Chapter Text
Freddie sat in the officers mess, smoking a cigarette and watching the world go by. Outside a thin glass pane, rivulets of water ran in rivers down to the ground, ready to sink into the concrete and begin a thousand year journey down to the centre of the earth. At least, Freddie assumed that was their plan. The day when his school curriculum had touched on such things he had been too busy drawing beetles on his blotter to give it creedence. Consequently it would remain a mystery for the rest of his life.
Somewhere out there, through the driving rain was his Beaut, sitting alone in its hangar. Freddie’s hands twinged with their inactivity, itching to be doing something, to be flying, or running about, or falling out of a tree. It was bad weather for flying tonight, and so nobody particularly wanted to brave going up. A foul blanket of stormcloud had rolled overhead, and hothead as he was, he didn’t want to spend the night flying above an invisible sea, totally blind to all danger and guided only by his fallible instruments. But he hated not moving.
He slid around uncomfortably in his armchair, in the warm twilit haze of the bar. It was the one room in the air base where you could pretend to yourself that you were somewhere else, a club, and but for their uniforms some of these men could be old college mates. Actually, he had been to college with several of them but if he hadn’t cared about them then (and he hadn’t), he felt no great need to keep their society now. Such was life. Freddie clambered about in his chair, this time angling himself so his legs hung over one of the arms, and let his own arms stretch outside the confines of the chair. He had never been comfortable in the same position for more than a few minutes, a chronic wriggler from birth. He shifted from peculiar angle to peculiar angle, unaware or uncaring if people thought him strange. His father had been exactly the same. Funny then how eager they both had been to squeeze themselves into a tiny little cockpit with no leg room and scarcely enough space to breathe. Then again, fidgeting seemed the last thing on his mind when he was up in the skies, so maybe there was something to it instead.
A cigarette slid between Freddie’s fingers and he glanced up.
Maximilian Kingsley hovered over him, vibrating lightly with excitement. He was well known among the company as an eccentric man and a particular friend of Freddie, who had a way of attracting the wilder ones.
Kingsley was a swarthy young man with admirably black hair, a pencil mustache and uniquely pretty amber eyes. He had a willowy figure, an encyclopedic knowledge of the works of Voltaire and shoes with a lot more heel than most gentlemen got away with. He was a quarter of an inch away from being too short to be allowed to fly fighter planes, and he was also desperately popular with the ladies. Freddie didn’t know if the last two things were connected, but given how little he understood of the female psyche they could well have been.
“Ta.” Freddie said, as Kingsley lit the cigarette, and proceeded to raise it to his lips.
Kingsley set himself down in the empty chair to Freddie’s right and pulled another cigarette from his top pocket.
“Looks like we’ve got the night off- I don’t think even the Germans would be willing to fly in this!” He gestured to the window, and the darkening scene outside, blurred by the driving rain. “For once I hope they have decent common sense.”
Freddie took a long drag of his cigarette. “Don’t feel like taking a shower, do you?”
Kingsley gave him the evil eye. “Of course I don’t. You’ve seen what rainwater does to my hair.”
Freddie smirked at him and leaned over, reaching out to rumple Kingsley’s immaculate hair. Kingsley slapped his hand away before he could reach, narrowly avoiding his attack, and gave Freddie an even filthier look. Freddie didn’t know quite what it was that drove him to wind Kingsley up. He was gratifyingly easy to tease, though.
Continuing to fix Freddie with what could have been a withering gaze from someone whose face was predisposed to give withering gazes, he shifted his chair further away from Freddie’s.
“You know Bonham’s still trying to work up the courage to talk to that WAAF girl with the wonky nose.” He said sourly, hurt still tingeing his voice. “Maybe he’ll finally man up and ask the damn girl out- oh, here he comes.”
The aforementioned Alastair Bonham passed like a raincloud beside Freddie’s armchair and outstretched legs. He sank into the chair on the left with the air of a man sinking slowly but stoically into a patch of quicksand. Bonham was ginger, Scottish and built like a man you wouldn’t punch. He was Freddie’s partner, which made Freddie feel rather lucky. Their squadron had a number of particularly able pilots, as did the Poles they shared an airbase with. There were plenty with more experience than Bonham, and while neither Freddie nor Bonham could pretend that their aptitude for flying equalled that of the more senior officers, Freddie would rather fly with him than anyone else.
“Cigarette?” Offered Kingsley, who despite being entirely unable to fathom Bonham’s plight, sympathised.
Bonham held out a hand, words escaping him. Undeterred, Kingsley slotted a cigarette between two of his fingers and lit it with his pretty silver lighter, which was monogrammed in case some starry-eyed girl needed a token to remember him by.
Bonham moved his cigarette to his mouth and inhaled, evidently the wrong way as he engaged immediately in a very loud coughing fit. When it subsided, he slunk even further into his chair. The look in his eyes said that he was beseeching the ceiling to fall in and kill him.
“God, you two are such miseries today.” Kingsley bemoaned them as his two friends neglected to dive immediately into conversation.
“I’m not a misery.” Freddie insisted.
“You are. Every time you get a letter we’re treated to a day of you in high dudgeon. It’s very hard on me, you know. I have other things to do than cheer you both up. Have you seen the new girl they have working in the kitchens?” His conversation drifted away, as it often did, to the subject of women.
“I’m not in high dudgeon.” Freddie smirked. “I’m thinking. You should try it sometime, it might be good for you.”
“Well then, DC. If you really are thinking, what exactly are you thinking about?”
Freddie groaned internally. He had walked into this one, and there was no way he could tell them the truth, because the truth had other little truths attached to it. Difficult truths.
“...Current affairs. That sort of thing.” He professed, knowing even then that it was a pathetic shot.
That raised a chuckle from Bonham, rousing him briefly from his ennui. To be quite honest, Freddie would have scoffed too.
“You see? You’re distracted, and it’s by that letter. Happens every time.” Kingsley pointed out, smugly.
“Really, you’re just making things up.” Freddie grumbled. “Seeing patterns where they aren’t.”
Two sets of eyes narrowed on Freddie.
“No, Kingsley’s right.” Bonham said, his gently accented tones betraying real intrigue. “You go a bit strange when post comes for you. There’s something to it.”
“There is!” Kingsley crowed. “Come on DC, out with it! Are you being blackmailed?”
Freddie’s expression remained blank.
“Or…” One of Kingsley’s well shaped eyebrows waggled upwards. “Maybe you have a sweetheart.”
“Fuck off, Kingsley.” Freddie leant back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling. He could pretend that none of this was happening, maybe.
“Why would that make him sad, though?” Bonham pointed out.
“Well, why should I know? I’m not him.” Snapped Kingsley. “Why wouldn’t he tell his friends what’s making him upset?”
“Because it’s none of their damn business.” Freddie said, not bothering to look over. He was trying very hard not to be annoyed. He was rankled enough by the dumb silence he had to keep when the subject of girlfriends came up, as if thoughts of romance were as alien to him as they might have been to a child. He was not unfeeling after all. He resented that over time the other pilots had come to regard him as sexless, though it seemed that Kingsley and Bonham both had their doubts and that didn’t buoy his spirits much either. He had enough trouble keeping quiet as it was.
“Then you admit that’s what’s making you crabby?” Kingsley said, making himself impossible to ignore.
It was Freddie’s turn to shoot Kingsley a filthy look as the man smirked at him, like a cat having completed a successful fish heist from the larder.
“No, and you’ve got no right to know either.”
“Leave it be, Kingsley. He’s not going to tell us anything.” Bonham gave them both a sobering look.
“Fine.” Kingsley grumbled, and pursed his lips.
Freddie couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for his lack of trust in them. It seemed deeply mean-spirited to withhold his trust from men who risked their lives alongside him every day. He sat up, stubbing his cigarette into the ashtray.
“I’ll get the next round.”