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The pub has started to quiet, the mood turning sombre as the night pushes on. Most everyone still here is either drunk, passed out, or sleepily contemplating home, nursing the last of their drinks and their company.
Between the amber lights dulled by the blackout curtains, and the heavy musk of the air trapped by old stone and thick woodwork, this pub feels like a separate reality, free from the world and the war. It’s soothing.
As soothing as the slow strums of a guitar still resonating in his ears. The lass and her troupe have been playing all night it seems, but she’s winding down now, too.
Collins has his head resting on his arms, leaned on the table, about ready to fall asleep then and there. Most of the rest of the lads have already left, but he’s so wiped he’s not sure he could even walk back to base if he tried. Least he’s not drunk; not that he drinks to begin with. He needs a new pack of cigarettes, though.
Angling his head to his left lazily, he watches Farrier still nursing the last of his pint, swilling the dregs around the glass.
"Still awake?" he says when he catches Collins looking his way, bleary-eyed.
A yawn escapes him as if to make his point. "Aye, just about."
"We should head home, too. Dawn patrol again tomorrow."
Collins just groans, dropping his head back in his arms until his world is all table and darkness. What possessed him to find the one job that requires rising before the sun, he’ll never know.
"You whine worse than a child, sometimes," Farrier chuckles.
His hand settles on Collins’ shoulder. It stays long enough that he can revel in the warmth of his touch, the comforting weight as it slips down his back like a gentle caress. It’s so casual it could be mistaken as nothing at all, and gone much too soon for him to feel anything but disappointed.
"I came to this country in eighteen-forty-nine, I saw many true loves, but never saw mine,"
Collins perks up at that. The guitar has taken on an insistent pluck, the singer’s voice overpowering the quiet atmosphere. She does have a lovely voice.
"I viewed all around me, and I am alone, and me a poor soldier and far from my home."
The tune is sombre, the single string accompaniment sharp and strong, tugging at something deep in his chest.
He looks to Farrier, who’s staring at the woman as she sings, an odd look on his face.
"I haven’t heard this song for a long time," he says wistfully, like he can feel Collins’ questioning gaze. "My mum used to sing it when I was young."
Collins squints. There’s heavy nostalgia in his voice, and a slight glint of his eye. A sweet memory, he hopes.
They listen for a while, lost in the sweet honey of her voice, and the skilled plucking of strings that reverb through the air.
It sinks heavily in Collins' stomach; regret and longing and nostalgia he can't place.
"Farewell my dear mother, likewise father too, I'm bound for to ramble this country all through,"
"What’s it about?" Collins asks. His voice is low, like he's afraid of interrupting the mesmerizing ambiance of the room.
"And when I get tired, I'll sit down and cry, and think on pretty Saro with tears in my eye."
Farrier sighs, throwing back the rest of his drink suddenly. The glass hits the table a little too hard.
"A man leaves his love behind to go to war," he says. "But he never forgets her."
"And your mum used to sing that too you?"
Farrier laughs under his breath. "Well, I think she picked it up somewhere during the last war, when my father was away. Seemed fitting."
Sounds a bit morose for a child, but Collins only nods and continues to listen, allowing himself to be swept away by the music, and the tragic tale it weaves.
By the time they leave the pub, it puts him in an odd mood. He’s not feeling particularly talkative, busy staring at the uneven cobble under his feet or up at the blanket of stars visible through wisps of dark cloud. Were it not for the searchlights swinging around in the distance, one could almost forget there was a war on.
Farrier is close beside him, hands deep in the pockets of his Irvin, a smoke hanging between his lips. Their arms brush on occasion, and Collins isn’t sure what to make of the inclination he has to lean closer, or to pry at his hand. He shakes his head, blaming the tingle of his skin on the breeze.
"You’re humming that song again," he points out instead.
Farrier’s voice stops, frowning like he wasn’t even aware of it himself, and plucks the cigarette from his mouth. "Sorry, it’s just been a long time."
"It’s fine, it’s nice." Collins takes the opportunity to steal the cigarette from between Farrier’s fingers, sucking smoke deep into his own lungs. "It's tragic, though."
"Well it would be, leaving someone behind."
Collins hums, biting around the filter. "For the lass as well, I mean. Being left by someone you love..."
There's a scuff of boots on dirt.
Collins turns to find Farrier has stopped, a lonely look on his face barely visible in the faint moonlight. The air weighs heavy between them; Collins' very soul is being observed and torn open. Farrier has always had an intensity to his stare, but this is different. The slight shine in his eyes now is as heartbreaking as it is enticing.
When he steps closer—right into Collins’ space—he brings heat with him, and the scent of tobacco and whiskey and musty old wood, and the slight brush of breath on his skin.
He’s not sure what’s happened—what is happening—but Collins can only watch, transfixed as Farrier’s hand comes to pinch the cigarette hanging limp from his mouth. The pads of his fingers brush his lips just slightly, tickling like an electric shock.
Collins’ breath hitches, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch. He just stares and waits.
"War’s a tragic thing to happen to love," Farrier says quietly, like he’s half asleep.
What is there to say? Collins could count on one hand the number of times he’s heard him talk like that.
Farrier doesn't look anywhere but directly into his eyes, a cold blue, a hard stare that could mean everything and nothing.
"Especially one that never had a chance," Collins answers. His chest aches, a vice seizing his lungs.
He wavers, wanting to be closer, to chase the impossible heat of Farrier’s hand now drawing back from his lips. It settles on Collins’ arm lightly, cigarette still pinched between his fingers. He hasn’t put any distance between them.
Whatever has happened here—whatever he wants to happen here—it can’t. But he’d beg for it to. God, he wants it more than anything in his life. Every one of his nerves catches fire.
Farrier pulls back first, slowly, with a hesitation Collins never thought he could possess.
"We don’t always get what we want," he mutters.
The air shatters. As Farrier brushes past, his hand slips down Collins’ arm slowly, warm and fond and pining for every last vestige of contact. Their fingers catch for a moment, curling together, clinging to this something between them.
"If it weren't for the war," Collins hears himself saying, though it doesn't feel as if he's the one speaking. "We would have never met."
Maybe, in some strange way, he did get what he wanted. Even if he didn't know it at the time.
Farrier only sighs. "I’m not sure that makes it a good thing."
Then he's walking away, back towards home, and Collins is left stranded in a cold sea.
He can’t quite get his legs to work. He stares at his own hand like it’s foreign, still burning from a touch he feels like an unholy child for craving.
When he finally manages to move, he watches Farrier’s broad back the whole way, hands shoved deep in his pockets, scuffing the ground with his boots. The pounding in his head is almost as loud as his heart, and there's an ugly mass lodged in his stomach, some slew of anguish and anger.
"Shit…"
He’s never wanted to be up in the air so badly before. At least if he was in his kite, he could shoot something.
Despite barely knowing the words, he finds himself humming that blasted song to himself. A sadness he suddenly understands all too well.
He knows Farrier can hear him.
This fucking war.
Farrier goes down at Dunkirk two weeks later.
As he watches his Spitfire burn, the sun drops below the horizon, and the shapes of men appear over the dunes, coming to take him away from the war. His heart tugs.
There’s a string between him and home, stretching far across the water. Frayed and worn, and he knows where it leads.
Pressure builds behind his eyes, irritated by thick smoke. The fire scorches his face, adds to the sweat on his brow. He stares into it, transfixed, contemplating his future.
His beautiful Spitfire turns to cinders, taking his purpose and his freedom along with it.
By the time his captors arrive, he’s not the strength to fight them. He keeps his mouth shut and his head high.
As he’s walked off with guns at his back, he thinks of that song again; a faint whisper, taunting him.
It's not the long journey I'm dreading to go, nor leaving my country for the deeds that I owe...
That song—ingrained in his deepest memories— leaves his heart heavy with a strange cacophony of emotions.
In his mind, it belongs to them, now; Collins and him.
He's caught him singing it since that night—he'd been humming it this morning, in fact, as they'd waited for the call to go up.
Hearing it on Collins' tongue makes him ravenous, desperate and daring, leaves him teetering on the edge of devotion. It's an unspoken promise, a declaration through words not their own.
Farrier doesn’t want to hear it now, in the hands of his enemy, so far from home, tormented by all the ways he wishes he weren't so human and fallible.
It’s torture. But it is an anchor, also.
By the time he’s loaded into a lorry the sun’s gone, and the stars are peaking through. The same stars he’s seen countless times back home. The same stars that had been visible that night only weeks ago, when Collins was at his side, in his grasp.
Collins had said it: without the war, they'd never have met.
Farrier had been a coward back then, not to take the risk. His words were cold, harsh, dishonest.
There’s nothing that grieves me nor troubles my mind, like leaving pretty Saro my darling behind.
He regrets nothing of his choices today. Except for one. Except for him.
"I promise I’ll be here," he’d told Collins once on a cold autumn night, back when the war was new and simple and farcical. "Until the very end."
He doesn’t make promises like that. He hates them. But something in the way Collins had looked at him back then made him do it, even if it was unfair.
Collins was excited by the prospect of fighting, eager to feel as though he’d well and truly earned those wings on his uniform. He wasn’t scared of the war, but Farrier was scared for him. For all of them.
But he’s prideful, confident in himself and his countrymen.
He knew in his heart he would give himself for his country. Willingly. Sacrifice is what’s always been demanded of them, one way or another.
Collins understands that. Maybe one day he’ll even forgive him for it. Either way, he owes him an apology now.
Farrier settles his head back, shuts his eyes briefly, taking a long, deep breath. He hums that sad tune, ignoring all but the heaviness of his heart, pounding hard against his ribs.
I view all around me and I am alone, and me a poor soldier and far from my home…
Watching the night sky as it passes, he prays to a God he doesn’t believe in that his mother is safe, that the rest of the squadron is back home, safe and sound.
That the end to this phoney war they've been living isn't the beginning of their end, too.
That Collins made it home safe. That he’ll be free to fly and fight and survive.
If Farrier can have nothing else, he only asks that he live.
That damn song follows him all the way to Poland; all the way to the P.O.W. camp he's been transferred to by '43.
And now it follows him into this small, concrete isolation cell, freezing with the mid-winter air. Punishment for another botched escape attempt.
There's something almost comical about it at this point; the number of times he's been in here.
The Bosch have been more or less decent fellows over the years—aside from the last Kommandant, who had taken a dislike to Farrier's stubbornness during an interrogation and given him an enthusiastic beating for his trouble. But Farrier has to wonder if they're finally considering just shooting him and his rag-tag group of escapees just to be rid of the headache.
The fatalistic side of him laughs at the notion.
"It's not the long journey I'm dreading to go," he hums to himself, voice echoing off frigid stone.
It's dank and dim down here, a lesser used section underground, an old part of whatever castle this is that's been repurposed as a camp.
"Or leaving this country for the deeds that I owe,"
He coughs then, rough and dry. The cold has knackered his throat somewhat. Not that he'd considered his singing all that impressive to begin with.
That was always Collins.
Gritting his teeth, Farrier launches a stray pebble into the wall, warmed by the sudden boil of his blood.
He doesn't like to think about Collins here; it's as if he's tainting the memory—tainting the man himself, somehow. Yet he can't stop himself.
Collins writes him almost as much as his mother; certainly more than any of the others from the squadron. Some of whom are gone, now.
"There's nothing that grieves me nor troubles my mind,"
He'd never told Collins a damn thing. That regret gnaws at him incessantly; another reason he hates being left alone with his thoughts like this.
"Like leaving pretty Saro, my darling behind."
Those letters are precious, though. They remind him of home, of friends and family. Collins keeps him updated on the war, himself and the lads, the world outside these walls that have become Farrier's whole life.
Then, occasionally, Collins writes things like, "Your Saro's still waiting for you."
It's easy to perfectly imagine the lilt in his voice as he says it, the subtle little laugh that might escape him.
It aches; the connotations, the unspoken implications. Collins is no fool, nor is he cruel; surely he understands what he's saying. Hopefully he does.
The censors will think nothing of it.
Farrier thinks everything of it.
Pebbles rattle against the far wall as he continues to lob them into the dark with unnecessary force.
Hair brushes along his forehead, and he scratches at the growing beard cropping up on his chin. Both are harder to manage in here, let alone when he's stuck in solitary.
"I wish I was a poet that could write a fine hand," he continues to sing to himself, "I'd write my love a letter that she can understand,"
Damn this song. Damn this bloody war. Damn Collins, for all it's worth.
He wants to apologize to his mother—he almost did once, in a letter. This song no longer belongs to his childhood memories of her. How could it, when he's all but living it? When he feels as he does?
Whatever that may be.
It's easier to pretend he doesn't know. He's always been good at it.
She'd understand, though. Even if he could never tell her who or why.
Well, maybe one day. Perhaps she'll understand if she ever meets Collins.
What a pleasant thought.
"I'd send it by the island, where the waters overflow, and think of pretty Saro wherever I go."
Never was one for expressing himself much. He's paying for it now. What a fool.
All the reasons he had for stopping himself back then become increasingly pointless the longer he's in here.
Collins deserves so much more.
Saro's still waiting for you…
Tell her it may not be worth the wait, he'd written back. Like he’s punishing himself for not saying what should have been said; doing what should have been done.
It’s a moment of self-pity. He should have said he was still thinking of her—of him, too.
Collins had responded. A simple: It's alright, she’ll wait as long as it takes. She loves you, after all.
The hesitation in his scrawl is evident—the extra pressure on the letters, the slow drag of excess ink.
Farrier drives his fist into the wall. With grit teeth, the stone bite into his knuckles, skin cracking and tearing.
Of course Collins would find a way to say that damnable, forbidden thing, even worlds apart. It only makes him feel all the worse; guilty, and a coward.
When he gets home, changed in so many ways, he has much to make up for. He’ll force his own hand if he has to, but he’ll find Collins, tell him the truth.
All he can do for now, in the cold dark of isolation, already planning his next escape, is hope they both live to see that day.
"I came to this country in eighteen-forty-nine, I saw many true loves but never saw mine,"
Gravel crunches behind him.
It's Farrier, he knows. No one else would aimlessly wander out to this lonely spot—a single bench overlooking the white cliffs, and the glistening water beyond. Bombarded by the screech of seagulls and the smell of salt and ozone.
A place Farrier had brought him once upon a time. A place Collins came to many times while stationed in England.
It had been his idea to meet here, after all. As soon as the war ended, as soon as Farrier wrote to him about his return home, it was all Collins could think to do.
Now they’re here. His stomach turns with excitement and trepidation.
"I view all around me, and I am alone, and me a poor soldier and far from my home."
He sucks a heap of smoke into his lungs.
Farrier doesn't speak, but he comes to lean against the back of the bench. The wood creaks. Collins has an arm over the back; he feels the brief brush of his hand, and nearly pulls away from the burn.
He doesn't move even as his heart threatens to leap out of his chest.
"Afternoon," he says, without looking up, apprehensive of what he'll see if he does.
Or what he won't; maybe Farrier won't be there at all, and Collins will awaken back in the war, and this a hopeless dream.
But he breathes easy when Farrier's speaks.
"Saro."
Collins doesn't know if he should laugh or cry. So he hums, pinching his cigarette that much tighter.
"Welcome home, poor soldier."
Farrier chuckles a bit. "It’s been a long time. Being here now… almost makes you forget anything ever happened."
When Collins finally looks up, sees him for the first time in five years—five years, for God's sake—he's smiling softly. Radiating an air of calm relief that washes over him. Finally, the vice grip on his heart, settled there so long ago, releases. He's a hundred pounds lighter.
"If only we could forget," he says. Erase those years of war, of hell, of loss. Those years apart. "You look good, all things considered."
Farrier just looks back at him, eyes roaming, observing, like he’s truly seeing him for the first time. "I could say the same."
Collins is wearing his uniform. Not to standards, he's sure. His tunic is unbuttoned, tie a little loose, and his trousers could probably do with an ironing. More unkempt than he used to like—than Farrier would have known him to be—but things change. His bangs are a little longer, and he doesn't waste the Brylcreem sweeping them back anymore. But he still keeps his face clean.
Close enough to the way Farrier would have last seen him. Familiar enough to be real. It feels right to meet like this.
It doesn't surprise him that Farrier is in civvies, but he's still managed to keep his Irvin all these years, worn and scuffed from abuse. He’s thinned out some, and his hair is a little longer than it had been back then, chin dusted with a light scruff. It suits him.
"And are you showing off there, Squadron Leader?" Farrier says light-heartedly, nodding to the stripes adorning Collins' sleeve.
He hadn't even thought about it. He outranks Farrier, now. An advantage of being a free man, though it wouldn't exactly be fair to compare the last half-decade of their lives for the good and bad of it.
"If it makes you feel better," Collins says, "I only got the position after our last man went down in Malta."
It's not a joke. He doesn't laugh like it is one.
He can see the carved lines of Farrier's face as he solemnly contemplates that. Perhaps the years are as evident on his own face, too. They must be—Collins can feel them in his bones.
He looks away with a heavy sigh, weighed by all he's lived through.
It almost hurts to look at Farrier now. All that time gone, all those feelings that have come bubbling to the surface. What are they supposed to do now? What are they supposed to be?
Collins had said many things in those letters he sent. He knows what he wants. But now that they're actually here, he's lost, drifting.
It feels so easy to talk to him again—as if no time has passed—and yet simultaneously it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done.
"Finish the song, then," Farrier says suddenly, breaking the silence. Like he wants to hear his voice.
He's accompanied by a pleasant sea breeze as he moves around to sit next Collins on the bench, leaning forward on his knees. He looks out over the water, a slight upturn of his lips, eyes shining with satisfaction and longing.
Collins could stare forever, lost in the dream, but then Farrier looks at him expectantly, and he still can't quite believe he's here. They’re here, together.
He smiles slightly, squinting into the sun as it peeks through the clouds. Wind tugs at his hair.
"Farewell my dear mother, likewise father too, I'm bound for to ramble this country all through,"
Beside him Farrier radiates heat, so close his steady breathing is audible. He's humming along.
"And when I get tired, I'll sit down and cry,"
It’s hard, suddenly. He feels stuffed, pressure pressing behind his eyes, throat thick with tar. His voice shudders.
"And think on pretty Saro, with tears in my eyes."
"Collins…"
He’s on his feet quickly, swallowing down the lump in his throat. He keeps his back to Farrier, utterly shaken by his voice calling his name, soft and concerned. Shivering in the wind that’s turned cold, wincing into blinding sunlight. He grinds the stump of his cigarette out under his heel.
"You went and left me behind after all," he says, choked and raw. There’s a twinge of anger hiding underneath.
So much has happened. The world isn’t the same. Neither is he.
A hand finds his own, hanging limp at his side, and he jumps, itching to crawl out of his own skin. It’s Farrier’s, warm and strong and sorely missed, and yet it doesn’t feel real.
Collins has developed a nervous twitch somewhere along the way—probably sometime during that hellish summer back in ‘40. But Farrier holds tight, squeezes warmly until the skin whitens and the tremors stop. Until it hurts.
"I did. But I came back. I’m not going anywhere.”
"Here until the end, aye? You’ve made that promise before." Collins doesn’t mean to bite, but it’s out before he can stop it.
He’s not sure if it’s anger or fear or just that deep-seeded ache that he’s grown so accustomed to over the years, culminating in the sight of Farrier’s Spitfire disappearing that day over Dunkirk, forever lodged in his memory.
"The war’s over," Farrier says. He tugs gently, until Collins is forced to face him, letting out a stubborn sigh. "I made that mistake once already. I won’t do it again."
If there’s one thing Collins knows, it’s that Farrier would never consider what he did that day to be a mistake. He saved lives, he did his duty. He takes no greater pride.
But then he’s up, pulling Collins into him. Just like that everything melts away, that painful past finally slipping from his shoulders, and Collins all but slumps into the embrace. He’s at a loss for words.
"I’m sorry I left you," Farrier says earnestly—more vulnerable than Collins has ever heard him.
This is real, he has to keep reminding himself. Maybe Farrier is doing the same. This is his regret.
They’ve never held each other like this before. There’s much they’ve never allowed themselves to do before. To be. Perhaps now they can try.
In his ear, Farrier sighs, and he’s humming that song again as his arms tighten. He’s so warm, his heartbeat strong and steady, and something about the sheer tenderness of this makes Collins laugh under his breath.
Farrier is smiling too; he can feel it against his shoulder.
"I almost forgot what it felt like to be home."