Work Text:
He took his cigarette, before asking the suddenly quiet audience: “You wanna know why we’re here?”
Grunts of agreement were almost drowned by the noise of the lower deck. Bill was under the impression that even if it did drown in all the shouting, Leckie would still answer. No, hell, even if they told him to go fuck himself, he’d still spit out some quote no one else understood because most of them didn’t even start high school.
So, when Leckie frowned and squinted his eyes, like he always did when he was thinking, Bill had to smile. The man was just so different, so unique, so unlike all of his hometown friends. He might have been just as annoying and didn’t know when to shut up, but at least what he was saying wasn’t complete bullshit. Sometimes. Bill enjoyed listening to him. Sometimes.
“Without a sign, his sword the brave man draws and asks no omen but his country’s cause.”
The guys nodded, absorbed by his words, its origin known only to Leckie. Except for Bill who was absorbed by Leckie’s stupid fucking smug grin, that disappeared momentarily when he took a puff from his cigarette. A feeling of warmth inside his chest made Bill clear his mind and put on a frown.
The nerves were probably getting ahold of him.
“Give me back my smoke,” he told Leckie, which renewed the chitchat among their group.
Leckie turned his blue eyes towards Bill, their color the same as the wings of blue butterflies fluttering on the grasslands back home in Loogootee, and smiled, wide and mischievous. Bill’s breath faltered.
Robert fucking Leckie.
_ _ _
Education was pretty much off limits in the Smith’s household. His grandfather had made up his mind about Bill’s hands being more useful at the farm than his brain in school, and would only let him go few times a month.
Since this decision was silently disapproved by both his Granny and Ma, his true lessons would start in the evenings with them. Each evening when his grandfather got hammered in the kitchen, they’d tell him about books and arts, about nature and history. They weren’t educated, not more than any other farmer in Loogootee, they mostly taught him what other people had told them, but they created Bill’s little universe of knowledge.
However, this was as far as they were willing to go, begging Bill not to mention their schooling in front of grandpa. They, too, were afraid of him.
On the other hand, thanks to this, Bill’s ability to observe silently improved to a hunter-like level. Having to hide his curiosity, he had fed it only through his common sense and his ability to see.
Robert Leckie was on a whole different level. High school was a must, he’d be the disgrace of his family had he dared to not finish it. Leckie knew so much, remembered even more, he could cite whole paragraphs of books Bill had never even heard about before meeting the Pennsylvanian. He was always asking, always composing poems and always giving pointless or too pointy speeches, that either made the boys laugh or pissed them off.
Bill was fascinated by the man.
Not only for all of the knowledge he possessed, but for the fact, that unlike Bill, he never hid behind a mask. Well, he had tried to, at first. He’d put on the most idiotic grimace Bill ever had the misfortune of seeing, but his true emotions would shadow his face, their flame unwavering. For Bill, it was like seeing the ocean for the first time: he never knew it could be like that. Open. For as long as he could remember, he was led to being quiet, don’t yell, don’t cry, don’t ask, had to learn to lead his arguments in his head, to blow out the match of his emotions. He’d throw it into the pile of sealed envelopes of his thoughts and feelings, hoping it didn’t catch fire. Sometimes it did. Leckie, it seemed, was made of iron. The matches of his emotions burned all the time.
Bill made himself often laugh with the thought of his grandfather meeting Robert Leckie. The old bastard would kill him.
Leckie’s way with words was another part of the huge mountain of abilities that Bill admired. He used them as weapons, like a serving tray of human stupidity, like a calling, like a caress, like a tear running down one’s cheek.
Bob had once let Bill read one of his poems, which he was writing all the time, even more often than those letters. In that moment, when he handed Bill the yellowish piece of paper, he had looked so small, so vulnerable, gazing at Bill with his big, honest eyes full of blue butterflies. The moment felt heavy; Bill could swear that Bob had just let him right into his soul.
Bill had read that poem carefully, repeating every word at least three times in his head to give them more sense, to understand precisely what Bob had been trying to describe, what had come not out of a soldier, but of a twenty-two-year-old boy whose humanity had been suppressed to its highest limits.
That was the first time he had understood a poem not with reason, but with heart.
Bob was able to give a name and meaning to all the chaos and pain Bill had been feeling on the damned island.
That was the first time Bill had cursed him.
Robert fucking Leckie.
_ _ _
Bang.
Bill’s heart skipped a beat.
He could blame it on the gunshot, its sound just slightly different from the other shots coming out of M1s (this night had forever altered his perception of shooting, as he’d later realize), but he knew, that it wasn’t caused by the weapon, but by the man wielding it. Or, more importantly, what he just caused with it.
Robert Leckie just put an end to a show, a cruel version of USO program that soldiers with tattered minds had just performed. He just put an end to a life of a devastated Jap. He granted him a pardon. Despite the dehumanization they had suffered thanks to those yellow bastards, Bob had found enough compassion in himself to kill the man.
Bill’s heart was furiously hammering his ribcage as he couldn’t tear his eyes off him. Robert Leckie. It didn’t matter that all he saw was his backside, moving with slow, calm breaths, and his dropped shoulders, bearing the weight of the impossible moment.
The guy did something even his superiors were afraid to do. And that wasn’t the first time Bob didn’t stay silent in front of injustice. If he didn’t like something, he did anything to change it. That did weird things to Bill.
That was the first time Bill realized he was knee deep in shit.
_ _ _
“You are ugly. I want Hoosier.”
“Take a number,” Bill smiled, ducking his head. He had to hide the inexplicable flame lighting up his cheeks. And the stupid smile as well.
Because his heart started acting out, like a dog waiting behind a fence for its owner to come and pet it.
He cursed him again.
Robert fucking Leckie.
_ _ _
The only form of education Bill’s grandfather didn’t dismiss was religion. Each member of the Smith’s household would go to mass every Sunday and Bill would attend religion classes that the pastor held every Monday.
Father Jacob was probably the most educated person in the whole town and most definitely also the kindest one. His generosity had no limits. The middle-aged man tried again and again to instill such behavior in the kids who were sent to him on Mondays. He tried to peel off the hardened exterior most of them grew because of the way they were treated, tried to show them what it meant to be a good Christian. He disapproved of hate and violence and would often talk to aggressive fathers about how they were raising their children.
Bill was nine years old when two guys from the neighboring town were beaten to death after someone saw them kiss. Many of Bill’s friends had to go to look at those two broken bodies; their parents wanted them to learn the lesson of what happens to those who allow Satan to lead them astray.
His father and granny kept him home, despite his grandfather’s insistence. Bill asked his granny why. She told him that Father Jacob said that God would never want people to kill for love, that the boys were murdered by human hate. She begged him not to talk about it with anyone. But Bill couldn’t keep that promise.
He asked Father Jacob.
The older man looked at him that afternoon with sadness lining his brown eyes and a small smile playing on his lips. Bill still remembered the confusion he had felt.
“You are too young to understand, William. And maybe you never will,” Father Jacob told him that day, “but remember that everything bad on Earth is the work of the devil, not God.”
Bill was watching Leckie shaking out dirt out of their heavy machine gun, while he thought back to the pastor who died just a few days after proclaiming the riddle Bill hadn’t been able to wrap his head around. He still wasn’t. Someone murdered Father Jacob on his way from an evening mass.
And Bill wondered, why God didn’t save the kind man?
He watched Bob hum some melody, dirty curls falling to his forehead and body carrying one too many scratches and wounds, and scolded himself for not asking Father Jacob why God wasn’t doing a thing to stop all the bad from happening. He was the Almighty, after all.
Why didn’t he let those two guys live?
Maybe their love was indeed wrong and Father Jacob was mistaken.
Somewhere in the distance, a gunfire briefly opened. Leckie didn’t flinch, too used to those little fights.
And Bill thought, why God didn’t hear prayers and pleadings of millions of soldiers on hundreds of small islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean begging him to save them?
Maybe His power was restricted to easier problems.
_ _ _
When Leckie met the girl in Melbourne and started spending all his time with her, Bill came to the sudden realization that Robert Leckie was actually really loud. And Bill hated how quiet his life was without him. He involuntarily imagined the day, when the war would be over and Bob would return to Australia, to Stella, and Bill would never see him again. Now, he knew Bob was coming back to him – they were, inevitably, going to call their regiment back to the front lines. He knew that sooner or later, he’d have Bob’s stupid jokes and witty remarks back and that his day wouldn’t be so dull, so empty.
(He refused to consider the pretty high possibility of losing him before the war ended. The concept of Bob’s death seemed so abstract, so incomprehensible that he simply couldn’t and wouldn’t think of it.)
Leckie wouldn’t talk about anything else than her. She’s so beautiful, Bill, so fucking beautiful. Breathtaking, really. He didn’t even talk about what sex with her was like. According to Leckie, she was the embodiment of perfection.
Robert Leckie fell in love and in the process made a fucking nutcase out of Bill.
He felt like a lunatic, being envious of Stella’s ability to light up Bob’s eyes, of her beauty to which their writer composed ode’s. He felt like a lunatic because some part of him – a part he hated since it made him a weak man, a sinner – longed to be the subject of Bob’s poems instead of the girl. But he knew better than to cling to that. Didn’t he?
God gave him a clear sign as to where Bob belonged. Bill should stop…fantasizing. Yes, that’s what this whole thing was, phantasmagoria. His fucked-by-war brain created an illusion that Leckie meant something more to him. It was probably because of how different he was from everyone else Bill had met so far. Or it was the everyday danger they faced, the uncertainty and fear that had made him want, and for some reason it was Leckie.
Right.
It took a bit more time before Bill’s envy and dislike of Stella transformed into acceptance. It was better for Bob that way. She made him happy; the haunted look that they all brought with them to Melbourne, had vanished thanks to Stella’s love. She could give him a happy life.
It was then, when they were told to gear up and wait for further instructions.
And Bill had to wait for Bob, he had to be the one to tell him his vacation came to an end. Any liking of Stella Bill had found in the past days were gone. Now, Bob was his once again.
_ _ _
Bill hated the Marines from the bottom of his heart. A three-day march? Really? Leckie didn’t stop talking – cursing, Leckie didn’t stop cursing and complaining and Bill was so fucking sick of him. No one talked as much as Leckie did.
And still, Bill couldn’t help but feel some fucked up satisfaction, because finally, Leckie wasn’t talking about Stella.
He felt like an idiot. Again.
Third day morning was a goddamn nightmare. They had so many blisters, their legs so swollen that simply standing up was an achievement, never mind putting boots on. Their medics advised them to burst the blisters.
Bill was miserable, he wanted to sleep and eat and his whole body hurt. But when he sat down in front of Leckie with knife in hand to tend to his feet, Bill felt peace. Bob was unusually silent, carefully eyeing the knife in Bill’s hand. Perhaps he was trying to convince himself that it wasn’t dangerous, perhaps he just imagined how he’d poke out his eyes to put an end to this fucking march. Either way, he carefully placed his injured leg onto Bill’s lap. And Bill, ever so gentle, rested his palm on Bob’s foot.
He almost stroked him with his thumb – wanted to calm him down, remind him he was safe – but he had stopped himself.
What he, however, couldn’t stop was the glance at Bob’s face, twisted with the expectation of soon to come pain. For some reason, it was oddly comforting, having Bob at his mercy, knowing he trusted Bill with this.
How deep was his trust? How far would he let Bill go? Were those poems he let Bill read from time to time the deepest part of him?
When they switched places and Bill had stretched his hurting legs, Leckie’s ability to speak miraculously returned only to praise the Marine corps and their ideas of training for war, while he maneuvered the knife around his feet. And Bill realized he’d let Robert Leckie into his very soul.
Did God see unyielding trust as a sin?
_ _ _
Stella ditched Leckie. Which was part of the reason why he later ended up in prison and why they transferred him to the intelligence headquarters, which only meant that in their next battle he wouldn’t operate a machine gun but bring supplies and information.
Bill wasn’t sure whether to thank God that He ended his misery and ensured Bob would never set foot to Australia again, or argue with Him about the state in which this break-up had left Leckie.
He was crestfallen and even though the pain eased with time, it didn’t disappear. His jokes lessened, as well as his smiles. He started writing into the pocket bible again.
Bill started to pray more often.
Every evening, actually.
Leckie made fun of him for it – the cynical and dry remarks about the uselessness would make him snap at Leckie, the flames of their misery threating to burn the whole place down. Bill needed to keep this hope, that it made sense, that it could help.
That Bob won’t lose it.
That Bill won’t lose him.
That they all come back in one piece, with sane minds.
Funny enough, he dreamt more often, too.
It was a while back when Bill had come to the conclusion that his longing for Bob (he was still scared to use the proper word for what he was feeling, too afraid of God – it was a sin, a perversion) was a fact with which he couldn’t do anything other than wait it out. He had hoped that this acceptance would put his brain at ease, that it would stop those dreams.
Bad luck.
Any time he didn’t have to pay attention to every move of the tree leaves in desperate search of a Jap head, he’d run into his fantasy world, where Bob didn’t look worse and worse, where he’d laugh and hold Bill’s hand and caress his hair, his face, his body. Bill would give just about anything for Bob’s touch. Not necessarily in a sexual way, he’d take a simple brush of fingers. He’d take an angry shove because Leckie had looked real close to doing that in the past few weeks. He’d take wringing Leckie’s neck if he wouldn’t stop bitching about Larkin-
“Oh, for God’s sakes, coffee is the only goddamn thing we got to enjoy around here, we just want to enjoy it in peace. So, either kill Larkin or shut the fuck up.”
Leckie, taken a back, threw a sad glance towards Bill, which wasn’t so unusual, and which he didn’t give a fuck about. Leckie wasn’t the only one going nuts in this place, why was he the only one making it everyone’s problem?
And so, Bill cursed whoever the hell had sent Robert fucking Leckie his way, because even though he was sick of his bitching, his silence was even worse.
Right.
Bob was disappearing right in front of their eyes and Bill had no idea how to help him, because he too felt much better in his little fantasy world, than in the present. He too dreamt of home, of his farm, where his imaginary Bob laughed and lived.
And so, Bill cursed God, since it was most definitely Him, who had sent Robert fucking Leckie his way, because those empty eyes and wry sarcastic remarks – if they managed to get him talking, were pushing Bill to insanity. Why did God make Bill care about someone else in this hell? All the other guys had their loved ones home, safe, but Bill? Why did God decide to make this hell even harder by making Bill care about another soldier in the same hell?
In was then, that Bill got the idea. If God had sent Bob to him, he must have known that Bill would… that he’d long for him like a soldier longs to go home. He had to know, and thus it didn’t make sense to then punish him for his feeling towards Bob.
He hadn’t sent Bob as a punishment, but as his own piece of home.
That was why, once Bill found out about the lottery (his heart sped up with minuscule seed of hope), he went to tell Bob. He didn’t even frown when Leckie retorted.
“A ticket home.”
_ _ _
They didn’t select either of them and in that moment, Bill had felt the dreadfully cold hands of fear crawling across his body, closing around his throat. He’d never get out of here; they were all going to die before this horror ended. He desperately tried to get the picture of his dead friends out of his head, the empty eyes of Chuckler, Runner or Sid, Leckie’s cocky grin faltering on his thin lips.
He once again asked: why, good God? Why?
As always, God didn’t answer him.
Maybe it was because of millions of soldiers screaming for His mercy, their concentration on those small dots of land in the middle of the Pacific higher than it ever was and ever would be.
Maybe He had a different reason.
Bill wasn’t sure he cared anymore.
_ _ _
He was praying again. Every time he had decided to end it with God, Bob’s life had gotten more complicated, and Bill had been desperate to fix it. What else but his blasphemy was to blame?
Although Bill had managed to get out of his dark thoughts the other day, the next morning it turned out that Leckie was still lost in them. And when Bill saw his body curled into a small bundle hugging his pillow like a small kid terrified of his aggressive grandfather, all he wanted was to scream at the world and hide Robert Leckie into safety, to put himself in between Bob and anyone threatening him, with his parents starting and Japs ending.
He wanted to scream at Bob, shake his thin frame and beg him to hold on, to stay with them. With him.
However, since people punished affection between two men and God ignored it, Bill could only watch with his heart breaking as Chuckler and Sid helped Bob put on dry clothes after the medic left. He could only squeeze a packet of cigarettes into his palm and by looking into his blue eyes, their depth magnified by the emptiness radiating from them, he could try to tell him to come back from that hospital, to rest, perhaps fuck some willing nurse and argue with a doctor, but to, for God’s sake, come back.
And if he stroked his thumb across Bob’s palm in the process, who could blame him? If he just wanted his friend to be alright?
Bill was kneeling in the sand, praying. Waves hummed softly against the shore, the wind gentle, tasting of salt, toyed with Bill’s sticky hair. The evening was beautiful and Bill hated it.
“And forgive us our trespasses…” he recited, trying to convince himself of his guilt. His perversion had harmed the person he…loved.
Love. He loved him.
Shit.
But it was bad love, because there was a difference between a man loving a woman and a man loving a man. His love was bad because it didn't produce children, it couldn't grow.
Right.
He laughed, bitterly.
He cried, bitterly.
His knees gave out and he sank to his bottom.
Bill tried to convince himself that there was a difference between what married men here felt towards their wives and what he felt towards Bob, even though he knew there wasn’t. He tried to convince his mind and his heart, his perverted soul, that this love was wrong, that this love had no place among healthy people and certainly not in God’s kingdom, that he was to blame for Bob’s breakdown-
-but it was all man’s fault. It was man who decided to lead wars and ruin lives of millions, it was man who decided to put a restriction on love and prevent so many people from being truly happy.
Bill thought of two boys beaten to death for love man disapproved of.
And why?
Why all that suffering?
Why people forbid themselves to be happy?
“Hoosier? Hey, Hoosier,” a soft voice made Bill go completely still and spun around, before he, quite subconsciously, melted again into liquified pain, bleeding onto a beach in the Pacific.
Chuckler put his arm around Bill’s shoulders reassuringly and searched his teary face with mother-like concern. He really was like their mother here: he brought them food, water, blankets, goddamn doctors when they couldn’t even move. Bill never expected him to become their greatest guardian, but he was so grateful for Lew, especially now. He didn’t even realize he needed the company.
“It’s gonna be okay, buddy,” Chuckler murmured, resting his head against Bill’s.
“Maybe.”
Lew pulled away slightly to look at Bill again. Bill didn’t want to know what he saw on his face because Chuckler then squeezed his shoulder and added: “He’s gonna be okay.”
Bill knew he was trying to cheer him up. But if Lew knew what was going on through Bill’s head mere moments before he found him, he wouldn’t reassure him. He would most definitely let him burn in hell.
_ _ _
“Ho ho ho!” could be heard from the doorway and Bill’s body almost fucking shivered with relief.
Robert fucking Leckie.
He strode in as if he didn’t just spend the past week loitering in a hospital, with his stupid grin on thin cheeks, hiding his beautiful smile with that downward curl of the corners of his mouth. His shoulders weren’t buckling with weight of the dead, festering wounds almost healed. His face was clean and he looked like he wouldn’t change their makeshift house for a world and Bill stood up, his body wanting – to shake his hand, squeeze his shoulder, hug him and never let him go. But he couldn’t, so he just stood there, content. Happy. He laughed with his friends and picked at Bob.
“Looks like a land crab that once crawled out of my peephole,” Bill said, flicking his cigarette.
Bob laughed at that, joyfully, openly, sincerely.
Bill’s match burned; its flame stronger than ever.
_ _ _
The number of battles didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, nor did the number of shots fired or the number of dead. Bill still couldn’t get used to it. None of them could, not really. They could say it to the replacements, you’ll get used to it, but it wasn’t the truth. They’d had a sense of what was coming and that was it. The fear was still very much present.
But when the scream of a mortar tore the air and ground somewhere behind him and the shock wave threw him off his legs, his fear disappeared, along with his sight and hearing. There was mist all around him and his ears were ringing. All he could hear was his wheezy breathing.
There was also a warm feeling spreading across his right thigh. He must have pissed himself, it sure felt like it. It reminded him of his childhood, of those misty mornings when he’d run from his blasted grandfather. He could hear his own frantic breathing and behind him screams, as he tried to catch his breath, warm piss running down his legs.
He needed to hide.
Bill wanted to move, but his knees scratched dry ground.
He fell, Bill remembered.
The mortar had torn the air and ground.
They were in war.
He lost his helmet.
Where was his weapon?
The mist finally lifted and Bill managed to turn to his back. He thought he saw his weapon.
“Oh, Bill, Bill!”
Bob? What the hell was he doing in Loogootee? He had to hide, Bill’s grandfather-
No, they were in the Pacific, on one of those islands, that murdered hope, as Bob often bitched. Bill had lost his helmet. And his weapon.
“Dropped my fucking weapon,” he gestured, although to what he wasn’t sure. He just didn’t want Bob thinking Bill would do such a rookie mistake.
However, Bob’s face burned with fear, his eyes, shielded by his helmet, wandered around Bill’s face, as if he just told him the least pressing issue.
“Corpsman!” yelled Bob. “Corpsman!” His voice shook. He was scared and Bill couldn’t stop looking at the flame of his emotion. The emotion, that men had to hide, because it was contagious in combat. But Bob’s fear didn’t bother Bill, it only made him want to calm him. Because his grandfather couldn’t catch them.
Bob’s palms were pressing into Bill’s right thigh. It kind of hurt.
He was bleeding, it turned out. Bright, crimson liquid, like spilled ink, spread out on hands of a writer, marking them like a paper with message he could never truly erase again.
It hurt like hell, actually.
Made him exhausted, too.
His grandfather’s screams grew quiet in the noise of war.
Bill was so thirsty after all the running.
Bob was talking again, still, he was saying something and then he called him: “Bill!” Was he talking to him the whole time?
“It ain’t shit. Everything’s gonna be fine.” Bill looked into his blue eyes, wide and bleary with the lack of sleep, and wanted to believe him so bad. He wanted to believe that people from the neighboring town wouldn’t beat a boy for kissing another boy. He wanted to believe that both of them were going to get a full night sleep in a real bed again. He wanted to believe that God wouldn’t punish Bob because of Bill’s sin, for he just stopped believing in the Holy God, but in his only one, Robert Leckie. “It ain’t shit.”
Bill closed his eyes.
Bob still called out for a corpsman, his voice shaking with helpless pleas, and it occurred to Bill that Bob as well was no longer giving his faith to God, but to a barely trained Marine medic who’d stop the blood pouring from Bill's heavy body.
Was he dying?
Most likely.
He was bleeding, a lot, the blood kept warming his thigh.
He should pray, he didn’t want his blasphemy to harm Bob again.
… and lead us not into temptation …
Bill opened his eyes. Now, there were two other soldiers with him as well – corpsmen? – and Bill realized that he had no strength left to pray. He didn’t want to prepare to meet God, he wanted to look at his own light, Bob’s light, but that light was fluttering and burning, because Bob was scared. He was scared – and it was Bill’s fault – and his blue eyes, which Bill had fallen in love with so long ago, looked at him with a kind of astonishment. As if he saw him for the first time.
“It’s alright,” Bill breathed.
Their eyes met for a brief moment of infinity and Bill understood.
But he was too tired, too dead.
If only he managed to tell Bob he was loved too.
… and forgive us our trespasses …
Amen.
_ _ _
“Bill?”
“Bill?”
_ _ _
A few long months passed before Bill got discharged from the hospitals. Months during which he had no idea if any of his friends had survived the massacre. He had tried to talk the nurses, priests and doctors into finding out anything about his boys, but he obviously wasn’t the only one, because he hadn’t gotten any answer. He even wrote to their captain, despite knowing that waiting for a letter from the Pacific could take months.
After two months, they had him transferred to Evansville from California, where hospitals were bursting at the seams under the onslaught of God-forsaken soldiers from little islands scattered across the endless ocean. He was to learn how to walk again. (Bill didn’t want to know, if that meant they were going to send him back.) Only then, days before his transfer, he finally heard of a tall soldier with dark curls and wide mouth.
They said he was lucky they found him on that island.
Ever since he arrived, he's been entertaining just about anyone.
Chuckler was alive.
Bill felt like a total arsehole because this information wasn’t enough. He forbade himself to think of it.
He couldn’t sleep the night before his transfer to Evansville. He shook all over and despite his determination to shut down any thoughts about his friends he couldn’t stop thinking about the hell he had left them in. Bill knew that once he left California, he wouldn’t be able to find out what had happened to them. His notebook with their addresses got lost.
Therefore, in the morning, he begged nurses, priests and doctors for anything. Instead of replying, he was on an army plane along with other patients. He was going home.
So, he learned how to walk in Evansville and after another few weeks he got the all-clear to go home. Your family must be so happy you’re going home, sir, they told him. But there was no point. Bill had no one to come back to.
Bill returned into the empty house that once lived with animals and people, and promised himself that he would bring it back to life. He’d have livestock, he’d grow some cereal and vegetables, and who knows? Maybe he’d bring back people as well – a wife, children.
A rustle, like a man’s laughter, made Bill sick. And when his gaze fell upon a framed embroidery of a blue-winged butterfly, he threw up into the kitchen sink.
Right. No people, then.
_ _ _
It took some time before they stopped forcing Bill to come to check-ups and even more time before could be up all day without the unbearable pain. He was meeting old acquaintances again, learning to live again. He was trying to live with the reality of not knowing anything about his war buddies.
But most importantly, he was trying to shut down those dreams. Fucking again.
Usually, he had nightmares of bombings, or of his own frantic breathing as he searched the jungle. He also recalled screams, gunfire, explosions. He’d see a soldier with his guts hanging out of his body, sometimes he’d have Runner’s face.
However, he hated dreams of Bob the most because his subconscious wouldn’t let him forget anything he had admitted to himself in those moments of certain death. Sometimes he dreamt of what he saw in Bob's eyes. No, what he thought he saw. More often though, he dreamt about Leckie laughing at him, face screwed into cruel sneer. He didn’t even look like Bob anymore, but Bill knew it was him. In this nightmare, Bob’s hands were covered in Bill’s blood, but instead of trying to stop the bleeding, he clawed at it, tearing Bill apart and wishing him death for his perversion.
And Bill let this twisted version of Robert Leckie do as it pleased because he could stare into his eyes the whole time and reassure himself, that their color was indeed like the color of the blue butterfly embroidered into the fabric in his kitchen. Like those flying around his house.
When Japan surrendered, Bill got wasted in the nearest pub with people that didn’t know him at all.
_ _ _
Bill hated his stupid imagination for bringing the world to a halt in his fantasies of a reunion with Bob.
It was an image, in which the birds would stop chirping, the wind wouldn’t blow. Bob would stand there, at his doorstep, that tiny smile he preserved for special occasions only would be adorning his no longer tanned face, clean and shaved, and Bill would have a whole damn eternity to stare at him.
But that could only happen in a dream.
Because even though Robert fucking Leckie did show up at his doorstep, it was the world that betrayed Bill.
It didn’t stop.
The birds kept on chirping and the slight breeze drifting from fields and woods behind his house played with the man’s hair. Bill made a somewhat surprised discovery that Bob’s curls could look like a precise goldsmith’s work in the early evening sun, when they weren’t covered in blood, sweat and dirt.
In a way he couldn’t quite explain, Bill felt like he was looking at a stranger. He wasn’t even sure if he had ever seen Bob without that hideous uniform before. And Bob’s face; it was clean and healthy-looking, cheeks fuller thanks to proper meals. All of that was completely out of the ordinary in which they had lived side by side on islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Bob’s face showed his feelings like it always did, the hurt and relief apparent, lips parted and eyes widened. Those two blue butterflies fluttered, searching Bill’s eyes like they did a year and a half ago on that damned island.
For a second, Bill felt a frantic urge to touch the man, just to make sure his mind didn’t make him up.
But he didn’t get the chance, didn’t even have the time to find out just how many details he had forgotten since then. A year and a half. No, because Bob didn’t have it in him to stand still, to stay silent, Bill did remember that, and although he was immensely grateful it hadn’t changed, Bob’s unannounced visit and the heart on his sleeve made Bill shut down.
“You’re alive.”
Clearly, his ability to describe things aptly hadn’t changed either.
“You too.”
Bill expected – hoped – to hear a chuckle at his retort, hoped Bob would pull himself together and tell Bill, in his usual nonchalant way, what the fuck he was doing at Bill’s end of the world.
He didn’t.
It seemed Bob hadn’t even heard him, as he added in a thick voice: “I thought I… that we lost you.”
Bill was dying again.
It definitely felt like it: his body grew heavier, he could hear his own breath and beating heart, there were two blue butterflies in front of him, fluttering in fear and Bob’s hands were dripping with blood gushing from Bill’s wish of ever getting over the man.
Bill knew he was frowning. He also knew that his silence must annoy Bob terribly, it always annoyed him, but he had nothing to say. He wasn't sure whether the ground they were on wasn't littered with landmines.
“I thought you die- “
“Yeah, I fucking- I gathered that, a’right?” Bill snapped. His heart was beating almost painfully agains his ribcage. He was scared which made him angry. Bob’s confusion and the constant fear rubbed at his body, begging him to do something. “Jesus, Lucky, what are you doing here?”
Bob squirmed, blinked a few times, too. The war added many years to his looks, more than he'd spent in it, but in that moment, he looked like the boy from Philadelphia, who enlisted in a burst of patriotism and whom Bill couldn’t stand, all those years ago.
“Came to see an old friend,” Bob offered with a feeble smile. “Are you gonna let me in?”
Not a fucking chance, was what Bill wanted to spit out, I didn’t spend the last year and a half trying to forget you to now-
He stepped back and gestured to Bob.
Since the hall was a rather narrow built, and Bill was already pressed against the wall, Bob had no way of stepping in without getting into Bill’s personal space.
Bill promised himself he’d punch him if he got too close.
However, his imagination had failed him again. Because when Bob stepped over the threshold and stopped within a step of Bill, his hands began to shake. The silence between them was overwhelming, and Bill could almost touch all the unspoken words that had been laying between them since the day Bill almost died, since the day they saw each other for the last time. A year and a half.
Just when Bill thought he couldn’t take it anymore, Bob gulped and offered his hand to Bill. “It’s good to see you, Hoosier.”
Bill really should have punched him first, because this sure did feel like a slap.
“Yeah, thanks. Can you finally tell me why the hell you’re here?” Bill snapped and slammed the door shut as he hurried from Leckie further into the house, despite his longing for the touch. Like a starving man for bread.
Maybe precisely for that reason.
“I told you- “
“And I don’t believe you.” With that, Bill turned to Bob again. Finally, Bob didn’t look scared.
He was burning with anger.
“What’s so wrong with visiting my war buddy?”
Bill scoffed. “The war is over. We are nothing to each other.” (He refused to acknowledge the pang of pain after his own words.) “You should be home. Could’ve wrote me a letter. You’re good at that, eh?”
Bob took a step towards him. “How about you stop telling me what to do!”
“Jesus Christ, a’right. Your folks finally kicked you out, didn’t they?”
Bob flushed and shoved with all his strength into Bill's chest, causing Bill to stagger and crash into the closed kitchen door.
“Fuck you, Smith!”
If Bill wasn’t so tensed up, he would’ve been so damn pleased with cracking Bob up, with getting him where he wanted him. Bill knew what he said was a low blow, but the fact that he knew him well enough to be able to push just those specific buttons felt weirdly comforting.
Robert fucking Leckie.
“Is that a yes?” he pushed for more. “Or why are you here?!”
“Because I thought I killed you!” Bob shouted and the world stopped. “I thought you bled out because I didn’t know what to do! They just took you away from me, as if my world– “ he broke off and threw up his hands. “And then nobody heard nothing ‘bout you and I was so scared that I lost– “ his voice broke.
The silence after his words reminded Bill of the stillness after bombing – those moments when everything waited for another wave to hit and no one dared to move. That was exactly how he felt while looking at the tormented man he fell in love with.
During bombing, he had to act without thinking, and he did so again.
In a few strides he stood in front of Bob and took his calloused right hand into his. With his gaze fixed upon Bob’s surprised one, Bill pressed the man’s palm against his own beating heart.
And then he just looked.
He looked as those two blue butterflies flew down. He looked as they calmed once Bob realized what was going on, what he felt under his palm. And when Bob’s eyes flew up again, Bill looked as something broke in Bob.
Suddenly, it wasn’t a flicker of fear but a flame of desire lighting up Bob’s eyes, and before Bill could recover, Bob took a handful of Bill’s shirt into his fist and slammed into him in a rough kiss.
Robert Leckie pressed into him like water presses into a valley after a dam burst, unyielding, unquestioning, wild. He kissed him like it was the last thing he’d ever do.
And Bill?
He was fucking dying again.
He couldn’t breathe, his ears were ringing and Bob’s rough hands were on his body. Only this time it was different, the uproar of war was missing, Bill’s life wasn’t running through Bob’s fingers and Bill felt a goddamn firework erupting in his chest.
It took about five second before Bob pulled away, just as suddenly as he crushed into Bill.
“Shit,” Bob hissed and ran his fingers through his hair, eyes wide with terror, as he backed away from Bill. “Fuck, I- Bill, it’s not… I am sorry,” he stuttered, voice raspy and at least one octave higher than usual.
Bill was absolutely losing his shit, his mind unable to comprehend what had just happened. He was frowning again, which really didn’t add up to Bob’s panic, and his heart was fucking pounding, because –
Jesus Christ.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Robert Leckie had just kissed him.
Leckie, the insanely irritating boy whom Bill couldn’t stand in the basics. Lucky, the incredibly sarcastic and sometimes overly dramatic boy, whose monologs had entertained half their regiment. Bob, the bravest man who wore his heart on his sleeve and didn’t know how to put on a poker face. The man Bill fell in love with.
He wasn’t afraid of the word love anymore.
“Bill, I swear I didn’t- I’m so sorry.” He was still talking and still backing up, pure despair lining his eyes.
It was while looking into those two petrified blue butterflies when Bill fully got it – what he saw in Bob’s eyes a year and a half ago was true.
Not a dream supposed to ease the hell on Earth, but reality.
His heart made him move – there was no way it would let Bob walk away.
However, with his sudden movement, the dread in Bob’s eyes turned into pure terror; maybe he thought Bill was about to punch him, maybe he just needed to hear his words. Either way, when Bill extended his hand to hug Bob around his waist, Bob’s hands gripped Bill’s at arm’s length.
“Please, Bill, don’t– “ he paused, voice thin, begging. “Look, I can just walk– “
“Robert,” Bill finally spoke, softly and calmly, with a small smile finding its way to his lips, “just look at me.”
Bob frowned in confusion.
An that moment, Bill let his emotions burn, he allowed them to ignite those feelings about Bob hidden in sealed envelopes. He allowed his often-furrowed brow to ease and his usually empty eyes to fill up with love he felt towards the man. He recalled each moment when he had admired Bob – the aftermath of the battle of Guadalcanal, their train ride across Australia. He recalled their shared moments Bill dreamt about – the poems he let Bill read and each brush of fingers.
Bill’s small smile grew with Bob’s loosening grip on his arms. He even dared to take a step towards him, he dared to raise his hands. He felt like he was truly about to capture a blue butterfly, fragile and shy.
But when he did take Bob’s face, he didn’t try to fly away.
No, Robert fucking Leckie leaned into Bill’s touch with the most beautiful, happy grin, and with that, he captured Bill.
He ruined him for anyone else.
Slowly, agonizingly so, he brought Bob’s face down to him, feeling his shallow breath tickle his cheeks and his warm hands grasp his hips, before he kissed him.
This time, it wasn’t furious, nor driven by fear or starving desire.
This time, they kissed each other with tenderness, driven by the need to hold each other as close as possible, as firm as possible. They were driven by years of forbidden feelings and lost time, time which they now had.
Because the war was over and they lived.
Thank God, Bill thought, as he smiled into the mouth of the man he loved and let himself melt into his touch.
God.
Maybe he did listen to Bill’s prayers, after all.