Work Text:
November, 1915
…I anticipate that the winter will furnish us with no surprises, unless we find an exciting new variant of trench foot, or Pvt. Latimer manages to succeed in training the rats to do tricks. (Capt. H. has resumed his search for a cat.) In any case, there are few things I wouldn’t give for some home leave and some more of Mrs. P’s biscuits—but I am well aware that our company’s current billets aren’t nearly as bad as so many others, which makes me consider the amount of men on the front lines who are probably sketching arcane symbols into the mud in an attempt to bribe the Devil himself.
We’ll be here for the foreseeable future, which, if I have foreseen correctly, means that any letters will bounce back and forth with a little more regularity than they do at any other time of the year. With the year drawing to a close, I hope you can pass my Christmas greetings to the rest of the staff, specifically Daisy and Mrs. P. (Do not tell them this is a transparent Christmas wish for more biscuits.) And of course, my greetings to yourself are: if the mistletoe must go up, do your best to arrange some truly obnoxious couples under there. And do stay warm, if only to make me envious.
I remain—
“Lance-Corporal Barrow, the French chap’s here again,” the aforementioned Private Latimer chirped, popping up right next to where Thomas was finishing a letter, “Our messenger from the French lines. The one you like?”
Latimer was a tall young man, earnest and barely twenty, with huge dark eyes like a doe’s. Thomas was a little surprised he had enlisted as early as he did, because he seemed like the sort of scholarly type who would prefer to pass the time with a volume of Marcus Aurelius rather than handle a gun. For some reason, he thought Thomas Barrow was uproariously funny, especially when the jabs were at his own expense. Thomas had yet to figure out why, but it did mean that he tolerated Latimer’s dreamy manner a bit better than several others of their unit.
“I imagine you mean Caporal D’Alais,” Thomas said dryly, finishing off his letter to O’Brien with a flourishing signature and waving the paper to dry the ink a bit.
“It’s Sergent now,” came a voice in sweetly accented English from behind Latimer, “You will have to catch up, Lance-Corporal Barrow.”
It was probably unseemly how quickly Thomas stood up, smiling as he took in the freshly promoted Sergent Ricard D’Alais. The soft grey-blue of the French uniform always brought out his eyes, a fact that Thomas tried not to think about.
“Suppose I shall,” Thomas quipped, “You look well, Sergent D’Alais.”
“As do you, Lance-Corporal Barrow,” Ricard grinned, his blue eyes bright, “Would you walk with me for a few minutes? I would appreciate a discussion.”
“Of course,” Thomas agreed immediately, despite the chill settling in outside of their barracks. His walks with his French counterpart had been remarked upon at first, but it became relatively accepted that when Caporal-now-Sergent D’Alais showed up, he would first deliver whatever information had to be hand-couriered to Thomas’ commander, and then go for a smoke with Lance-Corporal Barrow.
“How are things behind the French lines?” Thomas asked quietly, once they were a relatively safe distance from any prying ears.
“Comme ci, comme ça,” Ricard answered immediately, sounding bone-tired. “But I delivered Captain Fournier’s news, your Captain Henderson swore something awful when he read Fournier’s missive, he went directly to your Major Willoughby, and now I’m here with you and I don’t wish to talk about the war, Thomas. ”
“Unfortunately, Richard , the conversation topics outside of the war are a little thin on the ground,” Thomas replied, raising a brow at Ricard. If Ricard would pronounce his name the French way, without the hard s at the end, then Thomas would pronounce Ricard the English way with a ch instead of the hard c.
Ricard only gave him a secretive smile in return, and opened his overcoat to pull out a small paper package wrapped in twine.
“Ah, but I came prepared,” he teased, “You cannot have forgotten that December is only days away.”
“Ricard, that does mean that Christmas is closer to a month away,” Thomas reminded him, though not without a lingering glance at the gift in Ricard’s hands. “You’re very early.”
“I never know if they’ll send me to Henderson to run messages, or to someone else, or when the next time I will see you is, and I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten about you,” Ricard explained, a rosy flush creeping into his cheeks. He looked painfully earnest as he pressed the tiny package into Thomas’ hands.
“You are my cher ami, Thomas, and I wanted to make sure you got a gift for Noël,” he added, and didn’t that make Thomas feel a bit like a cad? Europeans and Frenchmen were truly a different breed. The emotion Ricard was comfortable revealing was almost too much, but it felt unkind to leave Ricard unaware of Thomas’ own regard for him.
“Then I will simply thank you, Richard,” Thomas said, shamed into sincerity by the color in Ricard’s cheeks. The color remained, and Thomas internally sighed. He hoped, sometimes, that Ricard felt something deeper, but if his cheeks were still flushed pink it was more likely due to the November cold than due to Thomas himself.
“Well, will you not open it?” Ricard asked eagerly.
“I thought we established Christmas was over a month away?” Thomas replied, and was rewarded by another sunshine-grin from Ricard.
“And I thought we established that I don’t know when I’ll see you again, and so you ought to open it now, so that I don’t miss your reaction to your Christmas gift?” Ricard parried easily, and stepped closer to Thomas.
“S’il te plait, Thomas,” he said a little more quietly, and it occurred to Thomas that they were very alone: in the shadow of a building on a bitterly cold afternoon that was quickly turning to evening. No one else would be out, and very few would remark upon two men tucked away out of the wind.
Thomas tugged off his gloves, wincing at the cold before he untied the twine carefully. The wrapping revealed a small tin printed with a child enjoying what looked like some chocolate. It looked on the older side, though, and upon opening it Thomas was hit with the strong scent of lavender.
“My mother and my sister still work at Montmirail, as you know,” Ricard explained as Thomas gingerly pulled back the snow-white fabric that the gift was packed in. It had a bit of broderie edging, and in the back of his mind he worried that the omnipresent grit and blood of the trenches would stain the fabric irreparably. Ricard went on.
“But I didn’t tell you the eldest daughter, Mademoiselle Élisa, likes to use the old still-room for her hobbies. Last year, she had soap made from all the lavender she grew and gathered. Adéle asked her if she could spare some for me this winter, and Mademoiselle gave her an awful lot, so please don’t worry I’m going without.”
“I could assume this is a kind way to tell me that I smell, but Richard, I would have to ask: does anyone here in the trenches smell better?”
“Why you always insist on taking the worst possible interpretation of my words, Thomas, I will never comprehend,” Ricard huffed, looking a little cross, and Thomas leaned a little closer to him in apology. Ricard immediately pressed a bit closer, a fact that was emphasized when the wind blew a bit colder.
“It truly smells wonderful, Richard,” Thomas said, a bit more quiet and a little more sincere. Richard’s gloved hand nudged at the snowy fabric, prompting Thomas to unfold it more. Two small jars sat cushioned in the fabric, with fine penmanship on the labels reading Miel and Confiture de Figue.
“Honey, from Thoronet's hives, and fig jam from my mother,” Ricard explained, fidgeting slightly. “You said you had a sweet tooth…”
“Richard,” Thomas began, and paused. He looked up from the small package to find Ricard staring at him with those uniform-blue, horizon-blue eyes. Ricard looked as though he was attempting to be stoic, but there was something in the shape of his mouth and the way he held himself that spoke of nerves.
“Ricard,” Thomas tried again, trying to gentle his tone in the way the housemaids back at Downton would speak to the farm cat’s kittens and making concerted effort to use Ricard’s proper name, “Is there something else you need to tell me? Are they sending you somewhere? You look like I’m about to sentence you to the firing squad myself.”
“I…” Ricard bit his lip and Thomas tried not to stare, “I just… hope you like the gift.”
“Ricard, this is assuredly the best gift I will receive this year,” Thomas said quietly, “Thank you. I love it. And I am sure the honey and the jam are delicious. The soap will probably be gone far too soon for my comfort.”
“Bon,” Ricard said, relief coloring his tone. “Well. The thing is, Thomas, I have heard murmurings of where all of us will be sent. And I suppose I was wondering if I could perhaps write to you, if I’m no longer going to be, ah, stopping here?”
Thomas looked back up at Ricard from where he was arranging the fabric back over the jam and the soap.
“Of course you can write to me, Ricard,” he said, frowning. “Where are they thinking of sending you?”
“Even further from home,” Ricard said with a tremulous smile, “Verdun. It’s about two hundred kilometers east of Paris. I have, hm, how do you say it in English? I feel bad about it? I have a bad feeling, I think, is how you say it.”
Thomas took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. He tucked the precious lavender-scented box inside his coat and pulled out his carton of cigarettes, offering one to Ricard, who took it in silence.
“If only I was one of your jeune filles,” Thomas said quietly, “I’d kiss you for good luck. That’s what all the girls back home were doing.”
Daisy had been cross with him when he left and only watched him go warily, but Anna pressed a small kiss to Thomas’ cheek before he left the Abbey’s grounds.
“I hope you’re safe out there, Thomas,” she had said quietly. He still received letters from her on occasion, and even Daisy had softened enough to add missives to Anna’s letters or O’Brien’s on occasion.
Ricard was silent, and Thomas turned to him only to find him pale as a sheet.
“Good God, Richard, I didn’t mean to—”
“J'aimerais ça,” Ricard said, and took a drag on his cigarette while Thomas tried to tried to process the French.
Je meaning I, aimerais was some conjugation of to love? And of course ça could be found in comme ci comme ça, which meant a little of this, a little of that, but in this context...
I’d like that.
“I imagine I’m a fair bit less soft than a young girl, Richard,” Thomas said, tipping his head back against the stone wall of the building they were tucked behind and closing his eyes against the thought of Ricard kissing him. “Though I suppose the soap might help wi—”
Ricard’s lips were softer than he expected, and only pressed against Thomas’ own for a moment. He had raised himself up on his tiptoes to kiss Thomas, and his cheeks were as red as apples when he pulled back. The pupils of his blue eyes were larger now, and he swallowed hard before he spoke.
“Is that a kiss for luck?” he asked, his English scrupulously careful, “Or did I steal it, and now it does not count?”
A thousand little things, hairpins, settled into place. So he hadn’t been reading Ricard wrong all this time, then. Nor had his mind conjured the kiss out of longing itself.
Thomas stubbed his cigarette out on the side of the building and tucked it on the ledge of a boarded-up window. It wouldn't do to waste a cigarette, even if his heart was pounding at the thought of Ricard wanting the same things he did. He stepped close enough to erase most of the distance between himself and Ricard, sliding his hand to the small of Ricard’s back and tugging him chest to chest. At such a close distance, it was apparent that Ricard was just a bit shorter than Thomas himself.
Ricard slid one hand up to Thomas’ shoulder, taking a shaky breath.
“You stole it, but I suppose I could steal my kiss back, and then kiss you for luck properly,” Thomas said quietly, pressing his forehead against that of his friend’s. He reached up with his other hand to rub a lock of golden-brown hair that had come loose in the wind.
“So will you kiss me twice?” Ricard murmured, letting his eyes flutter closed.
“O trespass sweetly urged,” Thomas’ voice was more sigh than anything else, “Give me that sin again.”
He brought their lips together, smiling against Ricard’s mouth as he felt the other soldier relax against him. Ricard’s other hand cautiously settled itself at the back of Thomas’ neck, the leather of his glove cool against his nape. Thomas pulled back and his smile widened as Ricard followed, trying to chase his lips.
“One,” he whispered, and leaned in to kiss him again. Ricard’s hands tightened on Thomas’ shoulder and his nape, and this time they only broke when a noise from further afield startled them apart. No one was present, though, and they remained holding each other.
“And two,” he finished.
“You can’t kiss me a third time?” Ricard asked, a smile pulling at his mouth as he looked at Thomas. Any other day, Thomas would say he was going for sly, but this time he simply looked relieved.
And happy.
Very, very happy.
“We ought to go back,” Thomas said reluctantly, but he didn’t stop cupping Ricard’s cheek.
“You are smiling so wide,” Ricard said softly, his fair skin practically glowing, “Thomas, je suis si heureux.”
Heureaux. Happy. Thomas, I am so happy.
“Richard,” Thomas replied just as quiet, “I… Richard, je suis heureux avec vous. ”
“I will start fixing your French by saying it is avec toi, not avec vous,” Ricard corrected, looking fond, “I don’t want to be formal with you. Perhaps you can try to write to me in French, and I will write back in English, and our letters will be good practice.”
“My French is abysmal,” Thomas scoffed, “You know that better than most.”
“Perhaps… it will be better if you have me, Thomas,” Ricard said, sounding almost shy.
“I think an awful lot will be better if I have you, Richard,” Thomas said before he could think better of it.
He was rewarded by a bark of joyful laughter from Ricard. For one brief, beautiful instant Ricard pressed his lips to Thomas’ again, and then he slowly disengaged himself from their embrace.
“I think you were right that we need to get back,” Ricard said with that tiny, joyous smile, “They will wonder where we are. But Thomas…”
“Yes, Richard?”
“Promise me you’ll write?” Ricard asked shyly.
“Of course I will,” Thomas said firmly, “I’ve got to figure out how to get what will surely be a very belated Christmas gift to you, after all.”
“I hear English wool is very good quality,” Ricard said in an over-the-top hinting tone, and Thomas’ laughter echoed all the way back to the barracks.