Chapter Text
Private had turned his head to face him, but trailed off when he saw the Captain was staring straight back at him. He knew it was wrong, but he couldn’t help getting lost in the depths of the Captain’s eyes. They both felt the air between them becoming thinner and they listened to each other’s breaths. Without warning, the Captain felt something take over him; he took Private’s face gently in his hands and pulled him into a kiss.
And Private kissed back, much to the Captain's surprise. Somehow the kiss was saying more than words or a hug ever could. It was them telling the other how they truly felt. The Captain and his Private.
**
[Two Weeks Later]
For two high strung soldiers hardened by war, you might have thought they would be more subtle. Shared glances across the room and sneaking off would be pretty obvious to someone who knew their stuff; which meant everyone apart from Stef and Alison were oblivious.
Well, mostly Stef, because she knew Private like the back of her hand and didn’t find it hard to notice a difference in behaviour. She hadn’t said anything to him or the Captain about it, she figured they were best left to it. What she hadn’t expected was that the Captain owning up to touching the rifle would lead to this. Thinking back to all the time they had spent together doing their morning drills and talking about army stuff, in hindsight it was inevitable.
From personal experience she’d rather not go into, Stef knew it was wrong to out someone without their permission, but she figured that since neither Private nor the Captain had explicitly told her, she justified it as ‘just rumours’ when mentioning off-handedly to Alison one evening. Alison had said in passing that she was bisexual herself, so Stef felt she was the best person to confide in. That and the fact that she was the closest Stef had gotten to any of the other inhabitants of the house.
“You really think so?” Alison replied.
“Alison, I know Private almost as well as he knows himself.” Stef smirked as she sat on the end of Alison’s bed as she folded sheets, “He’s bound to mention it sooner or later, or blurt it out accidentally.”
Alison chuckled and dropped the corner of a bedsheet, “Just don’t get ahead of yourself, eh? What if Private’s just got a new best friend? What if you’re just jealous?”
“I beg your pardon?!” Stef laughed out, “I may be a teenager for the rest of eternity but that doesn’t mean you get to talk to me like that. I’m probably old enough to be your mum!”
“Shut up My Chemical Romance!” Alison teased back.
“Who?”
Alison smiled wide in amusement and realisation, “Oh, you’re kidding me!”
**
“What about this one?”
“A particularly painful splinter from my bed one morning.”
“And that one there?”
“Oh, that one is irrelevant.”
“No scar is irrelevant, they all have their own little story.”
The Captain and Private were sitting on a bench hidden behind a bush in the garden. The Captain had taken Private’s hand and was closely examining some little scars that decorated his skin and travelled under his sleeve.
Private took this opportunity to appreciate how handsome the Captain looked when he was concentrating. He watched the way his eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly and how the skin beside his eyes crinkled when he even gave a hint of a smile.
The Captain continued to intently trace his fingers softly over a larger scar that trailed under his sleeve, as if awaiting an answer.
“If you must know,” Private sighed and gave in, “A bayonet.”
The Captain turned to look him in the eye inquisitively.
“My own… bayonet.” Private looked away, half in embarrassment and half to hide a smirk.
“You fool, how did you manage that?” The Captain chuckled and laced his fingers into Private’s.
“I was attempting to clean it, and I slipped.” Private stifled a snigger, “Straight into the skin.”
“Ouch.” The Captain’s moustache wiggled as he smiled.
Private let his eyes wander over the Captain’s features, “What about you then?”
“Sorry?”
“What about your scars?” Private repeated himself, “You must have a few.”
The Captain groaned as he reached down to pull up a trouser leg. Private winced a little at the crack of his back.
“Bullet.” The Captain pointed to a pale patch of skin on the back of his calf, “Couldn’t walk for a week. I’m pretty sure there are still bits of it in there, well, were there when I died.”
The Captain sat back up and shook the trouser back down.
“I can still remember what it was like to be shot.” Private mused as the Captain thread his arm under his companion’s.
“I’d rather not.” The Captain replied.
They both looked out peacefully into the garden, complete in comfortable silence, bar the tweeting of the evening birds.
**
Lady Fanny grimaced as she stepped around a large, particularly musty smelling box to the bottom of the stairs. Halfway up, Julian was half perched on a window sill, watching expectantly out of the window and occasionally glancing at his watch (which was pointless, given the hands didn’t move). Fanny stopped by the window and joined Julian in looking out, trying her best to follow his eyeline.
“What are we waiting for?” Fanny squinted over the grounds.
“Pest control.” Julian didn’t take his eyes off the distant road at the end of the very long drive, “If they have received my email, which I am undoubtedly sure they have, They should be doing a recce to scope out if the claim is genuine.”
Fanny frowned, “Recce?”
Julian smirked in his own genius, “They will come to the end of the drive, pretend they got lost and do a quick survey while they try to turn around. I had a lot of trouble chucking stuff from the Brampton’s back in the day, they used the same technique every time I hired, uh, informed them.”
“I see.” Fanny pursed her lips and left him to it.