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Reg doesn’t sleep well anymore.
He sleeps better than he had when they were still in France, at least, or God forbid in Italy, when Johnny would regularly wake up to see him still sitting in the spot he’d been when Johnny had fallen asleep. When the bar is on the ground, of course, it makes it a lot easier to step over it. Even so, it doesn’t stop Reg from stumbling occasionally.
Johnny knew he had nightmares already. They all have nightmares, visions of missing limbs and dead children and lost friends, waking with the taste of gunpowder on their tongues and the sound of drowning soldiers echoing in their ears. Paddy and Fraser turned to drink when they got home; Almonds and Riley moved into Almonds’ family home and threw themselves into their unconventional little family; Tonkin got back and married the first pretty girl he saw; Reg and Johnny turned to each other.
It’s been on and off, the two of them, since that first leave in Cairo all those years ago when they’d stumbled drunk into the back room of a club, hands shoved down each others’ trousers without so much as a verbal acknowledgment of what was happening. It had stopped them arguing, at least, and over time it had grown until it was something so big that Johnny thought sometimes it might swallow him whole. They’d had each other in stolen moments, hidden away in plain sight, knowing every time that this might be the time someone stumbled across them. The SAS was a safer place to be the way that they are, but there’s a difference between the unspoken knowledge that the rest of the regiment had as to what they were doing, and someone catching them in the act.
They have time now though, now that they’re home. They have all the time in the world. It’s as exhilarating as it is terrifying.
Reg’s got himself a job working on the piers, loading and unloading shipments. It’s rough, brutal work, work that leaves him exhausted by the end of the day, but Johnny knows he’s thankful for it. Knows that the physical exhaustion makes it easier for him to turn his brain off at night, makes it easier to force himself to sleep. Johnny won’t pretend he doesn’t appreciate the things it does for Reg’s body either.
Johnny, in turn, has found himself a job at a local butcher. He’s always been good with numbers, and his boss pays him a little extra to do the books, and always sends him home at the end of the day with a little something for dinner. Johnny’s no chef, but after years of bully beef and dry bread, the chance at a steak or a roast chicken feels practically gourmet.
It’s a pleasant life they’ve built together, even if it’s not a particularly exciting one, and if Johnny finds himself itching for a bit of adventure sometimes, he’s always able to find something to take his mind off of it, whether it’s a weekend trip to make sure Fraser hasn’t drowned himself in a bottle yet, or a particularly long evening spent with Reg, bodies pressed together, taking advantage of every extra bit of muscle that Reg has built up spending his days lifting crates and barrels.
They’ve been at it for just over a year when something shifts.
Johnny doesn’t notice it at first. Reg is always asleep after him and awake before him, even on the Sundays when Johnny’s needed in at the butcher. It’s only when Johnny wakes early one Saturday morning, the sky outside barely turning grey with the dawn, to find Reg sitting in the chair by the window with a book open in his lap that he begins to pay attention.
“Alright?” he murmurs sleepily, and Reg looks up, something on his face that almost looks like guilt.
“Did I wake you?” he asks, and Johnny huffs out an amused breath.
“Yes, could you try to turn your pages a bit quieter next time?” he asks.
Reg rolls his eyes fondly. “I’ll get right on that.”
“Can’t sleep?” asks Johnny, and Reg shrugs, eyes returning to his pages, though he’s clearly not taking anything in.
“Come back to bed,” Johnny murmurs, lifting up the blanket, half to beckon Reg in, half to show off his own body. Reg’s eyes flick down, over where Johnny is clearly hard in his boxers, then back up.
“Yeah, alright,” he says, putting his book aside and pushing himself to his feet, crossing their little flat in barely a few strides.
“Clothes off first,” says Johnny, holding up a hand to stop him, and Reg scoffs again, but he follows Johnny’s directions anyway, tossing his shirt aside and kicking off his pyjama bottoms before finally sliding in under the covers. Johnny pulls him close, and presses his lips to Reg’s throat.
They don’t get back to sleep until the sun is well up into the sky, but it’s worth it when Johnny wakes again to find Reg still dead to the world, cheek pillowed on Johnny’s chest, a sated smile on his lips.
Johnny starts to notice it more often after that though. The circles under Reg’s eyes grow darker by the day, and more than once Johnny wakes in the morning to find the sheets on Reg’s side of the bed fully cold, or finds himself jerked awake in the middle of the night by Reg whimpering in his sleep. Reg never seems to be without a cup of strong black tea when he’s at home either, and his complaints of muscle pains seem to grow more frequent even as winter shifts into spring.
It is perhaps three weeks after that first sleepless morning that it comes to a head.
Johnny works half-days on Friday, the shop closing early so his boss can go home for Shabbat dinner. Usually Reg isn’t home until later, but today he arrives just after Johnny, a scowl on his face, heavily favouring his left leg.
“What’s happened to you?” asks Johnny through a mouthful of clothespins, looking over his shoulder where he’s standing on one of the kitchen chairs, pinning up their laundry on the string stretched across the corner of the room.
Reg only grunts, limping past Johnny without so much as a glance his way, shutting the bathroom door behind him with a snap.
The anger rises up in Johnny before he even consciously considers it. God forbid he ask Reg to talk about anything, he thinks, before he makes the very intentional effort to push the anger back, to climb back down to the floor and take a deep breath. He cannot be the impulsive nineteen year old that he was when he joined the SAS, or the bloodthirsty twenty-three year old that he was when it ended. He is not a soldier anymore, and neither is Reg, and he knows that his anger will not help either of them.
He puts the kettle on instead, and waits for Reg to emerge.
“Are you hurt?” he asks when Reg finally comes back out and sits down on the edge of the bed to undo his laces, face clearly still damp in spots from washing. He forces his voice gentler, less accusatory, but still all he gets is a wordless grunt of acknowledgment and a refusal to look his way. “Reg,” he says firmly, and finally Reg looks over.
“Slipped,” he says, face unreadable. “Dock was wet. ‘M fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” snaps Johnny, forcing himself not to wince at how quickly his attempt to be tender had lasted. He pauses, breathing out slowly through his nose, then takes a tentative step in Reg’s direction. “Talk to me,” he murmurs, and finally, the vulnerability bleeds through in Reg’s eyes.
“I dont…” Reg mutters, holding Johnny’s gaze for one, two seconds, then jerking his head away again, not quite quick enough to hide the tears that are beginning to well up. He flexes his hand, staring down at his feet, and then, all at once, the tension drains out of him, leaving him very nearly slumped over, a puppet with no one holding the strings. “I’m so tired, Johnny,” he whispers, and Johnny’s whole heart clenches in his chest.
“I know, love,” he whispers, finally crossing the room properly, kneeling down at Reg’s feet, taking one of Reg’s hands in both of his. “You haven’t slept much lately, have you?”
Reg’s eyes are still shiny, but he keeps them fixed on a point on the floor just next to his feet when he shakes his head, as if by not making eye contact he can somehow hide it.
Johnny lifts Reg’s hand to his mouth, brushing his lips across his knuckles, and Reg sucks in a single, shuddering breath.
“It’s been a year,” he whispers. “I keep thinking… Why aren’t I better yet?”
“You think any of us are better?” asks Johnny with a weak laugh. “Fraser hasn’t been sober in months. Kershaw’s hand tremour is so bad half his letters are illegible. Paddy is… Well.”
“Paddy is Paddy,” Reg mutters, a humourless smile pulling at his lips.
“Paddy is Paddy,” Johnny echoes. He pauses, licks his lips, keeps going. “Sometimes I nearly make myself sick at work, you know,” he says, aiming for casual, for conversational, but not quite sure if he achieves it. Reg turns to look at him finally all the same. “When the cows come in, or– I had to drain one a few weeks ago, and it– it splattered, and all of a sudden I was back in Italy, remember, when we used to– well, at least I’m good at getting blood out of clothes now, aren’t I?”
“You didn’t tell me,” says Reg, running his thumb across the back of Johnny’s knuckles.
“Didn’t want to worry you,” says Johnny with a little shrug.
“I want you to worry me,” says Reg, and all Johnny can do at that is bring Reg’s hand to his lips again for another little kiss, his own eyes uncomfortably hot.
“Tell you what,” he says. “I’ll promise to worry you about this sort of thing if you promise to wake me when you can’t sleep.”
Reg snorts. “Don’t reckon it’d be very practical if we’re both spending all night awake every night, would it?”
“And when have the two of us ever been practical?” asks Johnny. He’s sure his smile is just a little too sharp, but he knows Reg likes it that way anyway. “Besides,” he adds with a cheeky little wink, “I did a pretty good job getting you back to sleep last time, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, not so bad,” says Reg, finally rewarding Johnny with a little smile of his own, weak as it is.
“I just put on the kettle,” says Johnny, giving Reg’s hand a little squeeze. “Why don’t you take a nap while I get a bath started for you, hm?”
He begins to push himself to his feet, but before he’s even a full step away, Reg is darting out a hand, catching him by the wrist.
“Wait,” he rasps, looking up at Johnny through wide eyes. “Stay?”
Johnny stares at him for a moment, remembering the moment just over a year ago, when Johnny had come to see him for the first time after they got home, when Reg had held his hands and given him the same request. He knows Reg is thinking about it too.
“Just let me take the kettle off the heat then,” Johnny murmurs, and Reg nods, but it takes him a second to let go.
Even still, Johnny is back in a moment. They only have one room and the little bathroom, the two of them living in each others’ pockets just as they had in the war.
Reg moves aside so Johnny can join him on the bed, but Johnny kneels right back down at his feet, starting in at Reg’s abandoned laces, still knotted up at his ankles.
“You don’t have to–” Reg starts, but Johnny hushes him gently.
“Let me take care of you, Reg,” he says, tugging the laces apart with practised ease, and when he glances up at Reg, Reg only nods wordlessly.
For a long time then, they do not speak. Johnny sets Reg’s boots aside neatly, then tugs off his socks and balls those up too. He pulls Reg to his feet and starts in on the buttons of his shirt, taking his time with each one like he would if Reg were in his uniform, tugging it out where it’s tucked in and sliding it back off of Reg’s shoulders.
Reg lets himself be undressed silently, his eyes tracking Johnny’s every motion, watching as he steps away to put the shirt on a hanger and hook it up on the door to their little closet. He slides his hands up under Reg’s undershirt next, tracing fingers along muscle as he pushes the tee-shirt up, up, lifting Reg’s arms as he goes. The tee-shirt is folded neatly too, placed on the desk where they sit to write their letters and shopping lists.
Then come Reg’s trousers, belt undone and removed, rolled into a tight circle. Buttons unfastened, rough denim tugged down, folded in half, draped over the back of the desk chair. Reg doesn’t move from the place Johnny has put him, hands at his sides, the only movement the darting of his eyes as he watches Johnny pace around him.
His boxers are next, and Johnny rids him of those as methodically as he had the rest of them, folding them, stacking them on top of Reg’s undershirt, until Reg is perfectly bare in the middle of the room, goosebumps rising on his arms, nipples hard, cock soft and hanging between his thighs. There is already a vicious bruise forming on his hip, stretching up toward his ribs, and Johnny steps forward at last, pressing his body to Reg’s, tracing gentle fingers up the length of it.
Reg lets out a gasping, shuddering breath, his head falling forward, pressing his forehead hard against Johnny’s shoulder.
“Poor thing,” whispers Johnny, lifting his other hand to stroke Reg’s hair. “Will you let me make it better?” he adds, lips pressed to the shell of Reg’s ear.
He feels, rather than sees Reg nod.
They move together back to the bed, Reg walking backward, Johnny forward, guiding him until he sits down on the edge of it. They keep an extra blanket folded at the foot of the bed, and Johnny grabs it, wrapping it around Reg’s shoulders carefully before, once more, he settles himself down to kneel at Reg’s feet.
“Johnny,” whispers Reg, but Johnny only shushes him softly again.
“Let me take care of you,” he says, and he leans forward, taking Reg’s soft cock into his mouth.
“Fuck,” Reg whispers, but he does not move.
Johnny rests his cheek against Reg’s thigh, the weight of him a comfort on his tongue, and lets his eyes flutter closed.
“Are you…” Reg attempts to say, but Johnny only hums softly around him, and then the room falls quiet again.
Johnny doesn’t know how long passes like that. Reg’s hand finds its way to his hair eventually, stroking gently, fingertips massaging his scalp just the way Johnny likes. The whole thing feels strange, dreamlike, and in the moments when Johnny does occasionally find the strength to glance up at Reg, Reg’s eyes are closed too, his weight braced where he leans back on his other hand. Their breathing slows, syncs up, the two of them existing in their peaceful little bubble for what could be hours, days, years.
Eventually though, once the room has dimmed around them, sun long set, nothing but the flickering oil lamp on the desk keeping them illuminated, Johnny feels Reg begin to harden.
It’s only then that he realises that he too is hard, probably has been for a while, though it does not feel important. He does not want to end the moment they have found themselves in, and yet once he becomes aware of it, he finds it is all he can think about. His head had been blissfully blank a moment ago, lost in their shared meditation, and now this knowledge of their arousal is there to fill the empty space. He swallows around Reg, and Reg’s breath hitches in his chest, and when Johnny glances up again, Reg’s cheeks are flushed and his eyes are fixed on Johnny.
Maybe, Johnny thinks, this isn’t so bad either.
Still he takes his time with it. There is no urgency, none of the desperation and rush of their early relationship. He can move slowly, dragging the flat of his tongue along the underside of Reg’s cock, and pull the moans from Reg’s lips along with it. He can lift a hand to cup Reg’s balls as he pushes himself down, down, keeping his nose buried in Reg’s curls as his cock swells to fill Johnny’s throat. He can blink back tears as he pulls away, and revel in the broken whine that Reg makes, the knowledge that the walls are far thicker than tent canvas and they have nowhere to be the next day.
This, Johnny thinks, as Reg’s fingers keep up their motion in his hair, going from gentle to rough and back to gentle again as Johnny teases, this can be a form of meditation too.
When Reg reaches his peak he is completely silent, a habit hard-broken that Johnny still plans on training out of him, but his grip tightens on Johnny’s hair again and his body folds in on itself, as if he could pull Johnny within himself. Maybe he can tomorrow, Johnny thinks fondly as he swallows Reg down; after a bath and breakfast, he can put Reg face down on their mattress and fuck him slow and hard and deep until Reg is trembling beneath him, gasping and sobbing and begging Johnny to allow him to finish. If nothing else, Johnny knows Reg always sleeps well after that.
Tonight, though, Johnny pulls away, licking the last traces of Reg from his lips, then letting Reg pull him in to finish the job for him. Reg’s hands are clumsy as he pulls down Johnny’s trousers and does his best to return the favour, but it doesn’t matter, it hardly takes anything for Johnny to follow him, spilling across Reg’s fingers and spent cock as he sighs into Reg’s mouth.
“Dinner?” Johnny asks when he finally pulls away, and Reg, in all his messy-haired, glassy-eyed beauty, seems to take a moment to understand what he’s saying.
“Not hungry,” he says at last. “Are you?”
“Not really,” says Johnny. He’s never hungry anymore, even when he knows he ought to be. “Sleep?”
“Mm,” Reg hums in agreement, and Johnny knows it’s a testament to how tired he is that he lets Johnny wipe him clean and manhandle him under the covers without so much as a hint of complaint.
Johnny knows they haven’t solved anything tonight, not permanently. Reg’s insomnia will stay with him, and so will his bad dreams. Maybe they’ll be there forever. But it’s not the only thing.
For the second time that night, Reg catches Johnny by the wrist before he can pull away. And for the second time that night, Reg whispers, “Stay?”
Johnny lets Reg pull him back in, sliding under the blankets beside him, pulling Reg’s back flush to his chest.
“Always,” he murmurs in Reg’s ear.