Archive of Our Own

    He goes back to his family’s home because he isn’t sure where else to go. While he was away - as his mother puts it, always while you were away, as if he had been studying - when he longed for home he never longed for his mother’s house so much as he longed for the RAF, but that home had sent him on his way. He returns to his mother who warmly and tearfully embraces him until days later she returns to her distant but softly warm usual self. So he paces and thinks against the backdrop of his childhood and his family, finally exhausting himself of thinking and can hardly remember how to do it at all. He wanders the house, the garden, the street, feeling like a ghost, his ears ringing.

    His mother watches him, from windows and from doorways and from across the too-large dining table. Farrier lets her pretend that she doesn’t know he sees her. He tries not to feel improper for eating too quickly. When he had first been home he hadn’t been able to sleep, something that would have been manageable had he been anywhere but in his mother’s home, where he felt rude for milling about the house at night and being woken from his fitful sleep on a chair or sofa by her concerned good morning. 

    He tries to remember when this home felt comfortable to him, if it ever did.

    He had fallen asleep early one morning on a barn blanket, curled around his mother’s meticulously-bred hound on the cold stone floor of the back room, having sat down with the dog for company in his restlessness. He had woken at the sound of his mother’s tapping footsteps, which halted in the doorway, where he heard her sigh softly. He held his eyes shut like a guilty child until she turned away without a word to rouse him. She had been kinder to him after that, and warmer, but he was unsure if that brought him any comfort.

     Farrier begins making phone calls and eventually finds that Collins is in London, though no one is quite sure what he’s doing except that he certainly isn’t flying. Farrier tells his mother over breakfast on a sunny morning that he’ll be off to see a friend, and she looks at him with surprise but nods and asks him if he needs any money. Farrier declines politely.

+

    Farrier meets the last man he called, a man about Collins’s age with brown hair and brown eyes and a miraculous penchant for survival and a name Farrier has to work to keep from forgetting. Edwards, he hopes.

    “He’s teaching driving lessons, or something,” Edwards says, “not on his own, of course. He’s employed. Last I knew, at least. I hardly see him except for when he comes around for a drink." 

    “Oh, well, that’s good. That he's working," Farrier says. Edwards shrugs and lights a cigarette. 

    “It’s a wonder he managed to find work at all. You know."

    “Why’s that?” Farrier asks. Edwards narrows his eyes, widens them, says oh.

    “You haven’t…heard...” Edwards says, realizing it aloud. Farrier stiffens and Edwards nervously runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry.”

    “It’s fine.”

    Edwards, clearly having made himself uncomfortable, sits in silence for a moment and gives Farrier directions to the school where Collins can supposedly be found in the afternoons, and Farrier thanks him and makes his way out, for Edwards’s sake. 

+

    He finds the driving school easily and props himself against a railing at the foot of the front steps, the cool air wearing on him in his stillness and tightening the muscles along the backs of his shoulders. The day should be ending soon, he thinks, checking his watch and being surprised to find a civilian watch on his wrist.

    Finally, finally, Collins steps out the front door of the school, his bright hair as neat as always. He's looking up at the sky before the door is all the way open, head tipped back, hands in his pockets, and Farrier almost expects Collins to find his eyes and ask think we'll be flying today? His face is likely still boyish to anyone who didn't know him before to draw any comparison, though he has a sweltering pink scar along one side of his face and shadowy dips on his cheek. Farrier's stomach lurches at the sight, and lurches again at the shame riding on the realization that the scars almost suit him. 

    As Collins looks away from the sky, Farrier regrets it all immediately and wants to turn and go, but before he can move his feet Collins looks right at him, his eyes looking centuries older than Farrier left them, one a scarred and faded blue, and then looks away as he trots down the steps. 

    Farrier’s heart stutters in his chest. 

    Collins freezes, nearly slipping off one of the steps, and looks back to him, the puzzled look on his face making him look exactly as youthful as he was when Farrier saw him last, scars or not. Collins blinks hard and his eyes light up.

    “Oh, fuck!” Collins exclaims, and his face breaks into a relieved grin. He bounds down the steps with a shameless enthusiasm that doesn’t match his teacherly attire, nearly stumbling over his own feet - he still hasn't grown into his legs, Farrier thinks - and throws his arms around Farrier. The warmth and weight of him is almost too much for Farrier to bear, and Farrier realizes, with Collins hanging around his shoulders, just how long it really has been. Farrier allows himself to fit into the embrace, and he finds that Collins smells different, still like himself but less like the war. Something sharp crunches between their chests and Farrier moves to step back but Collins holds himself steady, letting it dig into Farrier’s chest.

    “It’s just my glasses, I don’t care."

    "It's been a while, huh?" Farrier says softly into Collins's ear. 

    "Yes it fucking has,” Collins chokes. 

    “Do you curse this much in front of your students?"

    "Only on special occasions," Collins says into his neck. “I didn’t think it was you, I’m sorry. I got so used to it never -"

    “Collins,” Farrier says, trying to relieve Collins of the sentence he can’t finish as he politely removes himself from Collins’s arms. Collins blinks hard into the sound of his name. His chest is heaving under his coat, and Farrier knows if he reached out to touch him Collins would be shaking slightly. Farrier can feel his own muscles vibrating, chilled far beyond anything the autumn afternoon could inflict.

    Farrier looks at Collins fully now, the pockmarked scarring along his cheek and the glassy burn along his cheekbone up to his brow. Below a scar-swollen eyelid his eye is clouded over, almost iridescent, but to Farrier’s relief Collins's other eye is still as bright as ever. His entire face still smiles before his mouth can catch up to it, and he grins at Farrier for a precious moment before his face falls in realization. 

    “I know it’s bad,” Collins says, reaching for his face but letting his hand fall to his side again, his neck visibly tense, resisting an urge to turn his face away.

    “It’s not,” Farrier says quickly, “it’s not - not to say it's good. But it’s not bad.” It’s nothing that would send me away, he wants to say, but he doesn't. 

    Collins’s face softens. He swallows hard and shrugs his shoulders and seems to remember himself, becoming the stiff and concerned Collins that Farrier had expected to greet him.

    “You didn’t tell me you were coming,” Collins says. Farrier bites his lips together. “You didn’t tell me anything, actually. But it’s alright! It’s alright. Let’s…”

    “Tea?” Farrier suggests.

    “I was going to say a drink,” 

    “Tea.”

    “Sure. Tea. I don’t live far, if you want to come back with me,” Collins says. He digs a pair of glasses out of his pocket and inspects them and shoves them back, retrieving a cigarette in their place. He offers one to Farrier and Farrier shakes his head.

    “I don’t mind,” Farrier says, and Collins stares at him, dumbly thrilled, before he remembers himself and nods, starting with a bouncing step down the pavement. Farrier notes, with surprising sadness, that Collins shortened his stride to keep pace with Farrier the same way he always had before, so many years ago. 

    “Do you…” Collins begins, biting his lip to restrain some kind of grimace as he looks Farrier up and down, clearly noticing that his formerly negligible limp is now stiffer, “would you rather get a ride?”

    “No, Collins, I can walk just fine,” Farrier says, and realizing that they are no longer quite as familiar as they once were, he adds, “but thank you.”

    Collins chatters for most of the way, talking about his job as a driving instructor and thank God they let me, they didn’t believe I had the depth perception for it, that’s why the RAF let me leave, but I know once things come back in order they won’t think I’m suitable anymore, and Farrier grumbles in what he hopes is some sort of assurance. Collins falls silent, having talked himself out or been pulled into thought, and just as Farrier begins to search for something to fill the silence Collins puts a hand on Farrier’s elbow and nudges him up a walkway. 

    “Here, my flat. It’s…small, but it’s just me, anyway. The boy who had the second room just left a few weeks ago, he got married. It was cramped before then.” Collins opens the door as he talks and ushers Farrier up some dimly lit stairs to a small landing and squeezes past Farrier to unlock a door to his left. “It’s really not bad. It’s clean. No mice, even. My sister found it for me.” Collins steps aside to let Farrier in and shuts the door behind them. 

    Farrier enters into a sitting room even smaller than he would have expected, and Collins maneuvers around him to hang his jacket on the hook by the door. He gestures to it in question and Farrier shakes his head and Collins nods, leading Farrier into the equally small kitchen.

    Collins bites his tongue between his lips and looks Farrier up and down before hastily offering him a seat at the table. Farrier takes it and Collins stares blankly and nervously around the room before starting water for tea and hoisting himself up onto the countertop. 

    “Can I ask…how long ago…” Collins begins softly, so awkwardly that Farrier wants to pretend he didn’t hear it.

    “A few months.”

    Collins looks to the floor and nods. Farrier sighs.

    "I was at my mother’s,” Farrier says.

    “How is she?”

    “She’s fine. She’s had enough of me, though.” 

    “What a privilege that must be for her,” Collins says. Farrier sighs. 

    They stare at everything but each other until the water finishes. Collins asks him how he takes his tea, as if he doesn’t remember - though he’s already reaching for sugar - and Farrier tells him anyway. Collins sets the tea down in front of him and quickly returns to his seat.

    “Thank you,” Farrier says softly. Collins nods and sits down across from him, cupping his black tea with both hands.

    Collins chatters a bit more about his work and his sister, who has apparently found a house. Farrier mentions his mother, the dogs, his mother's new horse, his chest tightening with every new line of small talk. Collins checks his watch and Farrier too quickly rises from the table. 

    “I should probably get on home before anyone thinks I’ve gone and…I should go.”

    “Oh,” Collins says. Farrier takes the few steps to the door. Collins squeezes past him to open it for him.

    “Will you come back around? Or write, at least?” Collins asks, and the question falls from his lips without much grace, like something he never expected to have to ask. 

    Farrier realizes, far too late, that the two of them are closer to being strangers than intimates now.

    “Yes. Of course. I’m…” sorry, Farrier thinks, or not sure how this is supposed to work, “not that far, actually. You’ll hear from me.”

    The lines smooth out across Collins’s forehead. 

    “Yeah?”

    “Yeah.”

    “And you’ll get back alright?”

    “Yes. I’ll see you soon,” Farrier says, “I do promise, Collins.” 

    Collins looks at him and bites the corner of his mouth. He nods, licks his lips, and shuts the door, which Farrier finds especially merciful as he turns away and starts down the stairs. 

    Farrier returns home and falls into bed on an empty stomach. Every fumble for words plays over in his mind, every missed chance to just reach out to touch Collins flickering in his mind. Farrier wraps himself in the duvet without getting under it, falling asleep to images of what he should have done and the sounds of a dinner being laid out downstairs. 

+

    Farrier spends days biding his time at home, taking books down from shelves and setting them down elsewhere, intending to read them but never opening them, wandering up and down the street with the dogs. 

    He sits in a chair with a book balanced on the arm, the title now gone from his mind, staring out the window into the dreary afternoon. His mother’s footsteps come down the hall again, pause in the doorway, then come up next to him.

    “For you,” she says simply, holding out an envelope to him cooly.

    “Thank you,” Farrier says, pretending to read the book in his hands, waiting for her to step away once more before reading it. He sits poised with his finger under the seal, finally opening it once his mother’s footsteps entirely recede down the hall. 

    "I should have expected that you wouldn’t be writing. If you won’t write, at least come see me. But I won’t bother you more."

    There is no signature, but Collins’s printing looks like his voice. 

    Farrier leaves the next morning. 

+ 

    Picking up as civilians proves to be a puzzle, one where both of them are too afraid to attempt to fit pieces together should they not fit correctly. Before Collins would have been ready to jam pieces together and hope for the best while Farrier looked on, but that franticness is dull now and Collins’s jaw is pressed tight with reluctance. The puzzle is simple, Farrier is sure, but the pieces are unclear.

    Farrier wonders, sitting across from Collins at his kitchen table on a muggy afternoon, what Collins is learning about Farrier while Farrier learns that Collins jumps when approached on his left side, that the cigarettes in his mouth are as ever-present as the scar on his face, that the worst of his drinking habits are as shamefully hidden as his eyeglasses.

    They sit in silence, both of them hesitating to say goodbye. Farrier sees familiar frustration flutter across Collins’s mouth.

    “You know, I miss..." Collins begins, and looks down as he shakes his head and Farrier watches him, trying to read words on his face that he knows Collins won't say. You, maybe, but that would be too heavy, having you, perhaps, but that would be too simple. Collins reaches across the table and his fingers press into the underside of Farrier's wrist. Farrier carefully removes himself from Collins’s reach.

    “My mother is going to be expecting me,” Farrier says, the way a child would say it. Collins looks at him, horrified. “But I’ll see you two days from now. I promise.”

    “Two days.”

    “Yes.”

    “Alright."

+

    They take a lot of walks. Collins learns to slow down, to match Farrier’s slower-than-before pace with his stiff leg, poorly hiding his concern about Farrier’s slight limp. Farrier tries not to let on that he knows. Farrier tries to keep to Collins’s right side where Collins can see him. They walk, shoulders bumping, a different route every day dotted with halting conversation. 

    “How are things at home?” Collins asks. The question nearly makes Farrier stumble. He waits two paces, four paces and finally has an answer.

    “Too quiet. My ears ring too much.” 

    “That’s how I feel when I visit my sister. She’s living on some quiet little street.” 

    Farrier doesn’t have a response. He counts the paces until Collins inevitably speaks again. Six, eight, ten, twelve.

    “I have an extra room. The landlady said I could use it for anything until someone came along looking to rent it,” Collins says suddenly, disturbing a lull in their reminiscing as they walk, Collins shortening his stride to match Farrier's. The neighbours won’t think much of you being there, Farrier hears, though he also recognizes in Collins’s voice that Farrier will indeed be using that second bedroom. 

    "There are a few Navy men in the next building sharing flats."

    "Do you?" Farrier asks.

    "Do I what?”

    “Think anything of it.” 

    "Oh, no. No, they're normal.”

    “You never were good at telling,” Farrier says. Collins purses his lips and huffs a laugh through his nose.

    “No, I suppose not,” Collins says. “But that doesn’t change the point. If you want to, it’s…safe.”

    “It would be better than being at home,” Farrier says, and Collins’s eyes light up for a moment. 

    “It’s not too expensive, either,” Collins says. Farrier shrugs. “I can talk to the landlady tomorrow.”

    “Sure."

+

    Farrier sorts out his rent and goes home for his things. He stuffs his bag with his clothes, stares at his scattered unopened books, and instead pulls open the nightstand drawer and stuffs a tattered paperback and an untouched Bible into his bag. His mother kisses him goodbye and wishes him luck as if she expects a swift return. 

    When Collins meets him at the door to the flat, clearly holding back a smile, he takes Farrier’s bag and throws his arms around Farrier’s neck with an enthusiasm that Farrier had nearly forgotten.

    “I’m glad that you’re here,” Collins says, suddenly brimming with the confidence and excitement Farrier knew before.

    Farrier unpacks his things in the second bedroom while Collins chatters in the doorway.

+

    “Leave the kitchen window cracked a bit, please,” Collins says sleepily, voice morning-groggy. Farrier removes his hand from the window frame. “For the cat.”

    “You have a cat?”

    “It’s not my cat. It’s just a cat. I just want it to be able to come in if it wishes.”

    “A cat?”

    “Yes, Farrier. It’s on the fire escape sometimes and I put food out for it. It doesn’t eat from my hand yet, but I think it's getting better.” Collins shuffles past Farrier to the stove, brushing a hand across Farrier’s back as he moves.

+

    Farrier acts like he doesn’t notice how heavily Collins drinks. Nights often end with Collins drunk, inarticulately frustrated, and going to bed early to fall into a snoring sleep. He surely knows that Farrier sees it but never challenges him to address it.

    Collins touches Farrier often. A hand on his arm or his back, leaning into his shoulder, simply brushing against him in the cramped kitchen. So Farrier learns to be touched again. He silently appreciates it, tries to reciprocate it in some natural way. Collins flinches away each time, hiding an embarrassed expression, often reaching for a drink. Farrier simply accepts it.

+

    Collins comes home and brings the damp afternoon air in with him. Farrier looks up at him from his book and offers a smile, which Collins tiredly returns as he leans against the counter. 

    “You read now?” Collins asks, and a light frustration flares in Farrier’s chest. He looks up at Collins coolly and can see in his face that he didn't mean anything by it. 

    “Yes,” Farrier says, “I happened to have had the time to take it up.” 

    Farrier had been a notoriously poor reader and writer before, but shameless enough about it that he was rarely chastised for it. Collins once looked over his shoulder while he was writing a letter and offered his services to check it for errors before Farrier sent it and Farrier had stood up and pushed him away with a hand on his chest. Collins had mostly held back his comments on Farrier’s literacy after that. 

    “Ah,” Collins says, “what are you reading, then?”

    “Winnie-the-Pooh,” Farrier says flatly, and Collins sighs tiredly.

    “I’m not mocking you, Farrier, Christ,” Collins says. Farrier holds up the book so Collins can see the cover and Collins steps forward, squinting slightly, to see it, a flimsy and faded service edition of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. “Huh. Who’s Yarman?”

    “Hm? Oh,” Farrier looks at the front of the book, where the name YARMAN is scratched into the faded cover of the paperback in capital letters, “an American who was with me for a while. He gave it to me.”

    “Is it any good?” Collins asks.

    “It’s very American."

    “I hope it doesn’t get you wanting to move there,” Collins says. Farrier rolls his eyes. 

+

    The first truly cold night of the year, when an untamable draft permeates the flat and sinks its icy fingers into Farrier’s muscles, he wraps his blankets around himself and pulls a chair in front of the stove, closing his eyes against the ache in his bones. He nearly dozes off there, slouched in a kitchen chair like some weary and lonely old man. He jumps when Collins opens his own bedroom door and steps out into the kitchen. Collins apologizes softly and pads through the kitchen to the bathroom. He returns moments later, leaning up against a cabinet. Farrier looks up at him tiredly.

    “It’s cold,” Collins states simply. 

    “It is,” Farrier agrees. 

    “So come with me.”

    Farrier blinks a few times and bobs his head in acceptance. Collins helps him up, pushes the chair back to the table, checks the stove, and leads Farrier’s blanketed form to his room. 

    Farrier sits down at the foot of the bed. Collins gently tugs at him, sighing patiently, until Farrier pulls himself up the mattress and rests his head on a pillow. He wraps himself tighter in his blankets and turns away from Collins. Collins throws another blanket over them both and lies down, his back pressed lightly against Farrier’s through the layers between them. Collins’s breathing turns to soft snoring and Farrier falls into a restless sleep.

    Farrier wakes with a start, as he always does now, but for the first time in years he wakes up warm and without an ache frozen in his shoulders. He rolls over and finds Collins freshly awake, watching him with sleepy but alert concern. The sun shining in the window behind Collins outlines him in gold and shines through his hair like stained glass, his clear eye bright and glittering with sleep. It's a sight Farrier hadn't quite realized he missed.

    "I'm sorry for waking you," Farrier says, voice heavy and too loud in his own ears. Collins only shakes his head sleepily and closes his eyes again. 

    “You’re fine,” Collins murmurs, exhaling heavily. “Nice to be warm.”

    Farrier hums in agreement and thinks that maybe the winter won't be so unbearable. 

+

  Farrier can feel Collins’s anxiety in the air, clinging to everything in the flat. All too familiar with the buildup to a man finally collapsing, Farrier makes himself small and silent, but not so much that he leaves Collins alone, quietly watching him move from room to room aimlessly. After a morning of Collins pacing anxiously and throwing short-tempered comments at Farrier, Collins finally curses quietly and sits down on the kitchen floor, leaning against the cabinets with his knees bent in front of him, one hand shaking in his own hair and the other pressing so hard into his chest that his arm trembles slightly. Farrier waits a moment and gets up from the table and crouches next to him, gently turns Collins’s grimacing face toward him. 

    “You’re alright,” Farrier says steadily, shifting to sit back against the cabinets as well. Collins still has his hand clamped over his heart.

    “It goes so fast sometimes that it feels like it’s just going to stop,” Collins says softly. Farrier pushes his own hand under Collins's, pressing his palm over Collins's heart. It hammers under Farrier's palm, and a fearful chill flashes through Farrier's body as he worries for a moment that maybe Collins is right, maybe his heart really will stop right there under his hand. Farrier prays silently that his face doesn’t show it.

    Collins squeezes his fingers. Farrier looks up at him. 

    "Just sit back," Farrier says, pulling Collins to lean his back against Farrier's chest. Collins's own chest is heaving anxiously. “If you let it worry you it’ll only get worse."

Farrier waits for a few moments and then slowly pulls Collins to his feet and leads him to bed. Collins curls in on himself on the pillows until Farrier settles in next to him and quietly talks him into some sort of calmness that eases him into sleep.

    Farrier stays with him, dozes off in the afternoon sun and wakes after the sun has set. In the grey-orange light he moves his hand to Collins's chest, pressing his palm flat against his ribs. Collins’s heart beats steadily against Farrier's hand, keeping time with the rise and fall of his chest.

     Collins's eyes flutter open, and Farrier doesn't move his hand. Collins finds Farrier's eyes in the dim light as he orients himself, his forehead creasing. His mouth stretches into a line of knowing concern. Farrier still doesn't move his hand. His heart doesn't stutter under Farrier's hand. 

     "I didn't mean to wake you." 

     Collins reaches for Farrier's wrist and pulls it back down to his chest, holding his palm against his ribs again. Farrier chews the corner of his mouth.

     "I know," Collins whispers back. He closes his eyes. "My chest hurts. And my head.”

    “I know.”

+

    Farrier finds Collins one morning hanging out the window, feeding a scraggly grey cat by hand. Farrier waits in the doorway and watches him. Collins hangs from the windowframe with one hand and braces himself with one knee on the sill. He looks entirely content and unusually patient, though Farrier is sure it kills him to be unable to pet the cat. 

    When the cat finally darts away, Collins pulls himself back in through the window, grinning to himself before he sees Farrier. Farrier is startled by the joy in Collins's face. 

    "He ate from your hand?" Farrier asks.

    "He did!” Collins exclaims. Farrier laughs. Collins steps past Farrier toward the sink and Farrier, out of habit, places a hand on his back as he passes. Collins doesn’t flinch.

+

    Farrier finally finds himself in Collins’s bed by sober invitation. Collins looks at him plainly in the morning as he gets dressed, Farrier still buried under the covers. 

    “You know you can stay?” Collins asks. Farrier frees his nose and mouth from the blankets. “In here. Any night you want.” 

    “Yes,” Farrier says, but I needed to hear you say it. 

    Collins nods and swallows hard. He ties his tie without a mirror and sits down on the bed to tie his shoes. He gets up and pauses awkwardly in the doorway, tells Farrier when he’ll be home and invites him to borrow any of his jackets as it’s going to be particularly cold. Farrier acknowledges him gratefully but inarticulately from under the blankets and is nearly asleep again when he hears Collins leave. 

+

    Collins spends a miserably rainy week particularly on edge, barely finishing meals, barely looking at Farrier. He goes out, he drinks, he makes his way back home unharmed and falls into bed where he keeps to his own side of the mattress. He skitters away from Farrier's casual touches and keeps his hands uncharacteristically to himself. When sober he crackles with a nervous, frustrated energy that often sends Farrier quietly to another room, out of Collins’s way. 

    "Collins?" Farrier begins, squeezing the bridge of his nose as he leans against the kitchen table. Collins looks up from his dinner, barely eaten but thoroughly pushed around his plate. 

    "What?" 

    Farrier sighs, holding his hand contemplatively over his mouth.

    "If you need to…I don’t know. Go off with someone," Farrier shrugs, trying to read Collins's blankly waiting face, "I don't mind."

    Collins stares at Farrier with thoughtful stoniness as if he expects Farrier to say more, or maybe understand what he won’t say aloud. Farrier shrugs again and waves a hand in the air to indicate that he's through speaking. 

    “I’m fine," Collins finally says, pressing his lips together and turning back to his meal. 

    "Collins," Farrier starts. Collins lifts his head and scrubs a hand over his face. 

    "No, Farrier, I can't,” Collins says shortly as he stares at Farrier with wide, tired eyes, shaking his head. He coughs out a harsh laugh. “It’s fine."

    Farrier allows the silence to weigh down the space between them.

    “It doesn’t matter because I don’t even want to, anyway," Collins says shortly. His eyes flicker with frustration.

    Farrier holds his lower lip between his teeth and nods. Collins picks up his fork again and pokes at his food before letting the fork fall on the plate with a clatter that makes Farrier jump. Collins stands up and pushes in his chair, the feet skidding too quickly across the floor. 

    “It’s not as if I’d even want to go to bed with anyone else again, anyway,” Collins says, exasperation and embarrassment weighing down his words. He watches Farrier's face for a too-long moment and then shrugs, his arms falling to his sides, and stalks out of the room. Farrier hears the door open and close without slamming.

    Farrier sighs and quickly cleans up the kitchen, finally straightening the fork on Collins’s plate. He shrugs on his jacket and steps outside. He finds Collins more easily than he expected, sitting on the curb just outside, a cigarette tight between his lips and his arms crossed stiffly over his knees. Farrier stands behind him, his hands in his jacket pockets. He quietly begins and abandons sentence after sentence until he sighs in frustration and runs a hand through his hair. Collins doesn’t look up at him, just sits, staring straight ahead.

    It’s not important, Farrier almost says, but bites his tongue, watching Collins’s shoulders shake with cold or frustration or both. Collins huffs and Farrier curses the words that escape him.

    “What are you trying to say, Farrier?” Collins asks with surprising patience, his voice breaking on Farrier’s name. 

    “I…” and Farrier grumbles to himself, his chest aching, “I don’t mind. Either way.”

    “It’s not about just...“ Collins looks around the empty street and abandons the sentence anyway. “I don’t want you to run out of patience."

    Collins swallows hard, grinds his teeth, and hangs his head. He puts the cigarette out on the pavement and stands up. He looks at Farrier apologetically and nods silently. Farrier nods back.

    “If I was going to run out of patience I wouldn’t be here.”

    “Sometimes I’m not sure if you want to be here.”

    Farrier blinks against the frustrated sigh that rises up in his lungs. “I don’t want to be anywhere else. Do you?”

    “No. I just want you here.”

    “Well I’m here. And it’s cold. Come inside."

    That night, in the heavy silence of the bedroom, Farrier reaches for Collins across the unbearably cold space between them. He wraps his fingers loosely around Collins's fingers. Collins swallows hard and gently tugs his hand free. 

    Farrier's heart jumps hard in his chest. 

    Collins weaves his fingers through Farrier's and squeezes tight, and Farrier lets out a heavy sigh. 

    Collins pulls once, gently, barely, at Farrier's hand. Farrier follows the motion, slides over to the middle of the bed, throws an arm over Collins and presses his nose into Collins's hair. 

    "I'm sorry," Collins says haltingly.

    "You don't need to be.”

+

    "I missed you, you know," Collins says that night from the security of his own side of the bed. Farrier's breath catches in his throat.

    I tried not to think of you. It didn’t work, but I tried. But Farrier can’t say that aloud. He doesn't know how to reply. If Collins expects or wants a reply, it doesn’t show. Collins stares at the ceiling, his hair and eyelashes glowing in the golden flood of light from the streetlamp outside.

    "I'd even think I'd see you sometimes. It was never you, though, obviously," Collins says, his voice straining. Farrier closes his eyes, his face twitching against the tears threatening in his throat. “Or I'd expect to hear you on the radio."

    Farrier works his lips hard and sniffs before he can say anything. He doesn’t turn his head, speaks up toward the ceiling.

    "Collins," he begins, and he hears Collins turn to him, a loud rustling.

    "Farrier, no, no," Collins says, pushing himself up on an elbow and looking down at him. "Farrier...fuck. It doesn't matter now. I’m through being angry with you for it." The sharp edges are gone from it this time. 

    Farrier laughs once, quietly but harshly.

    "I'm sorry," Farrier says.

    "Farrier, shut up. I just missed you, is all. A hell of a lot.” Collins's voice breaks, a small tearful warble. “But it's nothing we weren't ready for, after all. Almost would have been easier if you’d died."

    Farrier feels another apology itching on his lips. He pushes himself up onto his elbow and sees anxiety flash across Collins's face. He leans over and kisses Collins softly, for the first time in years, and Collins almost startles but accepts it, gratefully, pulling Farrier by the arm to his side of the bed. 

    “Christ,” Collins laughs against Farrier’s mouth, "I missed you."

    Farrier presses his nose into Collins’s hair and laughs at himself.

    Collins hangs onto his chest and Farrier can feel every ounce of longing in the weight of Collins's body pressed against him. Collins is more angular now, less soft than he was before, but filling out again. 

    "I missed you," Farrier finally returns. 

    He eases Collins’s face from where it’s pushed into his neck and holds it with both hands, running his thumb over the scars along his temple. Collins watches his face as he does it, his eyes gentle but impatient. When Farrier's eyes fall away Collins kisses him, his mouth almost too warm, with too much sorrow on too-eager lips.

+

    There are no rats or mice in the flat. The landlady wouldn’t stand for it. Farrier hears them anyway, the same way he sometimes heard strafing even with both feet on the ground. When the rain is particularly heavy or when the radio is a touch too loud he can hear the skittering feet and pained squealing, and his shoulders begin to ache.

    Farrier supposes there are worse things to imagine. The strafing was bad, and he had finally stopped hearing it somewhere around two years after he had last clambered out of a cockpit. But the sounds of the mice are worse somehow, and still leave him disoriented, still set his heart to hammering until the noise dies down. He doesn’t mention it to Collins, and avoids Collins’s eyes in the quiet moments when he knows Collins notices his absence.

    Farrier is often already awake - having been woken by his own auditory ghosts - when Collins gasps into wakefulness at night. Out of some twisted politeness, the first time it happened Farrier acted as if he didn’t notice Collins panicking and instead pretended to be asleep while Collins tried to soothe himself. When this proved to be too painful for Farrier - and likely for Collins as well - Farrier resolved to gently reach out for Collins each time he tried to stumble out of bed in a half-asleep panic. 

    Farrier is awake, the rain having grown heavier as the sun just began to lighten the sky. He's chilled, though still warm under the covers, listening to the scuttling of phantom mice and waiting for the ghosts of bootfalls outside his door, always approaching and never arriving.

    Collins wakes with a jolt and shaky breath next to him and props himself up on an elbow in confusion, startled eyes wide and glancing around the room. His scarred eye looks especially pale in his panic.

    "Hey," Farrier gently spreads a hand over Collins's shoulder, “are you alright?"

    "Yes," Collins says, but his voice is bald and light. 

    "Do you need to walk around?" Farrier asks. 

    "No," Collins says softly. So Farrier moves over and pulls the blankets up over Collins again, squeezing his hand. Collins looks around with the wary but uninvested confusion of a child woken from a nap there's still a chance of returning to.

    "It's still early," Farrier says, and Collins shuffles to press himself into Farrier's chest. Dutifully, Farrier wraps his arms around Collins and listens for him to doze back off, his for once-quiet snoring a welcome distraction from the sounds that come with the rain.

+

    Farrier is staring out the window on the small, itchy sofa when he feels a soft touch on the back of his hand. He turns to find Collins studying his mottled fingers.

    “Do they hurt?" Collins asks softly. Farrier's heart falls in his chest like hot lead. 

    "They don’t hurt so much now, they’re just stiff.”

    Collins watches his face for a moment and looks down to examine the swollen joints and white scarring of Farrier’s hands. Farrier in turn observes the scarring on Collins’s face, where the glassy raised skin pulls at his eye and mars his eyebrow. Collins told Farrier before that his burned eye isn't so bad, that despite the cloudiness he still has the depth perception he needs for driving but could never quite manage with darts again. Farrier suddenly wants to pull his hand away and hide it in his pocket. He still has his face, his eyes. Broken arthritic fingers are nothing. Collins looks up at him, sees Farrier looking at him. 

    "I know it's bad," Collins says softly.

    "It's not," Farrier says, “truly.”

    “You wouldn’t know,” Collins says, and Farrier is relieved to finally hear a reply he expected from Collins. Collins’s fingers twitch against his hand.

    “No, I wouldn’t. But it doesn’t look bad. Not to me, at least." 

    Collins grinds his teeth and holds Farrier’s eyes. Farrier waits for him to get up and leave, but instead he clumsily moves closer to Farrier and buries his face in Farrier's collar. Farrier waits a moment in embarrassed confusion before he lets himself wrap an arm around Collins. Collins doesn’t cry, he only sighs one long and shaky sigh, and abruptly gets up.

    “Do you want a drink?” Collins asks.

    “No."

+

    The morning brightens, with a brisk chill in the flat only just beginning to be warded off by the stove that Farrier lit before Collins would agree to get out of bed. Collins shuffles out of the bedroom in his pyjama trousers and a sweater - one of Farrier's sweaters, too broad in the shoulders. Farrier starts water for tea and they go about their breakfasts in silence, though a nervousness clings to Collins and Farrier eyes him cautiously when Collins can’t see him.

    Finally Collins leans against the kitchen counter and crosses his sweatered arms. 

    “Why didn’t you write me?” Collins asks, his voice tinny and cautious under all its rehearsedness. 

    Farrier pauses in buttering his toast and looks up at Collins warily. He had been waiting for the question, had been surprised it hadn’t been thrown angrily into his chest when he finally came back to Collins in the first place. Collins holds Farrier’s eyes warily. Farrier grinds his teeth and opens his mouth to explain himself, but the words don’t make it to his lips, so he closes them again. 

    The kettle begins to chatter and then whistle faintly, and Farrier turns away from Collins to take it off the heat. The words finally come to him. 

    “I couldn’t. If you were even alive. I didn’t know for the longest time.” Farrier says, licking his lips nervously, turning back to Collins, “if I didn’t…I didn’t want to put you through that twice."

    “And you didn’t consider that you might not know what’s best for me after all?” Collins asks, a spark in his voice that lands on Farrier hotly.

    “Did you consider that I might not want to lose you twice either, Collins?” 

    Collins recoils slightly and drops his eyes to the floor. Farrier watches him for a moment before he turns away to the tea again, carefully counting out the sugar.

    “You still could have done something,” Collins says, running a hand through his hair. Farrier sighs and holds a cup of tea out to Collins. 

    “I’m sorry I didn’t write you,” Farrier says. Collins takes the cup from him and holds it with both hands against his chest. “I don’t write a very good letter, anyway.”

    “Still would have been a letter,” Collins says. Farrier hums. "I'd have taken scribbles. Hieroglyphs, even."

    “I’m sorry,” Farrier says again. Collins shakes his head. 

    “It’s over now,” Collins says, “and you're here."

    "I am,” Farrier agrees. Collins watches him, blinks at him, and nods to himself. 

    "Get your tea," Collins says, and takes his seat at the table.

+

    Farrier fumbles to unlock the door, balancing a bag of groceries on one arm. He manages to turn the key and the knob, steps inside and closes the door with his foot.

    “Collins?” Farrier calls. 

    “Farrier! Come in here,” Collins’s voice comes back softly. Farrier steps quietly into the kitchen and finds Collins crouched next to the table, at eye level with the scruffy grey cat from the fire escape who is perched on the table eating a raw egg from a bowl. 

    “You got him in here,” Farrier laughs. He slowly sets the groceries down on the floor.

    “He just came in while I was smoking.”

    Farrier holds out a hand for the cat, who smells it briefly and returns to the egg. Farrier reaches slowly for the cat and Collins holds his breath, but it contentedly lets Farrier pet his head with his knuckles. 

    “Nice of you to join us,” Farrier says quietly. Collins carefully reaches out and pets the cat’s side, his face beaming. 

    The cat wanders the flat while Farrier cooks. Collins follows it curiously, watching from a distance. 

    “Leave him alone, he’s just exploring,” Farrier calls. 

    “You say that until he takes a piss in your clothes,” Collins says, but comes to rest at Farrier’s side by the stove anyway. The scars on his face gleam pink in the yellow lights.    

    Something thuds in another room and Collins springs to check on it. Farrier sighs.

    “See, he’s knocking things over in your room,” Collins says.

    “What things? I don’t even have anything?” Farrier calls. Collins doesn’t respond. “Collins?” Farrier turns around. Collins is distractedly shooing the cat from Farrier’s room and closing the door, looking at something in his hands.

    “What is that?” Farrier asks. 

    “Your Bible.” 

    “So?”

    Collins holds it out to him, holding something to the cover of it with his thumb. 

    “This fell out of it.”

    Farrier glances at it and turns off the stove. 

    “What is that?”

    “I must have put it in there years ago. Years before…” Collins trails off. Pinned under his thumb is a photograph of Collins and Farrier on an airfield, nearly unrecognizable in their youth. Farrier huffs a laugh.

    “That’s impressive.”

    “What’s impressive is that you haven’t touched your Bible in all that time,” Collins says. He sets it down on the table and doesn’t look at it further, his hand fluttering to the scarring on his face. 

    “Collins,” Farrier begins.

    “Yes?”

    “Thanks for putting that there.”

    “You didn’t even see it.”

    “I did now."

+

    “It’s too loud here,” Farrier says, rolling over to face Collins and further rumpling the covers on the neatly made bed. Collins sighs in dismay.

    “Where’s here?” Collins asks, pausing in the midst of hanging his clothes. There’s a note of concern in his voice and Farrier wants to smother it. 

    “The city.”

    “Ah,” Collins goes back to folding his laundry, and Farrier sighs with relief, “I don’t know where else we could go.”

    “You know,” Farrier begins, and Collins is already sighing and rolling his eyes, "I knew someone who reminded everyone day in and day out of how wonderful Scotland is.”

    “Farrier…” Collins sighs, tiredly and almost scoldingly. 

    “Oh, you wouldn’t want to go?” Farrier asks, teasing now. “You’d rather be here in England?” Farrier says England with Collins’s exclusive tone of disgust.

    “I wouldn’t make you go to Scotland for me,” Collins says.

    “I’m sorry, Collins, who brought this up again? I’m offering to go to Scotland with you. So long as it’s quiet.”

    “Didn’t you come here because it was too quiet at home?”    

    “I came here because you were here."

    Collins silently folds another shirt and then looks over at him again.

    “You’ve thought about this already.”

    “Obviously.”

    “There are plenty of quiet towns in England.”

    “I don’t care."

    Collins shakes out a shirt and studies it, sets it aside for ironing.

    “I’ll see about it. I’ll talk to my sister, she always knows about these things.” Collins says, but Farrier sees the smile that Collins tries to hide by ducking his head. “But can you please help with the laundry?” 

+

    The morning grows louder outside, more bustling, the sound of children and cars and the churchbells echoing down the street, and Farrier listens to the day slowly beginning as the sun grows brighter. The week had been entirely overcast. Collins stirs next to Farrier and opens his eyes, shining with sleep. 

    "Morning," Farrier says softly. Collins grunts a response and shuffles closer to Farrier, pushing his face into Farrier’s shoulder, securing an arm around his waist. The warmth under the covers borders between being pleasant and unbearable. “Collins.”

    Collins sniffles. 

    “Collins.” Farrier knees him lightly.

    "No," Collins mumbles, "please.”

    “We have to get on with the day.”

    “The day will be fine.”

    “Farrier.” Collins protests sleepily, and then says no more, falling into his snoring sleep again.

    Farrier eventually hauls himself out of bed and quietly begins making breakfast. The cat meows gruffly at his feet until Farrier lowers a saucer of water to the floor for him.

    Collins joins him in sleepy silence, sitting down at the table and blinking himself awake. Farrier places toast and eggs in front of him with a cup of black coffee and takes his seat across from him. Collins tiredly starts on his breakfast and so Farrier does the same. Collins glances up at him from under his fringe of gold hair and watches him eat for a bite, two bites, before he returns to his own food. 

    “Farrier?” Collins asks, as if he’s about to ask a favor. Farrier looks up at him from across the table.

    “Yes?”

    “I’m glad you’re here,” Collins says simply, looking up at Farrier with clear eyes. The weight of Collins's words settles onto the table between them.

    The street below is still too loud. But the kitchen is bathed in brightly warm morning sunlight. Farrier's socked foot is pressed against Collins's under the table. Glittering steam swirls up from Collins's coffee and Farrier's tea.

    "So am I.”