Hey! So, this is my first fanfiction. Ever. Little bit nervous here. ;) I'm studying Regeneration for my AS English Literature, and I'm just captivated by the relationship between Owen and Sassoon. Been doing a lot of wider reading, (some examples for others should you be interested are Not About Heroes, Siegfried's Journey, Goodbye to All That, etc.) which has really helped. Unfortunately the transformational element of my coursework is only allowed to be 1,000 words -.- so I decided to branch off on my own and explore the VASTNESS of worldwide fanfiction! (:
It's taken me ages to work up the guts to post this for one reason or another, but here it is.
Hope you enjoy!
WARNING: Contains strong scenes of a sexual nature, homosexuality and strong language. Rated for a reason. SLASH CONTENT – if you don't like this, don't read this!
Disclaimer: I do not own 'Regeneration' or hold the copyright to anything of Pat Barker's creation. If I did, there would be a lot more Owen/Sassoon in it! The views and actions expressed and taken in this story are completely fictional, whether rooted in actual evidence or not.
Craiglockheart War Hospital, Edinburgh, November 1917
'When I'm asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm, -
They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead.
While the dim charging breakers of the storm
Bellow and drone and rumble overhead,
Out of the gloom they gather about my bed.
They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine.
"Why are you here with all your watches ended?
From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the line."
In bitter safety I awake, unfriended;
And while the dawn begins with slashing rain
I think of the Battalion in the mud.
"When are you going out to them again?
Are they not still your brothers through our blood?"
Sassoon lay huddled beneath his bed sheets as yet another lightning bolt cracked the already wounded sky above in half. The deep blue ink soaked into the parchment below his fingers and glared upwards, as if challenging him with the same question which he had just penned. The depressing clouds of a summer storm had descended upon Craiglockheart War Hospital in early evening. Now, at what Sassoon estimated to be a few hours after midnight, the knocking fists of rain were still pounded relentlessly at his window, depriving him of sleep and, perhaps most significantly, refuge.
His eyes followed the trickles of raindrops down the windowpane. The weather appeared to be demanding something from him, and Sassoon knew all too well what it was. The storm questioned why he was not outside withstanding the gale; or, rather, why he no longer was. 'Come out!' It seemed to beckon; 'You know you'll have to eventually.' Yes, agreed Sassoon silently, yes, but that wasn't the only literal sense of coming out which he knew he would have to face up to.
In his restlessness, he turned onto his back, reaching out a hand to fumble for a cigarette on the table. Owen...Sassoon had been trying to erase the image of the younger man's infectious smile from his mind's eye for the past four hours. They had gone out for a drink in the Conservative Club that evening - Sassoon's ears were still ringing with the laughter they had shared over two ciders each plus a weighty volume of Keats' finest poetry. Once midnight arrived, the two men had ordered a taxi back to Craiglockheart just in time for the hospital gates' closure. Am I the only one? Sassoon's heart leapt into his mouth for the millionth time that night. Or was it then it happened?
Relaying the next event only proved to awaken him further. Sassoon and Owen had stridden into the darkness of the main corridor, and, still full of raucous laughter, had proceeded to the front room, where a fire had still been blazing in the grate. All Sassoon could think about in the midst of their drunken haze was the swish of Owen's hair when laughter rocked his lithe body. His eyes were so bright and captivating; his manner, normally so soft and nervous, was self-confident through the alcohol to such an extent that the young man had teased and mocked him in just the same way Sassoon did to him on a daily basis. His gentleness was what Sassoon found most attractive about Owen, although he was sure a part of both of them had known that in a bid to forget their fears neither was the same man after a drink or two. Despite this, their laughter had inevitably soon faded as they once again became accustomed to the thick, dull atmosphere of their temporary home. An atmosphere which had led to Owen recounting his scarring encounter with an abandoned German dugout the previous March, and had caused frustrated tears to leak from the youth's eyes.
"I stayed there for three days. Three solid days with Barnbury's body in pieces around me. The worst part was thinking; nobody's coming. I will die here, alone and without a familiar face. I still think it was worse than death in some ways. It can't be that lonely over there, can it? That's what Ollie always used to say. Too many fellows gone already...sometimes we thought it was probably emptier there at the front line." At this point, Sassoon had taken note of the glistening rivers streaming down his friend's face.
"Why, Sass? Why?" was all Owen had been able to utter by the end of his reminisce, and this had been the moment, thought Sassoon bitterly, in which his own emotions had found it necessary for him to reach over and take Owen's hand in his own.
So obvious! He cursed himself silently in between drags for fear of waking Campbell in the bed next to him. If he could only have passed the action off as a handshake! If he had only not let it run away with him! He had managed it before, had he not?
But the damage had been done. Owen's soft eyes melting with his had been too much for the deep, long-buried knowledge in the recesses of Sassoon's soul to bear. He had known all along that his feelings for Owen were likely to manifest themselves in some shape or form before one or both of them returned to France, but he would have given anything for it not to have culminated in this way.
And then Sassoon had retired to bed. Retired being an unsound word to use, thought Sassoon sorely as the rain pitter pattered continuously into his thoughts. No, the scene had occurred more similar to Sassoon hastily making his excuses for why he should leave the confused and even more scared Owen downstairs, and then being burned by the heat of Owen's eyes on his back as he had hurriedly climbed the stairs to his room. He dropped the cigarette butt onto the carpet, hoping it would not stain. Yes; Sassoon thought it fair to conclude that this really had ruined everything.
Their literary evenings and afternoons had been Sassoon's life support during his stay at the hospital. Admittedly, he enjoyed golf with Anderson every Sunday, but the point of the activity was more to stem the amount of time which he wanted to spend with Owen to a 'normal' amount so as to not arouse anybody's suspicion, most of all Owen's. Especially from Rivers. Sassoon was sure that his psychiatric doctor knew exactly whichof his personal details 'disqualified him from military service', but uncharacteristically of Rivers, he had never probed further into the matter, something which had always surprised Sassoon. The doctor seemed to enjoy probing into everything other aspect of Sassoon's personal life, if it could even be named taking into account the current state of affairs.
Owen's shocked and confused face continued to linger behind his closed eyelids. There had been others before, certainly, but not this...it was like Owen had always been the one. When the shy, stuttering amateur poet had first inched his way into his quarters on that afternoon in late October, Sassoon had known it was him and...no other. He hadn't meant to come across as so arrogant to the poor boy – when he thought about it deeply enough, Sassoon could comprehend that he was used to being in control. His feigned superiority was a falsehood; Sassoon needed it in order to resist the younger man's dark complexion, the quick scribble his long artistic fingers produced on blotting paper and the unsure mannerisms he displayed whenever they were together. His suggestion of Owen bringing his own poems to Sassoon had merely been an excuse for him to be able to see into those melancholy blue sapphires once more, but fate had lead it to be more than that. Poetry had tied these two men together in a way in which nothing else could. Wilfred had the ability to live and breathe in the art of literary, and by watching him swiftly improve over the last two months Sassoon had seen the poetic horizons offered by the war extend far beyond what he ever had thought possible for men to achieve. It was quite simple, really. Owen could explain suffering.
Now those days would be no more, thought Sassoon in utter devastation, catching a tear which had escaped from his eye with his sleeve, and his mornings of solitude would merge into afternoons and evenings too. Those mornings where he would tell Owen he was writing, working on something major perhaps; yet when he sat down to write, Sassoon was only able to pen sentences that read together formed a painting of the one person who society told him he could never have, howbeit he was falling in love with.
The knock of a tree branch hitting the roof resounded throughout the room. Sassoon allowed his tired eyelids to droop shut. So much for mental healing through sleep, as Rivers kept telling him. The knocking came again, softer this time. If he was lucky, then perhaps the rhythm would lull him into unconsciousness. Unconsciousness was just what he needed...to forget the pain, both of Owen and of what lurked deeper...
The knocking was too precise to be a tree. Sassoon's eyes shot open, yet as he moved to lift his tousled black hair from the pillow the door opened slightly, pouring a chink of light through the gap. What on earth? Swinging himself out from under his bed sheets, Sassoon grumbled as he stumbled towards the door in the darkness. It would be Rivers waiting, perhaps wanting help with a difficult nightmare victim, or perhaps Matron, demanding to know why the fresh linen she had deposited outside his bedroom door only yesterday had not yet been replaced by the old. This hospital was meant to be a place of rest and recuperation, and instead all he got was wary knowing looks – looks which screamed the word pacifist into his soul – and the added sorrow of mentally scarred officers. Wonderful.
The huge glassy blue eyes watching Sassoon from the doorway were neither that of Rivers nor Matron. Sassoon felt his mouth grow dry, a feeling of utter dread welling somewhere between his stomach and throat. Before him stood Owen, with his identically tousled black hair, face carved by angels and candle flickering in one shaking hand protruding from the cuff of his night shirt.
"Sass."
