Chapter Text
When the war is over, Ginger is tired.
He’d thought Ceylon was bad, with the heat and the bugs and the perpetual boredom of waiting for something, anything to happen. It hadn't been like that this time. Instead it was months, drawn out into years of sitting in muddy trenches, tipping fetid water out of boots, telegramming back the latest names of the dead who still laid around him, the broken, pale bodies of thousands of young men who would never see their families again. So much blood that his uniform was permanently dyed with it, a deep, rusty brown to remind him of all those lost along the way. It couldn't have been further away from London, from the days of extravagant parties’ night after night, and the carefree laughter that had infected the rich and young. How foolish it all seemed now, staying up to watch the sunrise and outrageous costumes and defiance of every social convention on how one should behave. Like a dream he could barely remember having.
Nina, he’s sure, had received his telegram over a year ago. The one which said, “The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your husband, Captain Edward D. Littlejohn has been reported missing in action since Eleven April over France.” He wonders vaguely if she’d cried, if she’d cared at all, or if she’d been quietly grateful.
The transport trucks take them as far as the ruins of Paris, and then they have to wait.
-
Repatriation is slow, and a year after he’d finally read those words, those wonderful, terrifying words (War over stop. Nazi forces surrendered stop. Await further instructions stop.) he’s still in Paris, watching the tattered remains of the French nation climb out of their hiding places and attempt to rebuild their once great city. There had been joy, of course, parties in the street with meagre celebrations of stolen wine bottles, dusty tins of peaches, and jam spread thinly over hard tack, the last surviving gramophones wheezing out melodies from a previous life. But then the reality had set in, covered in brick dust and the crying of orphans, and when Ginger couldn’t stand it any longer, he fled into the countryside. Not that it was better there, landscaped scarred with a matted labyrinth of trenches and craters, but at least the sun shone, and the birds sang, and the first vestiges of grass had begun to heal over the mud and blood-soaked fields. He has a suitcase stuffed full of French francs and US dollars and cigarettes, and the freedom of a new country to explore.
Normandy is still littered with sandbags and barbed wire, but there's a cheerfulness too, even as the local people break their backs to feed a ransacked Paris. No one says no to his money, and he's welcomed with a hospitality he hasn't experienced since … well, since Nina and her friends. And even that wasn't quite like this, a complete openness free of social norms and expectations. No hidden motives and no urgency in any of their actions.
He gains a smattering of freckles working on a farm, beads of sweat soaking his shirt in the blazing sun, and in the evenings, he watches the sky turn violet with something rich and red in a glass by his side.
-
The seasons slide gracefully into autumn, and he barely notices, still wandering the traumatised countryside. A family takes him in, and their giggling daughter teaches him better French with bright sparkling eyes and lips stained with berry juice. He's English, but not an idiot, he can tell she likes him, can tell she'd be quite happy settling down with the lanky Englishman and his terrible accent left over from the war, a simple wedding, 3 kids, a little farm with an orchard, and waking up at 6am to collect the eggs.
Ginger leaves them after a month and does an excellent job of ignoring the fat tears that slide down her soft cheeks. He kisses her forehead and wishes her luck, and with that he moves on. He can't do it forever, of course, but he'll bloody well do it as long as he can. At night the flashes of shells still light up under his eyelids.
He runs into them quite by chance, by the time the crisp leaves are being tugged off half-bare branches. A silhouette stirs up something in his memory, round sunglasses perched at the tip of a nose, the vibrancy of a duck-egg blue beret. Green bowler hats. The marketplace continues to bustle around him as he stops dead in his tracks, something familiar from a lifetime ago settling in the back of his mind, and there's a vague recognition in his eyes from that time on the air ship. The music playing loud, weaving through dim lights and silhouettes and champagne glasses. He'd slipped away, only to find a friend of Nina's outside. Miles. But you can call me sweetheart, if you’re good, he'd said, eyes shining. They'd stood outside and smoked, talked, kisses pressed to his cheeks and the occasional outrageous comment made until his- his friend had carried him away. It had been simply magical.
He pushes through the bundles of people, past the vegetable stalls, muttering apologies to the disgruntled customers he shoulders out of the way, desperate for something he can't quite describe. He loses them behind a group of loud mothers, and feels it slip out of his grasp. He may never get it back.
"Miles!" The tone of his voice is frankly pathetic, aching and longing, and several people turn to stare at him as he bursts through the crowd, and virtually tumbles to a halt at Miles' feet. There's a patently confused painted over those cherubic features, before his eyebrows raise and a flutter of understanding crosses his face. Ginger almost cries with relief.
"Ginger?! It was Ginger wasn't it? Well, my goodness, fancy seeing you here darling. You look positively dreadful. I barely recognised you."
He bites back the croak in his throat and clamps down on the sudden urge to fling his arms around the man just for remembering his name.
"Miles." He feels almost giddy. For the first time in months something feels right. If he were the sort of man to believe in such nonsense as Fate, he'd be thanking his lucky stars right about now.
Blue eyes flicker nervously over the few people staring at them still, and as he leans in, his warm breath tickling at Ginger's ear. "Well, actually it's Michel now, chérie, at least out here in public."
It takes him a moment too long to grasp the implication, and then it hits him. Nina had been most upset of course, bawling for an entire afternoon at the sudden loss of her friend, and Ginger had done his best to comfort her. It had been a most awkward affair, and one that makes him inexplicably sad to remember. He's sure his nod is barely visible through the shakes that seem to have taken a hold of his body, trembling like the aspic jelly his mother had once served at Christmas dinner.
"Ah yes, Michel, of course " Miles' eyes sparkle with a devilish glee, and he leans back, positively beaming at Ginger.
"What are you doing out here? I thought you'd have scarpered back over the channel to dear Nina's arms after that dreadful war was over." A shadow of something sweeps briefly over Miles' face, the dark clouds left behind after a storm, and if Ginger had blinked, he would've missed it. "How is she? I do miss her terribly sometimes; we could do with one of her parties livening up the place."
"I … I- I don't know." It's shameful really, a husband running away from his responsibilities, not even a telegraph to let her know he was alive, gallivanting around the French countryside, unwilling to be sent home.
A thick silence hangs in the air for a moment, despite the bustle of the market around them, Miles' expression unreadable before he brightens again. "Never mind all that, I suppose, what are you doing in Giverny of all places? Not that it isn't a darling little town, of course, but it is dreadfully dull. All those wonderful artistes fled after the first war, apparently, and I don't think it quite lives up to its reputation anymore."
"Travelling, just … wandering about really. Adjusting, I suppose you might call it." The smile that curves his lips is hollow and tired. It's as close to the truth as Miles needs to know, for now.
"I'm sure we can assist with a little adjusting, can't we mon coeur?" That's when he notices her. "Do say you'll stay for a while, Ginger. Having some fresh blood around here might be just what the doctor ordered."
He has his arm through a young woman's, who Ginger is introduced to as Amélie, and if he wasn't scarred and aching and tired, he might have flashed her a bright smile, raised his brows, lowered his voice a sultry tone or two. She's beautiful, almost as tall as Miles' and athletically built, with wild auburn hair and eyes as green as the large rock sparkling upon her ring finger.
He blinks as she pushes her hand towards him and tries not to choke as he admires the stone, set in a delicate band. Miles had always been so … flamboyant. Even now a deep shade of pink graced his lips, lips that twisted into a wry smile as his eyes flicked a knowing look at his female companion, one Ginger could never hope to decode.
Maybe the war changed people. It had certainly changed him. Maybe Miles really had settled down, happily married in the French countryside. His mind drags up the recently discarded memories of a farmer's daughter, her hands so delicate as they wrapped around his, leading him through fields of wheat and laughing freely at the expanse of the blue sky.
Maybe Ginger should have as well.
"Congratulations, old boy! Bloody congratulations, I say!" He reaches out to shake Miles' hand heartily, all the while trying not to think of Nina. She'd been a vision on their wedding day, and yet Ginger couldn't bring himself to feel any excitement. Only dread. Did Miles feel the same? Had he felt the cold stone sinking further into the pit of his stomach as he slid the ring on her finger, bit back the disappointment at a dry peck at the altar, faltered as he'd laid her down in their marital bed and stumbled his way through consummation.
Ginger can't imagine Miles faltering at anything.
Amélie murmurs something too quietly to hear, and Miles' laughs, a genuine, musical sound, the kind that Ginger barely remembers from before. Back then they'd all laughed like that, not a care in the world.
"Indeed, darling, congratulations all round. Which of course, means a celebration." The word is still tainted with images of rumbling tanks and parades down the Champs-Elysees, but he pushes those memories down with a faltering smile. Trust Miles to throw a party at a moment’s notice. Trust Miles to still be living in the past. "We'll go out tonight. Paint the town. Say you'll come Ginger; it will absolutely be a bore if you don't. Besides we have so very much to catch up on. Say you'll come, darling, pretty please, for me?" There are eyelashes batted at him, fluttering enticingly as a hand comes to rest warmly on his forearm, contact burning through the thin linen of his shirt. Amélie shoots Miles a warning look, and Ginger recoils bodily, away from the touch (and when had he last been touched in any way other than the cold, sterile hands of nurses checking him over?) but his head is already nodding, mouth already forming the words, hands already pulling out his notebook and scribbling down the address and directions dripping from Miles' lips.
He stands there for too long after they've gone, and he swears he can still feel a hand print on his arm.
-
That evening Miles drags him to what he describes as "the only lively place to get a drink in all of Normandy", and Ginger wonders how his personality has survived the last decade. The world is a very different place, but Miles Maitland is determined to make it remember the days of lavish parties and lascivious fun. He's introduced to a group of people whose names whirl round him so fast he giddily forgets them all instantly. There was a Victor maybe. A Giselle perhaps. He smiles at them all cordially as they tuck themselves into one of the dim booths in the far corner and buys everyone a round of drinks to endear himself to them. It doesn't work. They speak in rushed French and laugh at jokes he doesn't understand and cheers his health with a sideways glance that could only be described as supercilious. Miles, on the other hand, holds court, head of the table and centre of attention, and Ginger watches astonished as they hang off his every word and light his cigarettes for him. He should leave really, it's quite apparent he does not belong here, in this intimate group of old friends, and he would, if it were not for Miles. He's enticing, entrancing, and more than that, is some remnant of the old-world that Ginger had all but forgotten. The last thing he has left to remind him of those few blissful months in London.
He should go, but the way Miles is pressed up against him, a dramatic lean leaving his head on Ginger's shoulder, soft curls tickling his cheek, one hand gesturing broadly, describing his tale in winding trails of cigarette smoke and flashes of teeth. He smells intoxicating, ash and musk and something decidedly sweet underneath it all. Bergamot, he realises belatedly. It's bergamot.
"I hope you haven't fallen asleep, Ginger darling. You're supposed to be the life of the party after all." Miles twists with the grace of a snake, chin propping itself where his head had been a moment before, heavy lidded eyes full of expectancy.
"N-No, no, not at all." Stammering was such an ugly trait, and one his father had done his damnedest to beat out of Ginger when he was young. What a disappointment he was, all these years later, tongue still tripping over itself in its haste. "I really am terribly sorry for not being …" Not being what? Confident? Handsome? Livelier? Less of a wet drip? For not being one of these bright young things sat around the sticky wood of the table, able to talk with ease, able to fit in, able to laugh?
"What ever are you apologising for? Oh, aren't you simply precious, Ginger." There's a soft kiss pressed to his cheek and with that Miles turns back, conversation returning with ease. Ginger excuses himself on the pretence of collecting more bottles of whatever is drinkable from the bar, and pretends desperately that his heart isn't throbbing painfully, heavy with a memory of something that never happened.
"Darling you simply must stay!" Miles says when he returns, drunk and pleading, eyes lighting up at the prospect. The room blurs slightly, fuzzy halos distorting around the old gas lamps. Ginger can't tell if he means in the bar or forever. It sounds like both. "It'll be such a bore if you go."
There's nothing for him in London. He doesn't think he could go back if he tried. Civvy street was as far off a dream as returning to a pristine London filled with raucous parties and pulsing nightlife. The remnants of the war echoing in his memories remind him that Nina will be better off without him. He’s already been dead two years to her.
And so, he stays.
-
It takes Ginger 3 days, a run in with a policeman and a rather subdued party to understand what is really going on.
Amélie flashes her ring and they passionately kiss when the uniformed man questions them bluntly, stating the rumours that have been swirling around the town. And yet later that night, in the smoky drawing room of Miles' home, with the curtains closed carefully, he watches the way she kisses down the neck of a girl giggling in her lap, hands trailing luxuriously to indecent places, soft and feather light. He watches the way Miles hangs off one of the tall, brooding men in the corner, whispering into his ear and pressing himself against him in a way that makes Ginger blush and avert his gaze.
Even his alcohol addled mind can understand that.
They are each other's protection. Best friends keeping all the prying eyes and wagging tongues at bay.
She stares at him with open distrust, and he can't blame her. He's another potential leak, a crack in a bathtub already precariously dripping. None of them can afford him running off to the nearest police station. Miles' charms work, for the most part, soothing words chattered in French too fast for Ginger to understand, but her gaze is still wary for weeks.
One day she offers him one of her cigarettes, thin and strong and acrid, and he gratefully accepts the olive branch with a soft smile. She nods at him and lights it and a tentative alliance is formed.
-
Miles telephones for him one afternoon, and it’s all Ginger can do not to rush over immediately, but he simply has nothing to wear to the dinner suggested in a devilishly demure tone. A handful of some worn-thin shirts and a couple of pairs of trousers, each one in a worse state than the next. Certainly nothing that could even pretend to be evening wear. The tailor in town stares at him in distaste as he hurries through, pulling out something sober and charcoal and double-breasted, which nearly fits, and the lovely lady who has been letting him stay in her spare room sews him a tie from a piece of old curtain, the thick silk hanging heavily around his throat.
Miles greets him on the doorstep with a sweeping gaze, and Ginger can’t help the self-conscious flush that burns on his cheeks as Miles’ lips part and he laughs.
“Now, now look here, Mil- Michel, it’s, well, it’s as good as I can get on short notice, damn it, and if it won’t do, then tell me rather than making me into a fool. You can always take Victor, or Alexandre or, damn it, whatever his name was. Or your- your wife!”
“Oh darling,” Miles says, as he reaches out and smooths down Ginger’s parting, as his nimble fingers straighten out his tie and neaten his collar, as Ginger almost chokes at the coy gaze thrown up at him from beneath powdered lids. “We’re only engaged.”
Oh. Right.
“I think you look absolutely fetching, Ginger. It’s just …” He hesitates, eyes flicking downwards, and Ginger knows exactly what he’s referring to. “I didn’t realise it was the fashion of the day to have one's ankles on display.” The blush staining his cheeks deepens, and for a moment he wants nothing more than to curl up underneath an eider down and have his mother tell him everything is quite alright.
“I didn’t exactly have time to make alterations, and besides the tailor’s has already done quite well out of me today, damn it. Perhaps if you’d given me a little more warning, I could have-”
“And where’s the fun in that, hm?” A slender finger taps the end of his nose before Miles’ arm snakes into his, pulling him close and beginning their stroll. “Life’s for living, darling, not for hemming pants.” The sun catches on the daring pearl drop hanging from one of Miles’ ears, and Ginger, briefly, wishes he lived like Miles. Untroubled, vivacious, always rushing off to the next most exciting thing without a care or concern in the world. But jealousy is an ugly face to wear, and so he trails along behind the other man, shoes scuffing on cobbled streets, squinting against the dying sunlight.
They dine at the nearest place that could, hesitantly, be called a restaurant, a little café that had survived the ravages of war. Aux Cerises. It's not exactly the Ritz, but it's pleasant enough, and Ginger relishes in having Miles alone, to himself, without his burdening entourage and their aloof words. It’s less of a show, a performance, when it’s just them, and conversation flows easily. Miles makes him try the moules à la crème Normande, and for once Ginger doesn’t mind the laugh it pulls out of the other man’s lips as his face screws up in displeasure. They stay there until the overtaxed waiter looks quite brassed-off by their antics, and when he places a wad of bills on the table to soothe the man’s irritation, he savours the unfettered look of surprise that plasters itself on Miles’ features.
"You didn’t have to do that, you know.” Comes the muted response, minutes later when they’re back to strolling along the deserted lanes, arm in arm. Lamplight spills into the street from netted windows, and the world is uncharacteristically quiet.
“Well, I believe it’s still the polite thing to do, isn’t it? The world hasn’t changed that much, and I- Well, you’ve shown me a jolly good time tonight Michel, so it felt only fair to, well, repay you in some way.” He nudges him gently with his shoulder. “Without you I would still be living in a world without garlic mussels, and that would be an absolute travesty, I assure you.” He’s aiming for something lighthearted, witty, even, if he were a witty sort of chap, but Miles stays subdued, and something bilious gnaws at his insides. “I say, Miles, are you quite alright?”
There’s a long pause, and Ginger briefly considers that he might have done something terrible and Miles will never speak to him again, and then, just like a switch has flicked on, he’s back smiling up at him, skipping ahead and spinning around like a whirling dervish, hands clapping gleefully. “Quite alright, dearest. Now what do you say to being rather naughty. We simply can’t part ways so early in the evening, how boring, so you shall have to find a way to entertain me, Ginger.” His eyebrows waggle suggestively. “What do you say to digging the old bottles of Arpents du Solei out of the basement and drinking them before Louis finds out that I knew they were there all along?” He doesn’t refuse the offer.
-
Ginger's ill.
There's no two ways about it, despite his protestations that really, he's fine, and will be right as rain in a few days. He's ill, terribly so, burning with a fever but always shivering and cold, skin clammy with sweat and limbs aching for no good reason at all.
He'd battled it out by himself for a while, hidden miserably in his lodgings, but after the third day Miles had become suspicious and appeared in his room.
Mother will take care of you, darling, he'd announced, with such certainty that Ginger knew there was no point in arguing. He might have tried a little harder than the feeble please he'd given, but he's sick, and that enough of an excuse for Miles to wrap him up in several layers and bustle him into one of the spare bedrooms hidden away in the sprawling cottage he and his friends inhabit. Miles lays cool flannels on his forehead and runs fingers through him lank hair and hums when he thinks Ginger is asleep, when he thinks he won't notice the low, sweet sounds. For the most part it's blissfully quiet, the occasional twittering bird, rustling leaves, plates being bumped in the sink as they're washed. He dozes fitfully, caught between his pounding head and thumping heart, and prays for it all to be over soon. Sunlight dapples the ceiling in the mornings and fades into rosy hues of peach and lavender in the evenings.
If he were to tell the whole truth, which he's inclined to do, with the fever addling his mind, he'd tell you he rather likes Miles fussing over him. He gets his full attention, every spectacular drop of it, and even if he can't see it, he's sure there are several people in the house rather irked that Miles is spending his time feeding Ginger creamy soup and reading aloud to him. It's nice, to feel cared for, looked after, and Miles does a good job of playing nurse, too good maybe.
He falls asleep with his head in Miles' lap most afternoons, but one day it's worse than usual, unbearable, hot and cold all at once, shaking and quivering, the light unbearable as it pricks needle-sharp at his eyes.
"The fever's breaking, darling." He grunts, maybe, trying not to be cross at Miles' soft words, while squirming in pain. A cool hand skims over his cheeks, and he can't bring himself to be disgusted by the sheen of sweat he knows is coating him, that Miles is touching. All he can do is curl in on himself, squeeze his eyes tight shut, and wait.
He must have fallen asleep at some point, because then he's waking up, stirring at the sound of soft noises. Miles' voice. He's speaking in gentle rhythmic cadences, liltingly sweet, and Ginger strains to make out the quiet words, stills his breaths, as though that will help.
"You cannot choose but know my love,
For he a shepherd's crook doth bear,
And he is soft as any dove,
And brown and curly is his hair."
Fingers card softly through his fringe, pushing it away from his forehead, soothing. He feels vaguely better at least, less febrile and delirious, his body surprisingly still in contrast to the shaking that had wracked him for days. He cracks an eye open, sneaking glances up at Miles, afraid that he’ll stop if he realises Ginger is awake. Even without the fever he doesn’t feel well, and the dulcet tones are comfortingly hypnotic, comfortingly familiar, easing the last throes of the flu away. Miles is surprisingly bare faced, and even without a hint of make-up his lashes flutter long and dark across his cheek, lips faintly pink, hair a mess of curls that had once been neatly arranged.
He’s beautiful.
Ginger can see the toll he’s taken on him though, etched into the lines of worry marring his forehead and bruise-like shadows circling beneath his eyes. A cocktail of guilt and shame washes through him, unpleasantly cold - how selfish he’d been by making Miles take care of him! Forcing him to virtually abandon his life in favour of sleepless nights watching over him, early mornings filled with coughing and cool flannels, changing sheets and making soup. How unutterably self-centred.
He stirs, convincingly sleepy, and the words stop sharply, as though not meant for waking ears. Ginger finds himself quite unable to look at the patient smile on Miles’ face as he pries open his eyes, stretches up and away from the other man’s lap, sits up on the mussed heap of bed covers.
“Oh darling, you’re awake. I thought you were going to sleep forever.” The smile he forces on his lips in response is painful, taut and thin. Miles looks tired, he realises, and yet still delighted at the sight of Ginger sitting up. “You’ve been positively delirious for days now, Amélie said we ought to take you to a hospital but I insisted on keeping you here. And look, you’re all the better for it.”
His voice comes out in a croak that he’s glad he can pass off as disuse and illness. Miles rushes to fetch him water, presses the glass to his lips and lets him sip weakly at it, like a useless child. “I would have been fine at the hospital, you shouldn’t have-”
“Nonsense.” The way he says it almost makes it sound like Miles thinks Ginger is silly for suggesting it in the first place. “Besides, it was too far to come and visit you properly, and I couldn’t have left you alone in that beastly place. You could barely say a word, you wouldn’t have survived a day on your own.” His eyes flick away, unreadable.
They sit in silence.
“I suppose my French is rather awful.” It’s feebly humorous, but enough to make Miles laugh, bodily, and Ginger watches him flop back onto the bed, still shaking with mirth.
"Vrai, c'est terrible. Ils vous auraient tué pour votre accent." He looks at the other man blankly, brain whirring to catch up. He'd failed it in school, and it showed, the disappointed glares of the masters still haunting him decades later. Miles laughs again and repeats himself in English to save Ginger the trouble of translating. "Your accent, darling. They'dve shot you on the spot for butchering their precious language."
"Quite." They're quiet again, but more companionably this time, and he tries to shake the last of the illness from his fuzzy head and inject some vim and vigour into himself. He glances down at himself, at the dishevelled, damp pyjamas, the haggard shape of his ribs beneath the fabric, the faint stain of sweat still clinging to his palms, and grimaces. "I say Miles, do you think I could borrow your shower before I head home. I don't think I'm fit to be seen in town in such a state." There's an ungainly snort, and Miles takes rather suddenly to studying his nails.
"Home? You mean that batty old lady who kept trying to come in and accost you? I told her you shan't be coming back."
"You what?" Miles, he realises, might be quite mad. The smile he's given in response does nothing to curb the notion.
"I told her you shan't be back darling. I had all your things brought here, and paid off your debts, and told her never to come back. She's awfully nosy. If she goes to the papers, I swear I'll take her to court." Perhaps he's still just ill, perhaps this is a bad dream, perhaps the flu has affected his hearing in some way, because it almost sounds like he's being kidnapped.
"Miles, I-" Each word is slow, giving time for his brain to frantically scrabble around for some sort of response to this disastrous conversation. "I can't possibly live here."
"Darling, why ever not?" Damn him. Damn him for looking so innocent, head cocked and smile faintly cherubic. Damn damn damn.
"Well … Well I- I-" He doesn't really have a good enough excuse, and Miles looks smug enough that Ginger's inclined to believe he's already won this debate. "I can't intrude on yo-"
"Oh, we all want you here. Even Victor was a saint about it. He carried all your belongings up from town, you know. I think he's taken a shine to you." He can't imagine the dark, brooding fellow ever being amicable towards any outsiders. He can, however, imagine Miles with a pretty pout and big shining eyes convincing him to do all the heavy lifting. "You can have this room. And the rent's cheap. Hardly anything - I've added on a special discount on account of your being so handsome. You can even pay in kisses if you want."
He sputters at that, feeling his pulse speed up unfairly, skyrocketing at Miles' laugh. He goes cold all over, like he's sick again, and his eyes won't move away from soft, rosy lips.
"Only joking, angel. Look you've gone all pale, don't make yourself ill again, that would be dreadful. I'm sure you'll adore staying with us. It'll be such a laugh. There is just one thing I need to ask you."
Oh god, this is it. He's going to have to sleep with Miles to get a room. Is that really a problem? his brain supplies helpfully, and he swallows thickly and gives Miles a slow nod, a gesture for him to continue.
"Can you cook?" Maybe this is a euphemism of some sort. He can only imagine the horrors the kitchen spatula has seen. "Only not a single one of us is any good, except Nicolette, but she's fiendishly hard to trap into the kitchen, so we've been forced to live off sandwiches and dreadful tins of god knows what. Do say you can cook, Ginger, or I fear we might starve and waste away."
A sigh of relief falls from his mouth, before he lets it curve into a tentative smile. Miles is serious. "I haven't ever tried, I'm afraid. Don't see why I can't learn though."
And that's how he finds himself living with Miles.
-
He starts with ratatouille. It seems simple enough.
Miles finds him an hour later with flour stuck in his hair and a sooty smudge on his forehead and laughs until tears run down on his cheeks.
Nicolette decides he’s too skinny anyway, and takes to cooking like a mad woman, as though Ginger must be starving at all hours. Miles steals forkfuls from his plate and thanks him with mirthful eyes.
-
It takes months for Amélie to really open up to him, months of Miles taking him on long walks through idyllic countryside and of clandestine parties and empty bottles of brandy. It's just past a year of him staying with them when she signals to him to follow her, leads him away from the hushed conversation of the party and out to the back porch. Miles protests, but she silences him with a look, and Ginger wonders truly if she's the only person on the planet capable of such a feat. They sit pressed against each other on the thin ridge of the doorstep and she rolls him something far stronger than tobacco to smoke. The laugh he gets as he coughs and heaves the smoke from his lungs is positively musical. He thinks it's probably the first time he's heard Amélie laugh.
"He loves you; you know." Her words are heavily accented, but there's no mistaking what she is saying. He blusters for a moment, taking another burning drag off the filter, his vision greying at the edges. He feels light, airy, and freed. The night is quiet. It won't tell his secrets.
"Well, I suppose, I've known Miles a while now, and, well, having a friendly face around and all, maybe I remind him of a better time, and I'm sure Miles loves all his fr-"
"Non." The glow from the lighter echoes off her sharp cheekbones. "Non, he loves you." The looks she gives him is positively expectant, and not completely unintimidating, and suddenly he rather wishes he had his wits about him.
Nicolette. That's the name of Amélie's ... well. She's almost comically small next to her, petite and tiny, face soft and cherub-like. Amélie loves her with a fierceness he had only seen in the tigers in Ceylon, and he swallows thickly. She loves Miles like that too, albeit in a different way.
"Oh."
"Oui." It hangs in the air heavily between them, thicker than the coils of smoke twisting around them. He watches her pause, long fingers raising the smouldering paper to her lips. She exhales slowly, watching grey tendrils twist against the smattering of stars visible in the sky. "What are you going to do about it?"
His head floats up up up with the smoke and he barely hears the question, too far away to hear her words. And then he comes crashing back down to Earth, shivering and jittering as the cold air nips at his hands and nose. He flicks the butt of the cigarette away, keeping his eyes trained on the dark silhouette of the apple tree at the bottom of the garden.
"I- I'm not sure really. Never thought about it before." And wasn't that a lie. Miles' rouged lips and those bright blue eyes were intoxicating, but it wasn't right and it wasn't proper, so he pushed it all down deep and tried to think of Nina's soft brown curls that looked so remarkably similar to- "Do you- That is to say, do you think that he's, well ... I suppose I ought to ... Yes."
She snorts, and the derision is palpable. "Vous anglais!" All of a sudden, her hands are at his collar, grasping too tight, the neat starched line of his shirt cutting in to his throat as she sneers over him, eyes lit with that same terrifying fury of a mother protecting her young cub. "Break his heart and I will break you. He has been through enough without you peut tout foutre en l'air." Her words jut out in a snarl before she lets go, standing swiftly and heading inside.
Ginger sits there for a long moment, dazed, fingers still trembling from the shock. A familiar voice cuts through the air, and there he is, Miles, flashing him lids dusted with a soft grey as his gaze flutters over Ginger's no doubt dishevelled appearance. Gentle hands come up to adjust his tie and smooth his lapels and he wishes desperately that his traitorous pulse didn't jump quite so high when soft skin brushes over the hollow of his throat. Miles clicks his tongue, once, twice, and then satisfied with his work, sits back against the door frame, slinging his legs carelessly over Ginger's lap.
"What did she do to you, poor thing?" The moonlight catches Miles' silver cigarette case, and he wordlessly accepts the one pushed into his hands, lighting it while a hand that doesn't belong to him smooths through his hair. "Oh, she is simply beastly sometimes, you're positively in shock Ginger, darling. Say something, quick, or I shall have to fetch a doctor, and I doubt he'll be pleased at a summons this late into the night. Plus, it will mean breaking up our little soirée inside, which I don't think Victor will be pleased about at all. I was just about to play you know, a devilish little spirit whispered to me that it all needed lightening up, when I watched her drag you off. I'll give her a stern talking to tomorrow darling, it's far too late now, but she simply must stop scaring off all the lovely young men who keep me company." His eyes turn expectantly to Ginger's and he manages to croak out something that might serve as a reply.
Miles' thighs are very warm over his.
"I suppose you should take it as a compliment, really, she only scares the chaps she approves of half to death. I dread to think what happens to the others." He wishes fiercely that he was sober, that Miles' lips didn't look quite so inviting, that Amélie had kept her unfounded thoughts to herself.
As if Miles would ever love him? Plain, boring, old Ginger, who always wore matching suits and always had a boiled egg for breakfast and always turned up 5 minutes early for everything. He'd known even back in London that it was only at Nina's insistence that he got invited to anything, and when he did attend, he was always the quiet fellow in the corner who didn't dance. Queer, he'd been called once. It didn't matter what Mr. Chatterbox had written about a tall, handsome soldier, just returned from the tropics with a fortune and as an eligible bachelor, everyone was always disappointed when they met him.
He's not even ginger. Just sort of a reddish-brown.
And he knew the sort of men Miles went for. He'd met Tiger, with his brooding good looks and leather jackets, a real-life Carey Grant, dashing and debonair. Everything that Ginger wasn't. She must have got it terribly wrong if she thought Miles would ever fancy him.
There's a sharp prod in his side, and he blinks owlishly at the worried expression swimming back into view. "Ginger, you're being awfully quiet. You'll give me the vapours in a moment if you don't liven up. I can't imagine what she said to you. Darling, the last thing I need tonight is-"
"I'm going to retire." He stands up abruptly, taking a long drag of the burnt down gasper in his fingers before squashing it out on the rough brick. Miles lays sprawled in an ungainly heap from the sudden movement, staring up at him agog. "Sorry, old pal. I think I've had a bit of a turn. See you tomorrow." And with that he turns on his heel and retreats.
Sleep does not come easily.