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Ron is beautiful in the early morning light, as it filters through the filmy curtains concealing them from the street below.
There’s no danger of being discovered — not here, not now. Captain Speirs has requisitioned the most elaborate room in the Zell Am See mansion for himself, and given strict orders not to be disturbed. As usual, Carwood was the exception to that room. He followed Ron back to his room in the early morning hours, abandoning a game of cards with the other officers down below. Since then... well, he’s felt no desire to go. There’s no reason anymore, with this new feeling of safety settling over them like an unfamiliar blanket. They’re no longer sneaking caresses under thin covers in Haguenau, or stealing away into cellars or requisitioned apartments across Germany. The dangers are behind them, in more ways than one. Now, looking down at his lover’s — his lover, this man! — sleeping face, Carwood feels nothing but peace.
As though he can feel the gaze on him, Ron exhales. He stirs slightly, a strand of untamed bedhead falling across his face. Gentle as a caress, Carwood tucks it back. He doesn’t mean to wake him, but Ron humms anyway, leaning up into the touch.
“Time’s it?” he mutters.
Carwood shushes him softly, letting his fingers freely brush along his temple. With little effort, he massages the knit from Ron’s brow, coaxing his eyes half-open to regard him. A smile twitches across Ron’s lips. This is another treasure of Zell Am See, the sort of thing one could only find away from war: Ron Speirs, content.
He is not a phantom of the battlefields, as some of the men like to whisper. He doesn’t stalk unaffected through fields of fallen men. He doesn’t revel at the sound of gunfire, or take twisted pleasure in the blood inevitably staining his hands. Ron Speirs is many things, but he is not an instrument of war.
At his core, Ron is this — warm-voiced and tender, his arms steady as they twine around Carwood’s shoulders. He pulls him back down against his chest, and Carwood maps out the sluggish rhythm of Ron’s heart, and the sleep heavy breaths exhales against the crown of his head.
“Early,” he answers, in response to Ron’s half-forgotten question. “We've got time.”
Even if they didn’t, he’s not sure Ron would care. Ron’s got a talent for making time where there is none — for daring to do things other men never would. He’s reckless, not careless... and incredibly brave. Somehow, things usually work in his favor.
“What if they catch us?” Carwood asked once, breathlessly, as Ron presses him up against the wall in a requisitioned German apartment. He felt the teeth bared against his neck, the huff of laughter that caused Ron’s shoulders to heave, as his possessive grip tightened around Carwood’s hips.
“Then you’ll come up with a wonderful excuse, I’m sure.” He pulled away just enough for Carwood to catch his smile, like the jagged edge of a knife, cutting across his face. “But we’re not going to get caught.”
“How do you know?”
Ron didn’t answer. His mouth found Carwood’s neck again, chasing all further questions out of his mind.
Sure enough, they didn’t get caught then... or in the dozen times afterwards.
Somewhere up above, an angel must be watching over Ron’s shoulder, because he always seems one step ahead of the rest of the world. It would be remarkable, if Carwood weren’t still convinced his recklessness will get him hurt one day. If Ron’s experience has taught him that he can survive anything, Carwood has seen the crueler sides of fortune. No one can be lucky forever. One day, Ron’s fortune is bound to run out, and then...
He closes his eyes, head dropping back against Ron’s chest. He is a solid weight against him — perfectly at peace, perfectly alive. Carwood could not stand to see anything happen to the man he’s grown to love.
“Mmm...” Ron presses a sigh into the crown of his head, arms shifting around him. “You’re thinking too much.”
“It’s a talent of mine.” Carwood let’s the words hand over them for a moment, watching the early light of dawn creep further into the room. They cannot stay in bed forever. Soon, this moment of peace will pass; even now, it is slipping slowly away, and he aches.
Ron’s hand massages up and down Carwood’s bicep, impossibly gentle. He presses a kiss to his temple, making Carwood sigh.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he finally admits. Ron goes still against him.
“I won’t,” he answers after a moment. Carwood fights back a scoff at the utter Ron-ness of the reply.
“Everyone gets hurt eventually. That’s… life. There’s no avoiding it. But you… if something happened to you, Ron, I’m not sure how I’d…”
He cuts off, swallows, and pulls away from the lover’s embrace. Ron doesn’t try to hold him back. Carwood sits up, sheets pooling in his lap. Ron is watching him, eyes dark and intent. As skilled as Carwood has grown at reading his facial expressions, this one’s an enigma even to him.
“You said once you’re not afraid of death,” he says.
“I’m not.”
A part of Carwood can understand that. Everyone copes with war in different ways. Carwood clung tooth-and-nail to the humanity of it all, devoting his efforts to his men, looking after them and keeping them whole. That’s what kept him sane through the constant barrages of Bastogne, the shots from the darkness in Normandy. Ron’s mind is trickier. He views things differently, in ways Carwood will not pretend to understand… but even if he cannot imagine accepting your own death, he understands why Ron has. It allows him to be fearless. Invincible, til the moment he isn’t.
But dead men don’t press kisses into their lovers’ necks in the early morning hours. They don’t hum along to songs on a battered old radio; they don’t tease their friends, tongue-in-cheek, over poker, or make faces at bitter whiskey. Dead men’s eyes do not sparkle the way Ron’s do when he calls Carwood amazing.
Ron Speirs is painfully alive. In a perfect world, he’d stay that way forever.
The world is far from perfect, however... especially theirs.
Carwood takes a deep breath, allowing his hand to graze over Ron’s own. His knuckles are rough, but his skin is warm.
“Is that true? Even now, after everything we’ve seen?”
“I’m not afraid of dying,” Ron replies. His voice doesn’t tremble, and his gaze doesn’t falter. Of course — Ron has never lied before.
Something in Carwood’s chest stutters. He opens his mouth, but before he can say — god, he doesn’t know what he’ll say — Ron goes on.
“It’s leaving things behind that’s the problem. Doesn’t sit right anymore. For a while, it seemed like… like it’d be alright, because there wasn’t anyone who’d miss me for too long. There wasn’t anything I loved enough to want to keep.”
Past a sudden tightness in his throat, Carwood forces himself to breathe in. “And now?”
“Now…” Ron’s voice is thoughtful, but his gaze is intent, boring into Carwood’s like twin bullets. “That’s not true anymore.”
“You love the army,” Carwood says, because Ron admitted as much to him a few nights ago, when discussing his desire to stay after the war. The memory is fresh in both their minds — the tang of champagne on their lips, Ron’s knee bouncing restlessly, crickets chirping over their murmured conversation. As vivid as that night remains, it can’t compete with now. Ron chuckles, exhaling a breath that warms Carwood’s neck, and the sensation sinks into his bones.
“Yes. I do.” Ron’s hand ventures up, trailing Carwood’s arm. It settles on his shoulder and stays there, anchoring him in place, just in case he should drift away. “But I love something else even more… more than I ever thought I could love, honestly.” His thumb strokes lightly over Carwood’s collarbone, making him shiver. Ron’s gaze is unbearably soft; he can’t bear to meet it, but it’s impossible to look away. “If you aren't worth sticking around for, Carwood Lipton, nothing is.”
It’s too much. Carwood sinks against him, like melting into a warm pool of water. Ron’s arms swallow him up; his mouth, when they find each others’, is earnest. Even as Carwood kisses him, Ron massages circles into the center of his spine that leave his nerves tingling, every one craving more. More touch, more intensity, more Ron… and what Carwood demands, Ron gives freely. He draws Carwood’s lower lip into his mouth, and Carwood moans. When Ron’s knee slips between his thighs, the fog of ecstasy around his head grows thicker.
Sensation, sensation… and it fills in the gaps of all the things they dare not say.
In the aftermath, when the morning light has reached the bed and the syrupy haze of contentment is beginning to clear from both their minds, Carwood shifts against Ron’s chest.
“Promise me one thing,” he says.
Ron’s fingers are lazily caressing his jaw… but every ounce of his attention is on Carwood. “Anything.”
“Look after yourself.”
Ron lingers on the words for a moment, before a smile creeps across his lips. It isn’t proud, it isn’t amused… it’s simply his.
His promise reverberates in the press of lips to Carwood’s brow, and Carwood finally feels at peace.