearily watched a trail of smoke drift from the small light to a pair of sunken of eyes.
Green eyes, accented by dark crescents, bore into his, and on this dark, dark night late in November, Arthur felt a cold seep into the room. It was a cold that sank deep into his skin, creaking into his bones, hardening the marrow into iron, weighing his body down with the whispering words of London. Hope had been dragged into the underground shelters with the rest of the war-torn townspeople.
The padding of footsteps was quiet behind him, as though each footfall feared the floor might break. Arthur remained motionless, the fag dangling from his lips.
"Arthur?" A pair of hands rested on his shoulders, rubbed them a little. "You have sat here for hours. Do you ever plan to sleep again?"
Arthur snorted and said nothing in response to the man, but when he saw a pair of dark blue eyes peering over his head in their shared reflection, he hooked a couple fingers with one of the other man's hand. Even when the small touch scorched his freezing skin, Arthur could not pull away.
"Sleep is only a form of escape." He took another long drag and held it in his lungs for a few seconds before exhaling. "The world might end if I slept."
"In that short of a time?" The standing man snatched the fag from Arthur and sucked a long breath of smoke from it.
"Francis," Arthur whispered, his voice trailing.
"Hn?"
Pressing his nose against Arthur's hair, Francis placed the dying fag back into the smaller man's waiting fingers.
"You," Arthur murmured, unable to look at the Frenchman; "Of all people, you should know what can happen in such short lengths of time."
Francis sighed above him. Arthur saw him close his eyes as he always did to collect his thoughts. Nevertheless, he placed a small kiss in the crook of Arthur's neck.
"Yes, yes, I know. Six weeks."
"Francis—"
"God, don't start—"
"Six weeks could have been England!"
"I said, don't start!"
Arthur shook the hands off of him as he stood to his feet, the fag abandoned and crushed into a charcoal stain on the wood floor. His green eyes flared as he practically snarled at the other man.
"You know how fast the Nazis are advancing! Were England part of the mainland, there would be no England, goddammit!"
Francis held a curled palm up against his chest in slight defense, but he said nothing, just quietly watched Arthur throw his tantrum.
"Being an island only makes it inconvenient for them. But look at the rest of Europe!" Arthur made a large sweeping motion with his hands. "Farms destroyed, civilians running for refuge, every goddamn street a goddamn battlefield!"
"Arthur, calm down!"
Arms in a firm yet gentle grip held Arthur bound in a tight embrace until the smaller man stopped struggling, all the while clawing and cursing at his captor. He finally slumped against Francis, his breathing haggard and tremulous. His fingers lessened their deathlike grip on the taller man's shirt, and his arms slid around Francis's middle. Clinging desperately to whatever warmth he could find, Arthur could not stop shaking as tremor after tremor shuddered through his body. Francis had also slackened his grip and had started to rub Arthur's back in gentle, soothing motions. His hand sank into the Briton's thick hair as he tugged Arthur's face to his so that they were face-to-face, forehead pressed to forehead.
Blue eyes caught green eyes in a stare both detached and penetrating.
"It...really is the end of the world, then?" Arthur whispered softly, breaking the eye contact briefly.
Feather-light touches traced the outline of Arthur's jaw.
"I wouldn't know, bonbon."
Lips fell onto Arthur's in a chaste kiss, and the man sighed into it as he relaxed in his lover's arms. Nerves jolted down his legs as a hand slid down his side and lazily caressed his thigh. There was a buzz in the air, and Arthur kept wondering if the noise was his imagination or if the sirens were blaring over the city again. It was too much to think about in a time when thinking took too much effort. As Francis gently led him away from the window, all Arthur knew was that he was shaking and shaking.
"Why are you so nonchalant about this?" Arthur heard himself say as the pair walked.
Francis paused to look at Arthur.
"I'm not nonchalant. I have simply accepted what is out of my hands," he said softly, squeezing the hand laced with his, "and what is in my hands."
When he was laid upon a soft surface and Francis leaned over him, Arthur sought for the words to say, but there were none in the darkness of his mind. It was simply too much to think about.
"I'm cold," came the words from his barely moving lips, as though he were drugged.
Francis kissed the man beneath him to silence him, and his hands nearly burned the cloth of Arthur's shirt as he fingered the buttons quietly and deftly—an action familiar to his warm hands. Arthur lay as still as he could as shivers racked his frame, feeling the hot fingers brushing against the skin of his collarbone, running a teasing trail down his chest, gently pinching at the darker flesh of his nipple, caressing the stretch of skin where his hipbone jutted from his side.
The next kiss searched the shape of Arthur's lips, a tongue slipping through them to taste and to discover how deeply the cold ran through Arthur. Light fled from Arthur's gaze as his eyes shuttered, and the world around him dissolved into a quiet hum—the white noise of a nighttime London. Hair, longer than his own, fell onto his cheeks and nose, tickling the skin with a teasing gentleness, but the fleeting touches left searing marks as he gasped for air. Clothes pooled behind him as a hand on his back lifted him, and Arthur found his face pressed against the older man's, the blindingly hot gaze drilling into his, deeper and deeper and deeper.
And there was the pressure of being invaded, fingers resting on his hips and on his legs. Touches sank into the crevices of his soul, searing his innermost parts with gentle fire. Arthur couldn't control his shaky whimpers as he felt the brush of skin upon skin. He wrapped his arms around the shoulders above him and moved with the other man, pressing his face against Francis and inhaling his scent. There was the soft odor of musk mixed with a touch of cinnamon and smoke that could only belong to Francis. And yet, he sighed against the warm skin upon his cheek, and closing his eyes, he desperately tried to not lose himself in the fire of the moment, in Francis's fire. His head fell back against the blankets beneath him as Francis moved quicker and quietly murmured sweet words that Arthur would never hear. The heat was nearly unbearable, picking away at ligaments and muscles, shooting through his body every time Francis pressed against him. The heat was simply too much. But it was Francis's heat and Arthur's chance to have what his lover gave to no other. A strange mixture of euphoria and nausea racked the smaller man's body at the thought, but he tried to tell himself that the small shared moment, a slip in time when the two could share in this hellish heat, was all he wanted. His hands clawed at the sheets as an arrow of pleasure grazed him, and his eyes flew open to stare with a dead gaze at the ceiling above him.
"Francis."
One word, spoken so softly and so gently, shattered the dream.
The heat slithered away all too fast, and all that Arthur could smell was the smoke and smoke and more smoke as though the very room had caught fire. He sighed through his nose, squirmed a little at the uncomfortable stickiness between his legs, and forced himself into a sitting position. A clock chimed the hour in the background, but he ignored it as he stumbled back to his window where his pack of fags lay abandoned. He grabbed one the sticks and lit it, and he glared angry holes into the window before him.
London was still standing as was Arthur; though the man found himself wishing that the city would go up into flames and take him with her.
"Six weeks," he muttered to himself, scratching at his cheek.
Perhaps he hoped for a response, but only silence met his ears as the cold floor chilled the soles of his feet. Maybe he saw a flash of pale hair or of blue eyes in the window, or maybe he caught of whiff of cinnamon floating in the air. But he blinked, and the apparition disappeared.
A name nearly slipped from the tip of his tongue as though this jaded man believed that he could summon the dream back, the painful warmth that helped him cling to some strange optimism and sanity. But the world would possibly end the next day or even the next minute.
The name fell from his mouth unspoken, as Arthur blew smoke against the glass of the window, against his reflection.
"The end of the world, huh?" he muttered bitterly to no one but himself. "God."
The room was too cold.
END
A/N: The "six weeks" refers to the approximate amount of time it took for the Germans to conquer France in WWII... And I don't have much else to say about this piece. I tried to write fluff, and it turned into angst...