Work Text:
Richard closed the curtains on another day.
Shutting the outside away in its neat little box, already preparing to bring it out again tomorrow. Another long day in another city, another town. Each one passing him by in a never-ending tour of press junkets and photographs, scribbled autographs in untidy writing, grins and kisses for all.
And the questions. The unlimited, pointless questions. Over and over and over.
'How was it, boys?'
'What's it like to finally be back on American soil?'
'Kill any Nazi's?'
Got a girl waiting for you back home?'
'Any words for our fellas' still out there?'
So many bloody questions.
'Were you scared?'
That was the question that stuck out from today. A meek, mild mannered reporter, standing at the back of the packed room. His hand raised politely, waiting to be heard above the usual clamour, Richard's eyes had been drawn to him. Blond hair, rail thin and a haunted look about him. So unlike the brash, overly confident bunch of reporters that always turned up for these sort of things.
The glare of flashbulbs still in his eyes, Richard had looked at the man, and the man had looked back.
The words wouldn't come. The answer so far beyond his reach it was like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
'Just doing our job, sir.' The Captain answered with a wry smile as Richard flailed. A chance for another reporter to get in another question. The blond man at the back already long forgotten.
Pictures again. Arms around the shoulders of each other in a show of solidarity only War can bring. More flashes, more wide grins and laughter.
So much more.
'Were you scared?' The question came back to haunt him. Of all the questions, in all the world, why that one? Why today?
His weary legs carried him over to his bed, yet another bed in another hotel room. He had long forgotten the feel of his own mattress at his back, the tangle of his own sheets.
And sitting on the side, he lowered his aching head into his hands.
This was meant to be the best part.
The days he had longed for, the reason for strapping himself into the belly of that Godforsaken plane. Fame, adulation. A different pretty girl on his arm every night, a different room key pushed under the gap of his hotel room door. A glass of champagne that never seemed to empty in his hand and a quick retort to every query.
It was what he had worked for, slept for. Killed for.
And now all he wanted most in the world was to go home and sit at his grandmothers table. Eat chicken pie and sticky dark gravy, mashed potato and green beans pulled fresh from the garden. And the chance to listen once again to the quiet chatter of his boring, ordinary family.
A sharp rap at the door made him start, made him scrub his hands over his reddened eyes. Who was it now? He winced to himself, standing and moving slowly to the locked door. Another bloody reporter? Another bright camera flash? He waited, hopefully whoever stood on the other side would walk away, leave him to his thoughts. But no, the knocker tried again, louder this time.
'You in there?' A voice joined the tapping. 'Rascal? Come on, open up. It's Virge.'
He could wait it out. Pretend that he was in another room, pretend he was in a different bed with one of those girls. The one with the dark hair who had tried to catch his eye over the breakfast table that very morning. Her with the bright lips and red painted nails.
He could very well be with her, between the sheets of her bed, making her cry out his name.
No, not his name. He wouldn't give her that. He would only gift her his nickname. A joke, a fictitious character of his own making.
So young, so scared the day he signed his papers and boarded a plane to England. Doing his bit, protecting his mother country, killing who needed to be killed. He had hidden behind that nickname, worn it like a birthday badge pinned proudly to his chest.
Rascal.
The day the Belle bounced to a stop on that distant concrete was the day he buried the notion of Rascal. That stupid name that never quite fit. He hated it. Hated the way the girls giggled at the sound, coy and assuming. Hated it when it came from the mouths of reporters, yelling it across crowded rooms. Hated hearing it from the lips of his comrades.
Richard the Shy, Stupid Virgin. That should have been his name all along.
'What do you want, Virge?' His voice little more than a sigh in the cool evening as he threw open his door.
'I was looking for you.'
'You found me.' He walked away from him, went back over to that little bed and sat down heavily. Hopefully Virge would take the hint and leave him the Hell alone.
'In the bar.' Clearly Virge was not the hint taking kind of guy, because he closed the door behind himself and flicked on the overhead light, throwing the room into nauseating clarity. 'I was looking for you, in the bar. You are missing a good night, hiding away up here. I thought I'd come and get you. Clay is at the piano, and Danny is threatening to get out his poetry book again!' Virge laughed, slumping down beside him, the cloying smell of alcohol and stale smoke clinging to his new clothes. 'I tell you, Rascal, he is a changed man since we've been back, old Danny Boy.'
'Don't call me that.' Richard murmured, dragging in the warmth of the man sitting beside him. When had he become so bloody cold?
'Call you what?' Virge asked, twisting his head, several glasses of amber liquor and clinking ice making his brain fuzzy.
'Rascal. It's not my name.'
'I've always called you that, everyone has always call you that.' Virge had a frown for him, his nose wrinkling, his eyes drawing in. Looking, really looking this time. Gently sobering in the bright light of the room, in the red eyes of his friend. 'You've been crying.' He said softly, his hand already reaching up before Richard could stop him.
'You are seeing things, Virge.' Richard scoffed, twitching away from questioning fingers. 'You're drunk.'
'Don't do that. Don't push and shove and tell me what you want me to see.' Virge all but snapped, surprising Richard so much that he dropped his guard, only for a moment, but it was already a moment too long, for Virge had his face cupped in his big hand. His thumb rubbing oh so carefully under his sore eyes. 'You have been crying.' His voice kind, his gaze soft.
'Turn the light out when you go.' Richard begged, his eyes filling once more. 'Please. It's too bright.' He turned his head from the man's concerned gaze, turned away from his touch.
'Okay.' Virge stood, dress shoes shuffling against the carpet as he stepped back. 'Okay.' With a soft click, the room fell into darkness once more.
He waited.
Waited for the sound of the door opening, closing. Waited for the sound of Virge's footsteps to fade away down the long stretch of corridor outside of his room.
It never came.
Instead the bed dipped beside him as Virge sat back down.
'I'm not going back down there.' Virge murmured into the darkness.
'I don't need a babysitter.' Richard bit back, annoyed that he had been ignored. Annoyed that he couldn't even hide this side of himself from the gentle engineer.
'No. But you do look like you could do with a friend.' Virge knocked his shoulder against him. 'Talk to me?'
Richard shook his head, forgetting for a moment that the man sat next to him could not see the brief rebuff. 'I... I wouldn't know where to begin. And... I don't know if I could ever stop.' His voice betrayed him, as a sob escaped his chest.
'Ra...' Virge stopped, caught himself just in time. 'Richard.' He draped an arm around him, thankful for the darkness as Richard slumped weakly against him, thankful that he wouldn't be able to see the way a flush crawled up his body, rose up around his throat, before finally deciding to settle in his cheeks. 'You're fine, you're okay.' Virge spoke softly, in echoes of the shattered ball turret and the way he had held the sobbing boy so long ago. 'You're safe.'
Of course he was scared. What a stupid bloody question. How dare that man ask them that? Didn't he see? Didn't he realise?
Scared was in the snap of Danny's stupid rubber band, the click of his camera, and the words of his stolen poem.
It was in the whites of Phil's eyes and the set of Val's jaw.
Scared was clinging mindlessly to a necklace of silver, a figure of a saint in raised relief, it's owners hand always, always shaking.
Scared lived in the rasp of Clay's voice. Waited patiently in the sound of the key turning in the ignition of the jeep that carried them up the runway to the parked and waiting Belle. It sat in the belly of the beast, in the Plexiglas ball that would whir and spin sickeningly. In the judder of guns and the hot ping of flak. Each piece of searing metal had his name engraved upon it, waiting, searching for him, searching all of them out in that wide blue sky.
The drop, the endless space beneath him, so open, so alone. Wings whipping past, so fast that he hadn't a hope. Never had. Disjointed shouts, the clock face shouted through his head. On your Six. Eight... Bandits at twelve... When would it end?
It was taking off, it was landing. Landing. So desperate, so solid and true.
Only... Only what if it was all a dream? Cruelly carved into his sleeping mind. Surely he would wake, get dressed, eat whatever passed for breakfast and be ready for Germany once more. One more mission.
One more every single fucking day.
Of course he was scared. He would never not be scared.
'It's all right.' Virge soothed, his words becoming a meaningless babble in the darkness. It's all going to be all right.' What more was there to say to his crying friend? What words could ever placate his ragged heart? What could ever take away the dead and dying, the bitter taste of blood and the noise of that second War.
The man he held was growing quiet, his tears almost spent, his head growing heavy against his shoulder.
Virge knew he would have to leave him soon. Ruffle his hair, grin the night away and retreat to his own room, just next door. It might as well be a million miles away for all the good he could do there.
He wanted, needed to stay. If not for Rascal, then for himself.
Needed to pull that body close to him. Urge him to the bed, cover them both up, and sleep.
'Sorry.' Richard snuffled quietly into the dampness of Virge's once pristine shirt. He raised his head, as glad as could be that the night still surrounded him. What a fool he was, sobbing pathetically on the shoulder of a man he called friend. He was an adult, a soldier, a man of eighteen. Not some soppy kid from back home, crying for his momma. 'You... You should go back to the party. What's left of it anyway.' He coughed, embarrassed. 'I'm gonna turn in.' He made to move, jolted when Virge's hand snapped out in the dark and found his wrist, fingers wrapping themselves around it.
'Let me stay.' Virge heard the words aloud, shocked that they had come from his own lips.
'Why?' Richard's voice cracked and broken with tears.
'I don't want to be alone anymore, Rascal.' He stopped, his hand tightening. 'Richard.'
'Doesn't sound so bad when you say it.' He tried for a laugh that couldn't be found.
'Only me?'
'Stay. Please.' Richard whispered. 'I don't want to be alone anymore either.'
'Sleep?' The bigger man questioned, hesitant and so very unsure.
'Mmmmm.' Richard murmured back, tucking his face in Virge's throat. 'Sleep.' He knew he would be able to chase a smell sweetly hidden on Virge's skin beneath liberal splashes of clinging aftershave and nervous sweat. The memory of green English fields and the sharp tang of cooling metal underneath the stiff material of Virge's tightly buttoned shirt as Virge trembled, laying them down upon fresh sheets.
Virge relaxed at the answer, his hand coming up Richard's back, his fingers tickling up his clothed spine, sending shivers south.
Richard had heard things, seen things.
Things that he had packed safely away into the back of his mind and hoped to forget.
It had been evening, the light of day fading into a deep blue that covered the fields around the base.
He had only wanted a moment alone. A cigarette before bed to ease him into a dreamless sleep.
A sound had drawn him from his path.
The sound of a man, his voice alive behind the mess hall. Richard had rounded that corner, just in time to see the way that man's head thunked against the tin wall as a dark head, another man's dark head, buried its way into his throat, kissing its way up his neck. His trousers off, his legs up, wrapped around a thick waist. Held so tightly, so surely. The look on his face...
Richard had bolted, swallowing heaving, his heart pounding. Swore never to speak of it, never to think of it. It wasn't done. It wasn't right. But, that look on his face... Like the world didn't matter, like the only important thing in the War, in the heaving mass of life was the other man between his thighs.
And he had forgotten. Shoved it so deeply away that the only time the memory escaped was in the late hours when sleep wouldn't come. When all he could think of was the flash of bombs and the ticking off of another mission come the morning.
It was then that the man came back to him, so fast the he hadn't the chance to gulp it away. Heat pooling in his stomach, dripping down. Lower. Until he had to push the heel of his hand into the ache, anything to get rid of that memory.
The memory came back as Virge's fingers wandered, brushing against his back, his stiff shirt and the leather of his belt.
It wasn't right. It wasn't done. His thoughts were not even lawful.
Prison, shame and fear were all down this road. An outcast, a criminal. The brave young man who went to fight for his country, his kin, would be wiped away in an instant.
And yet...
He didn't feel ashamed. This didn't feel wrong.
Virge smiled into the tousled head of hair that rested over his heart, a wave of affection washing over him.
It had been so very easy to believe that they would all fit neatly back into their old lives. Full of promise and hope. Plans made over the breakfast table, muted conversations while they waited for the enemy to appear.
Him and his grand restaurant, Clay and his singing, Luke and his dreams of making it big someplace. They all had their dreams, all the while knowing that a single bullet, driving into the wrong place, or a lump of burning metal, carving its ruthless way through the Belle, would send all of those dreams crashing into the great beyond.
They would all be parted soon enough. All be off in their different directions. Perhaps a stray letter here, a quick telephone call there. But even that would stop eventually. Virge was old enough to realise that not everything could be kept close forever.
Not even Rascal.
They had grown close, closer than he was prepared to admit. Because to admit to that would give it a name, make it real. And real was something Virge had always tried to shy away from. At least in the case of Rascal. Richard. He mentally corrected himself. That would take some getting used to.
Richard was someone new, someone more frightening than the boy Rascal ever was.
It was so dark and so very late, the hotel sleeping around them as they lay on the top of covers, Richard finally feeling the chill in the night air, the curtains breathing in time with the wind. He could hear a distant rain, and knew he should rise from his comfortable space and shut the glass, fearing a puddle of water soaking into the carpet by the morning.
He was just too damned comfortable.
Virge the Virgin, with his arms tight around him, his body sweetly bleeding warmth into his own.
'You cold?' Virge's words surprising him.
'A bit. Not much. I'll shut the window..' He tried to pull away, but Virge was too strong, refusing to let him go.
'No.' Then he was moving, kicking off his shoes, pulling back the blankets and covers, manoeuvring them into the bed, all without fully letting go. 'Better?' He settled back down, once more tugging Richard closer again, drawing the covers over them both.
'Better.' Richard smiled, his lips curving against Virge's throat. He wanted to kiss that warm skin, wanted just a taste of the man who had saved him.
'Good.' He fancied he could hear the grin in Virge's voice.
'I am sorry, you know.' Richard murmured instead, putting any thoughts of kissing the man from his mind. It wasn't done, it would end his life. Talking was better. Talking made the bad thoughts disappear.
'What for?' Virge asked, already confused.
'For all the times I called you names, for all the teasing. I didn't mean it. Not really.'
'Virgin.' The word stuck in his throat as he choked it out. He had never told him, he realised suddenly. He had told some of the other guys about the pretty girl with the blonde hair on the floor of the Belle. All soft curves and enticing words. Gently encouraging and urging him on. It hadn't really been a secret, but there had always been something holding him back from telling Richard.
Something frightening, something silent.
'Yeah, that. And I'm sorry.'
'I'm not, not a virgin, not anymore.' Virge blurted, already feeling a part of himself drifting away. 'Not for a while now.'
'You've got a girl.' Richard spoke, his voice coming from some far off place. He dragged himself from the lazy embrace and sat up. He was already cold. Lost.
'No. Nothing like that. It... It was with Faith.'
'Faith.' Richard rolled the name around his mouth, he knew that name. It came to him in a flash of red lips and an abandoned drink. 'The one at the dance.' He was at the edge of the bed now, feet planted firmly on the floor. His brief moment of comfort gone. He had to leave this place. He couldn't stand to have Virge still so near.
'Yes. The one you were talking to. The girl you liked.' Virge paused, fighting for words he didn't want Richard to hear. 'She was nice to me. She didn't mind that I hadn't... You know.' He waved the word away in the dark room, sensed that Richard was ready to stand, to tell him to leave. 'I should have told you, I don't know why I didn't.'
'And you liked it? You liked her?'
'I did.' Virge blushed.
'I'm pleased for you, Virge. Really I am. She was nice. You deserved her to be nice.' And something in Richard's heart broke.
'So, no more virgins left on the Belle.' Virge's laugh carried no humour, the very air in the room stretched thin between them.
'Only one.' Whispered Richard, hoping in some part that Virge would pretend not to hear him.
'Rascal?' No such luck.
'Rascal was a liar. A liar and a coward and a fool.' He spat, hating himself anew. 'A virgin. I never had any of those women, Virge. I made them all up. No woman ever looked at me back home. I was some dumb kid, a little boy. Then I enlisted. I lied about it all.' He was streaming hot tears, humiliated and scared all over again. 'No one ever wanted stupid old Rascal.'
'I did.' Virge spoke quietly. 'I wanted Rascal. I still do.'
'Don't make fun of me, Virge. I get it, all right. I'm the joke.'
'No, you don't get it.' Virge told him, up on his knees and climbing over the covers to get to him. 'She was nice, she was kind to me. She was so pretty and patient...'
He couldn't let him finish, it would hurt too much to have to hear it all again. 'You already told me all that.' He jumped when Virge's warm hand cover his shoulder. 'You don't need to tell me that I'll find my own girl. That there is someone out there for everyone. I get it, all right. I understand.'
'But I don't think you do.' Virge was turning him, his head cupped in his large hands, his eyes so close that even in the darkness, Richard could pick out the flecks of shining blue. 'She wasn't right, Richard. She was never going to be right and I didn't know that until it was too late.' He swallowed heavily. 'I know you are scared, that you dream such horrible dreams. I'm scared too.'
'All the time?' Richard asked, finally able to breathe.
'All the fucking time.' Virge nodded, his thumb catching tears. 'I don't know how to be anything but scared.'
'What do we do?' Richard begged him for the answer, his eyes sliding shut, his body leaning closer.
'If I had the answer, I'd share it with you first.' He was holding him again, tilting his face to his own. 'Come back to bed. It's not morning yet.'
'Virge...'
'Come back to bed.'
He was leaning over him, his strong, steadfast hands touching his face, fingers hesitantly grazing his starched collar. The engineer who had come to his rescue, had plucked him from the sky and allowed him to weep on his shoulder without reproach, without question.
'What was she like?' Richard had to break the silence before he cracked apart. 'Faith? What was she like?'
'She wasn't this.' Virge answered, his unseen fingers moving across Richard's shirt buttons now. Teasing one through the fabric and letting it fall open.
'What is this?' Richard asked, his voice shaking as Virge focused his attention on another button.
'This is us not being scared, this is taking back some little part of our lives that we almost lost.' He pressed closer, his hand sliding into the gap he had made between fabric and blushing skin. 'It's just ours, Richard. No reporters, no girls and no questions.' His face so close now, Richard could feel his warm smile against his burning cheek. 'And not giving a fuck about what anyone else might think.'
Richard was pulling him that last inch, fingers tangled in sandy hair, tugging hard enough to surely hurt. Already moaning Virge's name into the lips covering his own.
It was Virge who understood him.
Virge who gently slid his hand over his stomach, lower and lower still, until his hips rose on their own volition, he had no control over his body. Had lost that the moment their lips met in that aching kiss.
Stroking him over the straining material under his sure hands, swallowing his breathless gasp.
'Ssh, it's okay.' He was talking, but Richard could hardly hear him, blood pounding in his ears, his body shaking, coming apart. 'You can let go, I've got you.'
It was a long, long moment before he came back to himself, his face flaming, shame and embarrassment making him bury his head further into Virge's shoulder, the other man chuckling softly as his fingers carded through his sweaty hair.
He was such a stupid child. Rascal the kid once more.
'I...' He stuttered, angry and hurt that Virge was laughing at him. He had to get out of here, needed to feel air on his face, the night breeze would blow away the shame. 'You don't need to laugh at me. I know I'm an idiot.' He snapped, his movements jerky as he tried to pull himself out of Virge's arms. 'You don't need to make me feel more shit than I already do.'
'Hey, Richard, stop.' Virge's hand wrapped around his bicep. 'I wasn't laughing.'
'I heard you. You think I'm a kid who can't control his own body. So funny. Rascal the useless virgin. I get it.'
'Give me your hand.' Virge insisted. 'Come on, give me your hand.' He didn't wait, fumbling in the darkness, grasping hold before Richard could pull himself out of reach. 'You are an idiot.' Virge told him fondly as Richard tried to twist free. 'An idiot who can't see what you do.'
'I didn't do anything. That's the point, isn't it.' Richard snapped, hot tears staining his cheeks. Always bloody crying, always a child. 'Let me go, Virge.'
'I'm not some seasoned Lothario, Richard.' Virge spoke into the darkness, wishing for all the world that he had thought to switch on the little bedside lamp before any of this had even started. It was too late now, he couldn't risk letting Richard go. The younger man would surely dash from the room and be down the corridor before he even had the chance to gather his wits. 'I don't have a girl in every town. Hell, Faith was the first person I'd ever kissed. Before you.' He could feel the fight slowly leaving Richard's body. Could hear the strangled hitch in his breathing. 'This is what you do to me, Richard...' He swallowed thickly, took Richard's hand and guided it low, held it against himself. 'That's what you do. What you've always done to me.'
He flicked on the lamp, throwing the warm yellow glow across Richard's tear blotchy face, the flush of sated pleasure still rosy on his chest where Virge had popped the buttons open. Richard deserved to be bathed in light, it was a pity to confine him to the dark.
Richard turned his head from his searching gaze. Self-conscious at the state he was in. Shirt untucked and hanging half open, his hair in wild disarray, his chest still heaving, his trousers sticking uncomfortably. How could he have allowed himself to become so transparent? So full of uncertain longing?
'Look at me.' Virge instructed softly.
'I... I don't think I can.'
'Are you ashamed?' His voice caught, terrified of the answer Richard would surely give him. Thankful beyond measure by the almost imperceptible shake of Richard's head. He let out the breath he hadn't known he was holding. 'So look at me.'
'I'm not ashamed, not of you.' Richard told him, his voice heavy on every word. 'How could I be?'
Virge settled beside him easily, a careful smile playing at his mouth as his fingers once again took their wandering path, this time across Richard's chest, finding a spattering of dark hair and curling into the strands. 'It's mean to be wrong, isn't it?' Richard stuttered, undone by Virge's touch. 'We... I was always told it was wrong. Only, doesn't feel it.'
'No, it doesn't.' Virge kissed him then, long and slow and lazy. Teasing bites and sucking presses across his jaw, moving over his throat, his tongue flicking out to linger over salted skin and spent tears. 'Doesn't feel wrong.'
'Virge...' Richard was ashamed of the way he moaned the other man's name thought, hearing the longing in the sound with a tightening of his hand in Virge's hair. When had this man turned him into a gasping, desperate mess?
'Not wrong.' Virge repeated, and Richard knew he was grinning that insufferable bloody grin of his, all teasing and innocent. Not so innocent after all, then, as he attacked the metal fastening of the belt he still wore, suddenly it was too tight across his middle, too much food and good living. His body turning softer since arriving back home.
He felt hot all over, knew that Virge was about to see him, all of him. 'Definitely not wrong at all.' His hand was slipping inside, the belt cast across the room with a ringing clang as it hit the back wall with force.
'What happens now?' Richard asked, slicked with sweat and sated once more.
'Well, you'll have to give me a minute...' Virge laughed as Richard admonished him with a slight slap.
'I don't mean that!' But still he felt his body reacting to that very thought. 'I mean after all this is through.'
'The pantomime of show.' Virge sighed. 'I keep telling myself that it's not for us, that it's because people need to see that it can be done, that we can win this damned war once and for all.' He held Richard all the tighter, his thoughts straying to places he didn't like to remember. 'It's all pomp and propaganda, it doesn't mean anything, not to us. But it does to them. The people we left behind. The people we came back for. They are the ones who need our photographs, our tales of daring do. Because, well, it's hope isn't it. Hope that their own loved ones get to come home.'
'So we carry on.'
'Yes. We carry on.' He kissed Richard's hair, whispering his words into the tangle. 'And after that... Well, I guess we all go off in whatever direction is home.'
The ending Richard had always known was coming.
His friends scattering across the country. Waving goodbye, a hug, a clap on the back. A promise to stay in touch. His aching heart gave a flicker, dying bravely in his chest. Saying goodbye to this man... How had he ever been stupid enough to think... 'You'll go get your restaurant.'
'And wait for you to come rob it.' Virge chucked, mouthing at Richard's shoulder. Clearly his minute was up.
'I did say that, didn't I.' He was turning into him, his body already awake and wanting. If this was it, if this was their goodbye, then so be it. He would just cling to every moment, and treasure them close to his empty heart.
'You know,' Virge was over him, pressing him to the damp covers, parting his thighs, 'If the life of a criminal mastermind doesn't pan out, you could always come work with me.' There was so much more he wanted to say. Come with me. Stay with me. Be with me. You could be the one I'll love.
But there were no words for that.
'You're asking me?' Hope flared brightly in Richard's coal black heart.
'Well, yeah.' He tried to convey his ambivalence, afraid to lay himself so bare. 'Course there's no money in it, and it will probably only be a shack at the side of a road, at first anyway. Until I get things going, until I get set up properly and, and...' Nervous energy and hopeful expectation turning his words into a garbled jumble. 'And, well, yeah, perhaps you... You can say no, it's not like I'm thinking you might...'
'Virge...'
'Yeah, I'm asking you.' He smiled down at him, his cheeks blazing in the glow of lamplight.
'I... I think I'd like that.' Richard managed to choke out before Virge was grinning, claiming his mouth in a scorching kiss.