The camp was buzzing with whispers about Alfred's trial. Alfred stopped coming to the mess hall and disappeared after training to wander the city or pretend to fix his bomber. All Matthew could ever hear was rumours and questions and eager, hushed speculation about the dawning trial and their golden pilot boy. Matthew stayed in his room and buried himself in bad alcohol and his math. Outside in the hallway, the men jeered.

He wanted to be anywhere but there, but the fear of getting tried for the same crime if he went to see Francis tied him to the base like a chained dog. There was nothing to do but breathe in the still, warm air and wait until the trial day.

Matthew wore his second best shirt and settled into the pews, slipping between the masses of officers and pilots, hiding away from the men swaying on their feet at the back and the ones grinning with flushed faces in the very front rows. Nobody noticed him. Alfred looked like a man destroyed, blue eyes empty and lifeless. It looked so wrong that Matthew had to look away until he sat down. The silence fell like a tangible thing before the judge began speaking.

'Move over,' someone whispered next to him. Jett, dressed more formally than he'd ever seen, shuffled closer and sat down carefully. His eyes were empty in the same way. They met eyes and Matthew had nothing to say, no comforting words or pleads for the same.

'Alfred,' Matthew said. The rest stuck in his thorny throat. Jett nodded.

'We've done everything we can. Arthur...Arthur knows what to do.' He gripped his shoulder and squeezed once before they sat apart again and watched the world fall down.

If it was him and Francis up there, Matthew thought hazily, would he be able to pretend he didn't love him like he loved the stars? He liked to imagine that just because he wasn't as visible as Alfred, or Francis wasn't army as well, that they were safe, but the truth was that every time they were so much as seen together they risked everything.

Ridiculously, irrationally, Matthew wondered if there would ever be a time where he could take Francis' hand in public and not look over his shoulder first. It was just love, and they deserved it, didn't they? It was harder to believe that when Alfred gave his witness with shaking hands and a voice devoid of anything. Arthur watched him as he did, looking entranced with every movement, and so sad, so forgiving. It wasn't their fault, but Alfred would always, always think it was. He sat down and his head drooped forward, staring blankly out at nothing.

The officer at the witness box stood up and began to speak. Beside him, Jett let out a ragged breath, hands fisting in the fabric of his trousers.

'Thank God,' he whispered. His eyes shone unnaturally with tears in the room's harsh white lighting. 'I thought...oh God, I can't keep saving people.'

'You have to,' Matthew pleaded under his breath. Jett didn't move.

'It's not that I want to stop. It's that one of these days, Kiwi and I are going to run out of luck.'

Matthew watched the officer conclude his testimony, and the odd, frantic look he shared with Arthur with a heartbeat. The spiteful knot of tension in Arthur's brow smoothed out and he looked nearly smiled, at peace finally. The officer sat back down carefully. The blood was rushing in Matthew's ears and he was so scared, in a sick and cowardly way, that it would be him next.

'We deem the charge against infantryman Arthur Kirkland for gross indecency to be true,' the judge finally proclaimed to the silent room. 'The verdict is guilty.'

The room exploded back into sound. Next to him, Jett sunk his head into his hands and whispered a broken prayer. Arthur turned to face the crowd with nothing but vicious pride and his head held high. Beside him, Alfred still hadn't moved, curled into his hands, still like he was never supposed to be. He looked dead, like the beautiful terrible machine of him had finally lost its kinetic energy.

Matthew couldn't watch. He'd wanted to stay for Alfred, but he couldn't bear it. If he stayed any longer, the great grey panic inside of him would swell up and drag him down or his head would split open down the middle and spill out too much love for a beautiful poet and the wilds and other understanding and understandable things.

Nobody noticed him leave.

In the streets, he drifted between bars until they all blurred. He'd drank himself sick before, homemade moonshine and whiskey under the stars with nothing but the mountains and the night and his own humour to occupy the time, but he'd never drank like this. This was from a need to make time start ticking backwards or to fix a huge empty space that couldn't be fixed or change the world or a million other impossible things. It was, at the very least, to forget for a few hours, and after the third or fifth place and too much smoke from pipes he'd accepted without thinking even once, he did start forgetting that there was anything good at all. English and French lost shape in his head and soon after so did math, and when numbers lost their feeling and feeling lost its meaning at all, only then did he stop.

It was better that way. He laid on a bench under a streetlight and stared up at the pinpricks of stars the city hadn't broken up and devoured alive yet, like it did to everything else. His heart was thudding in his ears and he felt so sick and scared and alone, utterly alone and exhausted. He should go to help Alfred or find someone or go home, and by that he meant home, Canada and the Great Lakes and places where nobody would ever find him again. Francis, was his last thought, I miss you too much.

He closed his eyes and let the lurking darkness of fatigue take him.

0o0o0o

He woke up in a place much warmer and softer than a bench. Someone was rustling around in a nearby room, pots and utensils clinking quietly with the reassuring rush of running water. It was a safe sound, a good sound, not harsh on his throbbing head. The lights were dim, but once his eyes adjusted he realized his was back in Francis' place. When he tried to sit up, pain split through his skull again and he crumpled back down. The utensils clattered back into the sink and Francis rushed to his side, holding onto him.

He turned, every moment thick and slow. Everything ached. Francis made a sound, a sob, hysterical and grateful.

'Matthew,' he said, voice trembling. Matthew took his hand, even if the effort tired him. Francis gripped his fingers and brought them to his mouth, pressing his lips against them in a desperate kiss. His eyes were shimmering with tears. Myths floated through his head in scraps, and if he opened his mouth in the bars all that had come out was a jumble of nonsense about facing terrible empires and David or Goliath. His thoughts wouldn't fit together until Francis touched him, hand cool on his burning cheek.

'I couldn't defeat the giant,' he said. It didn't make sense. Francis shook his head, another soft noise crawling from his throat.

'Oh, my dearest Matthew. Your country should have never sent you to fight. You are not built for war. You have an artist's heart. You have my heart.'

Matthew just gazed at him, too empty inside to be anything but numb. He wanted to reassure him and tell him all the love declarations he could, that he always had his heart as well, but he was tired. The threat of war drained him. The impossibility and fear of the trial had taken all the hope he never wanted to lose.

'I'm sorry,' he murmured, fighting against the last staining clouds of dirty-snow drugs. 'I'm so sorry, Francis.'

'Not your fault,' Francis soothed, brushing the hair back from his face. 'It's not your fault, dearest. Arthur knew what he was doing.'

'You know about the trial?' he asked far too late. Francis looked bemused.

'Of course. The community of people like...me here pays attention to that sort.'

'Like us,' Matthew insisted. Francis pressed his lips together, holding back.

'You saw the trial,' he said softly.

'I did. And it scared me,' he admitted. 'What if it was me? What if it was us?'

Francis hesitated and turned away, wiping at his face. 'I am sure my resistance thinks I am a coward,' he said, '-but I will always try to save you, if you'll let me. No matter what it costs me.'

'But-'

'Matthew,' Francis said, and silenced him with a soft kiss to his forehead. 'You, my maple leaf soldier, are worth so much more than some old poet.'

'I love you,' Matthew protested. Francis smiled sadly, a tear shining on his cheek.

'I love you too, so much.'

Matthew blinked up at him, sated for a moment. 'How did you find me?'

'It was an accident. Matthew, mon Dieu, when I saw you, laying there and barely breathing, I thought…' His lip trembled. 'Why would you do such a thing?'

'I'm sorry.' He pulled him closer and Francis slipped into the bed beside him, kissing his eyelids. Heat soaked through his chilled body. 'I just wanted to stop thinking.'

'I know. I have done the exact same thing.' He sighed, gazing down at him. 'I am so sorry the world has shown you this side of it so young.'

'You're not much older.'

'I am old enough,' Francis said. 'And I made the choice to jump into this world. You never did.'

'I'll choose it,' Matthew said. The drugs and exhaustion were working through him, and his words were slurred. 'If it was with you.'

Francis kissed his hair again. Matthew could taste tears and didn't know who's they were.

'My brave, beautiful Canadian,' he murmured. 'You would take on the whole world.'

'I could,' he began. Francis shook his head.

'For now, just stay with me. Here, or somewhere in your wilds, or my home in France. My hero.'

''M not the hero.'

'You are to me.' He eased himself away as if to go, and Matthew held on.

'Stay,' he slurred. 'Until I can sleep. And beyond that.'

Francis sighed, fond and always terribly sad.

'Always,' he whispered, tucking them both back in. Matthew only felt safe from the trial then, as his thoughts finally calmed into the quiet between their heartbeats.

0o0o0o

Francis let him sleep in when the morning came. He looked exhausted, grey and skeletal.

'Sleep well, my maple leaf,' he told him, wrapping the blankets tighter around his chilled hands before he slipped out of the house with a note left on the kitchen table even if he doubted Matthew would wake before noon, with the amount of intoxicants he'd taken. The sheer volume should have killed him outright and Francis pushed back the cold inside at the thought. He knew what had driven him to that point and it had driven him, too, out of the house to try to find anyone or anything to fix it in some stupid way.

Matthew was too good for war, too unsullied, too unlike him. Francis had always feared for him, but the worst thing was knowing that he couldn't stop it, that the trial had hurt him so badly.

He wanted to go see Arthur. Experience- too much experience, and too many people lost- told Francis he'd be at least on house arrest down at the base, and exactly where to find him.

The guards let him in with a lot of cajoling and the promise of two bottles of wine under the table. When he knocked on the door to the apartment, it didn't open for a long time. Francis was worrying they'd imprisoned him properly when the door was jerked open and Arthur looked him up and down with disdain. He was dressed well, almost too formally, but the scent of alcohol lingered on him.

'Oh. It's you, frog,' he muttered. 'It's just been the captains at my door for hours. Still, I thought you might have been…'

'Where is Alfred?'

Arthur's face contorted. 'The commanders won't let him go. They're dealing with his image or something, and I understand, but…'

Francis pushed the door further open.

'Can we talk?'

'I don't need to be caught with another man in my rooms,' Arthur muttered, letting him in.

The room was full of fumes. Francis coughed and went to open a window.

'I heard about your trial,' he said.

'And I'm sure you've seen all the lies they say about it,' Arthur said. His chin jutted out even as he sank down in a chair and reached for one of the beer bottles on the table. Francis swept them up before he could reach it and dumped them promptly in the sink, followed by the mess of bottles on the counter. Arthur glared at him.

'I need those.'

'No, you don't,' Francis snapped. 'What would Alfred think of you?'

Arthur pushed himself up from his chair and staggered towards him, shoving him hard back against the cabinets.

'Don't you dare,' he snarled. His skin smelled metallic with alcohol, and his eyes were wild. 'You have no right to tell me that, not when I'm a week from losing the only good thing I've ever known.'

'I know.' Francis took the first reckless blow on his brow and gritted his teeth through the dull spread of pain, trying to hold back Arthur's fury. 'I know, Arthur.'

'What would you know?' he spat, violently shoving him again and stalking away, raking hands through his hair. 'Here's something you should know. Here's something everyone should know. I lied. We both lied to save him and I don't regret it at all.'

'You love him,' Francis said simply. Arthur scoffed, the sound tipping into a broken noise.

'Of course I do. I love him so much, that's why I agreed to this. Anything, anything is worth his happiness. I'd give everything for him, but for this, it'll never be enough.'

They stood in the kitchen in the quiet, Francis' arms and cheek already bruising. He knew what Arthur was feeling, the helplessness of it, and he didn't blame him for any of it.

Arthur collapsed back into his chair and laughed, shattered and choking and hopeless.

'God, Francis. I love him. I love a bloody American, and a pilot to boot, who's the most aggravating, incredible, frustrating, beautiful person in the whole world.' His eyes slid half-closed, shimmering green. 'He taught me how to stargaze, you know. I had hoped that after this was all over we could…' He trailed off. 'I guess it doesn't matter anymore, but I was hoping to get that poetry book I pawned back for him.'

'He sounds good for you,' Francis said gently. Arthur chuckled bitterly.

'He deserves better than I can give.' He raised his hands, imitating the position of manacles. 'Look at me.'

'Can you keep a secret?' Francis asked. They weren't so different in this, him and Arthur, though he would never repeat it.

'Who would I tell?'

'Your Alfred knows a soldier. A tank gunner, a Canadian.' He was suddenly nervous, fluttering like a teenager. 'His name is Matthew Williams and I love him.'

Arthur opened his eyes and for the first time, Francis saw him smile.

'And he's too good for you,' he said softly. Francis nodded.

Silently, as if by agreement, they threw out the rest of the bottles together before Francis left.

'You might want to ice that eye,' Arthur added as he left, the closest they got to an apology. Francis knew it might be the last he ever saw of this British soldier who he'd hated so completely so quickly. True enmity was hard to come by these days.

'And somehow I still look better than you,' he said with a smile. Arthur groaned and shut the door in his face, but Francis knew he looked happier.

He settled the wine debt and walked home lighter. Back in their bedroom, Matthew was still sleeping, hair like honey on his pillow. Francis smiled and slipped in beside him, curling into his warmth. He was tired and charged and sated, and it might be easier for both of them to let the day pass them by.

0o0o0o

:: Road trips on highways lined with pine trees