Chapter Text
“Private!”
Tom Blake, fresh out of boot camp and immediately shoved into the trenches, startled awake, clutching his rifle tightly to his chest. Fuck, he’d fallen asleep on duty again, hadn’t he? The Sergeant’d have his head this time for sure.
“Yes, Sir!” He straightened up his back and offered a stiff salute. Sergeant Sanders scowled down at the boy.
“You,” He pointed an accusing finger at Tom, who shrank back just slightly. “Are on water duty.”
A lighter punishment than he should’ve gotten, sure, but a pain in the ass nonetheless. Tom suppressed a groan and stood up on wobbly legs, still heavy with sleep. “Yes, Sir!” He repeated.
“Go with him.” He heard the Sergeant speak to someone else, but Tom was too busy collecting canteens under the amusement of his peers to glance back and check who it was that had the misfortune of accompanying (chaperoning) him.
Tom trudged off towards their fresh water source, arms full of canteens clanging noisily against each other. He was vaguely aware of the sound of footsteps following along behind him.
“Hands full?” Tom thought he recognized the voice, but he had to check. A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed it: Lance Corporal Schofield, about three years his senior and looking every single bit of it.
Tom grumbled under his breath, feeling every bit Schofield’s junior.
Schofield half-jogged to catch up to him, falling in tandem with his steps. Tom caught the sight of an offered hand and begrudgingly passed half of the canteens to his companion.
They continued down the path in silence, Schofield apparently satisfied with the exchange. Tom was not.
“So you’re here to, what, make sure I don’t slip and drown in the river?” He asked upon reaching their destination, an edge of frustration to his voice. Schofield didn’t react outwardly, instead choosing to kneel beside said river and begin filling the empty canteens in his arms.
“Suppose so.” Schofield finally responded about halfway through his assignment. “Or to make sure you don’t drop dead from exhaustion.”
Tom scoffed under his breath. “Like Sarge cares about that.”
“Course he does. That’s one less man to fight his battles.” Schofield answered almost immediately this time, his tone rigid. Tom couldn’t help a humorless snort of laughter.
“I guess so.”
It took quite a while longer before they spoke again. Normally, Tom would be bouncing off the walls trying to befriend this guy, but dammit—he was groggy and angry and just barely an adult.
“Fuck—!” Like a terrible joke, Tom’s earlier accusation came true as his foot lost traction on the slippery bank and he lurched forward towards the river. He held his hands out instinctively to catch himself, but only succeeded in puncturing his hand on a jagged rock beneath the surface.
Like a flash, Schofield grabbed onto the neck of Tom’s vest and yanked him back before he completely submerged. The older man’s eyes were a bit wild, a bit panicked, and Tom didn’t have time to think too deeply as to why before the pain hit him. He clutched his injured hand with his free one, curling in on himself and gritting his teeth to keep from crying aloud.
“Your hand.” Schofield dropped the supplies bag from his back with one hand while the other gripped Tom’s arm. “Show me your hand.”
Blake forced his eyes to open from where they were squeezed shut and tried to extend his arm, but he couldn’t let go of the hand for fear of even greater pain. Schofield looked up from where he was digging through his bag and took note of this. He retrieved a roll of bandages from the depths of the pack and forcibly tugged Tom’s hand free. This time, Tom did cry out. Schofield hushed him like one would a child who skinned his knee—he really should feel insulted by this, or angry, but somehow it relaxed him… just a bit.
Schofield began wrapping the bandage tightly around Tom’s hand with the unshakable confidence of a man who’d done this a hundred times over.
‘God,’ Began Tom’s internal mantra, which started out as a comfort and slowly devolved into self degradation. ‘how fucking useless can you be? Can’t even wrap your own wounds? What, does poor baby Blakey need his boo-boo kissed as well?’ He clenched his jaw. ‘Joe’d be ashamed to call you his brother.’
“You’re a farm boy, yeah?” Schofield asked, clearly grasping at straws to calm him down. Tom’s head snapped up to attention.
“Huh?”
“I’d heard you mention it a couple times. It’s just that your hands are soft.” The older man didn’t look up from where he was wrapping the wound. “Didn’t expect it, is all.”
Tom slouched back into his earlier position, tugging his free hand harshly on his pant leg to distract himself from the pain.
“Yeah.” He huffed out through his teeth. “The joys of boyhood makes me soft.”
Schofield fell silent, tucking the last of the bandage into itself to hold it in place. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Tom furrowed his brow. Schofield didn’t let go of his hand.
“Well… isn’t it?”
Schofield stared down at his hand. Tom took this lull in conversation to actually look at his senior—the subtle tightening of his jaw, the crook in the bridge of his nose, how… tired he looked. Something dead behind his eyes. Schofield’s hands entirely dwarfed his own, dried mud caked his knuckles and dug beneath his nails.
Schofield was, he slowly realized with growing horror, very attractive.
Tom wanted to die.
“It’s not.” He finally answered.
________________________
It was loud and raucous in the tents, and sometimes Tom didn’t want to hear it. He stole away to the field outside, having seen a certain someone do the same a few minutes before. He flexed his hand at the memory associated with the man, still punctured but with new bandaging.
So maybe he wanted to be alone with a new potential friend—big deal!
Right?
Pushing that thought aside, he wandered and squinted until he could see the faint outline of a man and a tree before the sun completely sank. Tom made a beeline—a subtle one, to be sure—and approached Lance Corporal Schofield, leaning against the lone tree with his eyes closed but surely not asleep.
“Mind if I join you?” He asked quietly, subconsciously trying to set himself apart from the dull roar inside the tents. Just as Tom suspected, one of Schofield’s eyes opened a crack to examine who’d interrupted his lean-on-a-tree-and-look-mysterious time.
“‘Course.” Schofield assented, resuming his sacred ritual of being stupidly hot without trying. Tom scowled to himself, hidden in the movement it took to sit down parallel to the older man.
“Thanks. ‘S bloody loud up there, couldn’t stand it much longer.”
Schofield made a little humming sound, acknowledging his perfect excuse.
“I thought you liked all the talk.” He responded. “Pegged you for the type, at least.” Tom blew out his breath all at once and flopped onto his back.
“Not always. A growing boy needs his beauty sleep, after all.” He smiled to himself at the telltale sound of amusement, albeit small and quiet. Schofield turned his head minutely to glance over at Tom, and it was too dark by that point to properly overthink what that look might have meant.
“How’s your hand?” Schofield asked then, nodding to Tom as if he’d’ve forgotten a chunk of his own hand had been gouged out in the river just that morning.
Tom looked down at his hand, as if he had, and flexed it again. He winced this time as a jolt of pain shot up through his arm. “Better,” Tom supposed. “Not great, though.”
Schofield clasped his own hands together atop his stomach and fell silent, as he is so fond of doing.
“Hey,” Tom grabbed his attention once more, propping himself up on one elbow and grinning slyly. “Come here often?”
Schofield released a startled kind of laugh and stretched one leg out to kick Tom’s arm out from underneath him.
“I do. Don’t like all the noise in the tents,” Schofield peered at him. “Usually coming from you.” Tom made an affronted noise from where he’d collapsed in a heap.
“I’m not that loud.” Tom argued, but there was no bite to it. Phase one of his friendship plan was a success: he made Schofield laugh. Tom thought for a moment, became curious, and peered right back at Schofield. “Do you sleep out here too?”
Schofield took a while to respond, apparently having to think very hard about his answer. “Sometimes.” He conceded, and Tom wondered if he did that on purpose just to psych him out. “‘S not any more uncomfortable than the beds—or the dirt in the trenches, as it were.”
“You’re right about that one.” Tom scrunched up his nose in distaste at just the thought. “I swear they just put wooden planks on those bed frames.” Schofield nodded, deadly serious.
“Probably.”
Another lapse. Tom could feel his eyelids drooping—with all the excitement of, y’know, trekking back to the trench with a hole in his hand and arms full of canteens heavy with fresh water, he’d almost completely forgotten how tired he was earlier. Picking up on this, Schofield settled back into a more comfortable position, content to leave the conversation there for the day.
It was pitch black by the time Tom’s eyes opened again, although it felt like he’d only closed his eyes for a second. If he had to guess, he’d say it was at least midnight, maybe a bit later. He couldn’t see his watch in the dark, and the moon was either new or covered by heavy clouds.
Tom huffed in annoyance at his inability to sleep through the full night and rolled over on his side, apparently forgetting—or perhaps not even realizing in the first place—how close he was to Schofield. He felt his forehead bump against what must have been the older man’s leg and cursed inwardly. It’d be awkward to turn back around now.
‘More awkward than cuddling with another man’s calves in the middle of the night?’ His brain asked unhelpfully. He promptly told his brain to sod off—not a completely uncommon occurrence.
Tom wondered, as he felt Schofield shift against the sudden pressure on his leg and mumble something under his breath, if the man ever slept. He certainly didn’t look it.
It was after what could have been a couple minutes or a few seconds and Tom was finally starting to drift back to sleep that he felt something he hadn’t felt in a very long time: a hand, nervous and halting, just barely touching his skull. He figured he was hallucinating from lack of sleep and shuffled into a more comfortable position. If he was closer to Schofield than he was before, it was a complete coincidence.
The hand immediately retreated at the slightest sign of movement, but slowly eased back to its original spot as Tom stilled. There was no way to write it off as his imagination this time when Schofield began carding his fingers through his hair.
Tom fought to stay awake even though everything was working against him, if only to feel this small comfort for as long as he possibly could before the sun came up again and they were labeled queers. It was ridiculous, really, how badly he wanted to stretch himself across Schofield’s lap and soak up every second of his undivided attention for the rest of his life.
How fast can one man fall? If there was a world record, Tom was sure he’d broken it at this point. Leave it to him to like a guy just because he wrapped a cloth around his hand once and pet his hair for a couple seconds.
Well, he was also cute, but that’s besides the point.
Schofield’s hand grew steadier, the subtle trembling of his fingers having settled at the lack of reaction from the boy next to him. Tom felt like crying, just a bit. He ached so deeply for this gentle affection that the military lacked; that his mother offered freely back home. That his brother could not give while he was away.
Tom hardly noticed it when he moved to hug Schofield’s legs. By the time he did, of course, the hand disappeared just as quickly as before.
“...Private…?” Schofield’s voice was barely above a whisper and blew away in the wind. Tom knew what that voice meant, what the mention of rank implied: Are you aware that you are trying to snuggle up with a fellow soldier? Are you awake?
Are you insane?
Tom didn’t answer, of course, because the answers were obvious. It was easier to continue feigning sleep than to confront the situation. He felt like crying again.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Tom’s voice came out shaky and rough once he realized that Schofield would definitely not continue without an explanation—not to mention, he was never very good at faking sleep. “My mum used to do that, what… you were doing.”
Schofield went silent again. Tom was slowly growing to despise that silence of his.
“‘M sorry…” The younger man began to retreat.
“No, it’s—“ Schofield rushed out, freezing him in his tracks. “It’s alright.”
Tom kept his eyes shut tightly, waiting for some kind of violence despite his words. The only thing that happened was the feeling of a hand through his hair returning. Tom did cry this time, a silent, gracious cry.
“That can’t be comfortable.” Schofield was probably referring to the way Tom was practically crushing his face against the side of his leg. Tom laughed wetly.
“Beggars can’t be choosers.” He replied.
Schofield tutted and removed the hand from his hair. “Here, come up here.” He urged. “Just a bit, at least get your head off the ground.” Tom raised his head to look up at him, thankful that the moon remained hidden and, by consequence, his tear-streaked cheeks underneath shiny, hopeful eyes were as well.
Tom hesitantly moved along the ground until his head was beside Schofield’s thigh. He hadn’t been beaten back with a stick yet, so he bit the bullet and rested his head there, just an inch or so above his knee. Schofield, instead of perhaps shooting him point blank, resumed.
“Thanks…” Tom’s speech slurred from exhaustion, drunk from the attention.
“Don’t mention it.” Schofield said—meaning it both ways, he’s sure.
If Tom dared to hope, he imagined there was a hint of fondness in Schofield’s voice. But, of course, hope is a dangerous thing, so instead he drifted off into a sleep devoid of such dreams.
________________________
When Tom awoke the second time, it was to a much more familiar alarm: the sound of whistles and yelling. He sat up straight as a board in a second, noting that he was laying about three feet away from where he’d fallen asleep with his head on Schofield’s lap.
He didn’t have time to be disappointed before a hand appeared in the corner of his vision, roughly calloused and perpetually dirty. Tom followed the arm attached to the hand with his eyes and was pleased to find that Lance Corporal Schofield was the one it belonged to.
Tom took the offered hand and pulled himself up from the ground, gathering his kit from where it was laying beside him.
“How’d you sleep?” Schofield’s question was innocent and inconsequential to other soldiers who spilled around them in the trenches later that day. Tom couldn’t help the smile that crept onto his face.
“Like a baby.”