A/N: Chapter four, here we come! We're nearing the end of Part 1 now. Thank you so much, reviewers/favoriters/alerters!
NECO NECO –Thank you :) don't worry, they don't kill each other. But maybe other people… woops spoilers ;) I actually could not tell that English wasn't your first language. You're so good at it!
Dreamcreator – sorry my PM's a little weird at the moment :/ isn't Erik always sexy? Hehe. I was thinking that some part of Charles's subconscious remembers what it was like to be paralysed, and so he thinks he can't feel his legs and that he's going to fall over, even when he's fine. Thanks for taking the time to review every chapter! I've got a lotta homework too :(
Lola Kristy – thank you :) I'm writing as fast as I can! There's this thing that gets in the way sometimes, it's called the real world. But I don't want to live there any more!
And now for chapter four.
Chapter Four
"Charles? Charles!"
Erik hurries after the retreating Englishman, stumbling over the shrapnel and bits of barbed wire sticking up out of the mud. Charles sure can move fast when he wants to. "Charles, come back! Where are you going?"
Charles stops abruptly and turns around to face Erik, chest heaving, fists clenched at his sides, stormy blue eyes bright with anger and unshed tears. When he speaks, his voice is strained, like the action physically hurts him.
"I'm going home."
"What?"
"I said, I'm going home. I don't want to stay here in this godforsaken field pretending to be friends any longer. I don't want to be a soldier. I don't want to kill people, I never wanted that."
"But you can't go, you'll be killed yourself!"
"I'd pick being shot for running away over shooting other people any day."
Erik is a bit alarmed by this outburst; from what he's seen of Charles over the last day, he's not the sort to get angry easily. He gingerly reaches out a hand to his companion's arm, but the latter flinches back like he's been burnt.
"Charles, calm down. Think about it. You can't go home, and I don't want to see you get shot."
"Don't you see? The truce is ending. We have to start killing each other again in two days' time."
"Yes, I know."
Charles flounders, searching for words to describe his anguish. "Then… why are you so calm? Aren't you angry?"
"Angry? No, I don't think so. Sad, yes, but not angry. What is the point in getting angry if you cannot change anything?"
"I…" All the rage and tension flows out of Charles's body with big huff of air. He sits down heavily in the mud, head in hands. Erik looks down at him for a moment, deliberating, then joins him on the ground. Right now there are less important things to worry about than a dirty uniform.
"Do you feel better?" he asks tentatively after a minute or so. Charles looks up at him and smiles weakly.
"Yes, much. Sorry about that, I was just so infuriated that they'd let it go on for that long and then end it so abruptly…" Only Charles would use a word like infuriated so nonchalantly. Yet another eccentricity that appears to pop into Erik's mind unprovoked.
"But it is not over yet," he points out, trying to inject a note of cheeriness into his voice.
"No, but it will be soon."
"Then should we not be enjoying the peaceful time we have left and not worrying about the future?"
Charles thinks for a moment before a bright smiles breaks like the dawn across his face. "I suppose we should."
The next forty-one hours pass impossibly slowly, but at the same time feel very short. Really, they are a repetition of the first seven hours of Christmas Day, though without the frivolity and carelessness that came with not knowing when their time together would come to a close. Erik and Charles sit on the two old tree stumps in the middle of the field, talking away about anything and everything that comes to mind: interests, home, family, past, future. They each find just how much you can discover about a person by conversation. They don't go back to the trenches at all, relying instead on their comrades to bring them food, which they do regularly and uncomplainingly. Erik draws with sticks of charcoal on scraps of paper, each one causing Charles's eyes to light up in joy. They play a game where one of them chooses a soldier from their side and the other has to guess who they are, where they come from, what they're like. Charles is surprisingly good at this, predicting Heinrich's personality with startling ease. Sufficed to say, Erik does not share this talent, eliciting many a laugh from his companion as he makes increasingly wild guesses, culminating in the statement that Jenkins is actually an undercover Nepalese conservationist trying desperately to stop the soldiers from stepping on a rare sacred flower. Erik loves making Charles laugh.
There are more football games, too many to count; Erik actually plays better as the hours progress, as if he's rebelling against the never-ending tide pushing them ever closer to the time of their parting. He always comes back to sit with Charles afterwards, though. The first few times the boys shout after him to come and talk with them, but they quickly learn that he will not turn around for anything.
Eventually, the load of the hours spent awake overwhelms them and they fall asleep where they sit. Erik wakes up in the early hours of the morning to find Charles curled comfortably against his side like a cat, arms wrapped around his waist and face pressed to his chest. At first Erik is a little alarmed, but then he hesitantly rests his left hand on Charles's back, and, seeing that the younger man does not protest, settles down again and drifts back to sleep. He is woken again a couple of hours later by someone shaking his shoulder.
"Erik?"
"Wha…?" He blinks groggily, eyes adjusting to the bright sunlight. Heinrich is standing in front of him with a worried expression on his face.
"Wake up, mate. The ceasefire is ending soon."
Erik sits bolt upright. "What? What time is it?"
"Eight o'clock."
"Scheiβe." The truce ends at nine.
"Language, Erik," Charles reprimands him. He is standing a little way away from them, looking out across the fields to somewhere Erik can't see.
"Sorry, sorry. My mother would be disappointed in me." Charles laughs, but it is a small sound, and there are little clouds of sadness in his eyes. "So, we have a little time left. What do you want to do?"
"Can we go for a walk?"
Erik is a little bemused by this preposition, but agrees nonetheless. They amble along in the grass in comfortable silence, passing the others as they go. They have all abandoned pretences of amicability and stand on opposite sides, near their trenches, whispering among themselves and occasionally casting disapproving glances towards Charles and Erik. At one point Charles's officer steps out of the English line and very quietly and politely asks Charles to join his comrades; but Erik gives him such an unpleasant look that he quickly retreats back towards safety. They carry on walking long past the last of the soldiers (though they remain in sight to avoid being accused of desertion), and somewhere along the way their hands become intertwined, though if you asked Erik later how that came about he would say he had no idea.
Then comes the dreadful moment when Charles takes out his pocket watch (so English, thinks Erik) and says those four fatal words: "It's five to nine."
"Time to go back, then?"
"I don't want to, but I fear we may have to, my friend."
"It's alright. We had to go sometime, didn't we?"
"I suppose we did." Charles sighs quietly, turning the watch over and over in his hand. Erik's not sure, but he thinks he sees a little raindrop splash onto the worn brass. Which is strange, considering it's a fresh winter morning and there are no clouds in the sky.
"Come on." He sticks out his hand, the way he did two days ago when they met for the last time; and like then, Charles takes it. A December wind threads its icy fingers into their hair, as if begging them to stay in this place, this little cocoon of safety where there in no war and no killing and no nothing, just them two alone with nothing to do but talk. But they must return to the real world some day, and so they go back bravely, holding hands to prevent their fingers from shaking as they walk.
A/N: Review? Please? This isn't the last chapter of this part, by the way. There's one more left! :)
