Chapter Text
Make
“Hand me the boot polish,” Sledge grumbles from across the foxhole, eyes red from dust and no sleep, the once delicate skin of his palm rough and blistered a thousand times over. He’s in the process of digging himself uncomfortably deep under Merriell’s skin, bright and determined and sharp as he is. Merriell doesn’t want to like him.
Merriell almost never gets what he wants.
“Make me,” he bites before he can even think about it. He doesn’t hear the usual malice in the words, but Eugene doesn’t know any better.
“Quiet down,” Eugene whispers as he nibbles a burning path down Merriell’s throat. The beach on Pavuvu is blessedly abandoned at this time in the evening; between the rush of the waves and the wind in the palm trees and the feeling of Eugene against him, warm and safe, Merriell could swear he’s in heaven.
“Make me,” he breathes.
Eugene does.
“Stay with me,” Eugene says on a train between Texas and Louisiana. The train stop outside is awash with white light and people talking in a familiar accent, cajun French hitting the deepest parts of Merriell’s soul. His free hand twitches by his side.
There’s orange hair in white light and forest green eyes and a cool, slender hand in his. The words have always been there, buried deep under his skin ever since he met a clueless boot with his helmet all crooked. Merriell is from here; he also knows he belongs wherever Eugene is. This is one thing Eugene won’t have to make him do.