Chapter Text
When he was sent to Button House, he hadn't expected to fall in love. He hadn't expected much of anything. The house was old and rickety and it felt like some sort of punishment to be deployed there instead of on the front lines. The men were nice enough, but shallow and always bursting with some need for entertainment, for drinking games and women from the village and loud shouting matches in the early hours of the morning.
Havers had always been perfectly content to sit and watch, to interact if necessary, but only if he really needed to. He kept on good terms with the other soldiers, but he always felt different. He supposed it was his own higher position that set him apart. There was only one person in the house who truly interested him; whose silver hair and sharp eyes swam through his head at all hours of the day.
The decision was easy, in the end. When he saw the Captain leaving the house in the pouring rain, he followed, not stopping to grab his coat, ignoring the questioning looks from the other soldiers. It was easy to track him into the clearing in the woods, and so, so easy to take those three steps towards him, to kiss him as the water washed them clean.
What came next was more difficult. It was dark nights and hearts beating the same tune and a constant looming fear of discovery. It was early morning sunlight and creeping back to his own room and hands touching slightly too long over cups of coffee. It was heavy looks and private meetings and secret smiles meant only for each other. They both know they were running out of time; a candle raging hot and low, fated to burn itself out.
Then, the fear got worse. It deepened and broadened as the icy realisation hit him that he was in love. It was something he had never truly expected he would feel, and it shattered him so completely that he thought he would never put himself back together. He began seeing every possible danger to Captain in acute detail, and it terrified him.
It was then that he realised that he couldn't continue. If they went on any longer, he knew that Captain, too, would fall in love, and when they were inevitably caught or they fell apart, it would break him even more than it would break Havers. He could just about manage his emotions, but Captain had always struggled more, and the thought of the man he loved getting hurt tore his heart clean in two.
He knew then that he had to leave before things got to that point. He knew it would destroy him, but he could do it. He would do it for the Captain. He knew, too, that his leaving would break the Captain's heart, but to keep him safe, he had to. He had no choice. It would be cruel of him to continue with a relationship that could get them both sent to jail, or blacklisted from society forever.
At least, that was what he told himself. Even still, he couldn't stop the tears that rolled down his cheeks as he lay in bed after receiving confirmation of his transfer. For those few moments, he allowed himself to feel all of the emotions he'd been pushing down for his own good, and he broke apart. Captain rolled over beside him, sleepily curling an arm around his shoulders. It hurt so deeply that within days, there would be nobody there to comfort him, to hold him. He would be alone again.
"I'm afraid I'm leaving you, sir."
The pain in the Captain's eyes almost knocked him to the ground. He wanted to run to him, to hold him and promise that everything would be alright, but the walls had ears in this place. Instead, he tried to push the emotion into his eyes, to say all of the words that he so desperately wanted to say and yet got clogged in his throat like wet paper. That one look said a million things:
I'm sorry.
I wanted to stay.
I hope you'll be happy again some day.
I'll never forget you.
I love you.
They kissed goodbye by candlelight. It was desperate and painful and his broken heart fractured a little more as he caught Captain's eye one last time, as he whispered so softly that it was barely a puff of breath, "Thank you." Before the Captain could ask what he meant, he had already left the room.
It was dark and he was waving goodbye and he was walking past the gate, trying to ignore the sheen of tears in his eyes and the look of pure agony on Captain's face. That expression would always haunt him, a constant reminder of what could have been. He looked over his shoulder until the house faded from view, leaving his heart behind with it.
It was raining as he waited to board the boat. This wasn't the beautiful rain that had flowed around him as he first kissed the Captain, but rather a rain that was jaded and broken and which hit him like a million tiny bullets. He deserved it. He tilted back his head, the water pouring down his face until he could no longer tell if the dampness was from the rain or his tears.
The barracks were cold. His service revolver was heavy at his side, a firm weight that reminded him of what he had lost. He still carried the Captain's picture with him, always over his heart. If he closed his eyes tightly enough as he lay in bed at night, he could imagine that it was the Captain at his side, not the firm wall of the sleeping quarters, and that it was the rumble of distant thunder that kept him awake, not the crackle of gunfire and far-off explosions.
We danced a merry dance, didn't we; I the endless optimist and you the wary, the hurt, the realist. The world was dull in your eyes where it shone ever brighter in mine. I wonder, do you still think of me? Do you see me around every bend, behind you in every mirror, the way I see you? Do you still feel my lips on yours, sense me beside you when there's nobody there, open your eyes in the morning expecting to see me beside you? I do. I hope you don't hate me. I hope you'll be happy one day, even if I never can be. I'm sorry.
It was early in the morning when he got the orders to go over the top. He was running and jumping over barbed wire and the dirt was spraying around him and gunfire whipped past his head and then there was a burst of light and he was thrown backwards and he was back at Button House, wasn't that strange? He saw the Captain, head bent, and the air was grey around him. He tried to call out, to tell him that it was alright, that he was back, but he couldn't speak. He couldn't stop the tears rolling down the Captain's face as he opened a letter, couldn't comfort him as he collapsed to the floor in his study and sobbed.
It was the sound of a broken heart, of someone tearing apart at the seams. Havers sat there next to him, and even though he knew that there was nothing he could do, he still prayed to whatever God was out there that the Captain would know that he was there, that he wasn't alone. He knew then, in that moment, that he wasn't going to return home. He knew, and the Captain knew, and ice cold regret flooded him like a river breaking its banks. He was drowning and he couldn't breathe and he was gasping for air, grasping at the void, and then he was back on that battlefield, and he wasn't alive but he wasn't truly dead, either.
What was the point in being here, staying here like this, when he would never again feel love, never again see the face of the man who had half of his soul? He was a million miles away and he could never go home, and as he lay in the dirt under a rain of fire, he put one hand over his no-longer beating heart and imagined that he could feel the steady rhythm that he and the Captain had once shared.
As he closed his eyes there, he saw every moment he had missed, every moment he remembered so dearly, and he murmured a message that he knew would never reach the Captain. He imagined that by some divine intervention he could reach across the world and place that message in the heart of his love.
My life was worth living, because in my life I had you.