Work Text:
[Summer 1913, outside Sofia]
More than hunger gaunted Constantin's face as he stood in the road beside a seated Dragomir. Their men sat or rushed about, all the fight gone out of them across the board, the Bulgarians cowed by the appearance of yet more enemies and the Romanians writhing with sick. Constantin licked his dry lips with a tongue that felt like stone. "Dragos, it is not the end of the world."
"But it does fucking blow," he wiped sweat off his face with a dirty palm, leaving thin trails of fresh mud behind. "How pathetic is this? Your guys can't even get out of the shit trench and I'm the one giving up. Fuck."
Constantin shivered in the shade of the trees lining the road. He had come with his men because he could not let them catch Dragomir alone, could not let him be put through this without someone by his side to lessen the blow. Surely Dragos knew that. "You were going to lose anyway, we were only speeding things up," he turned away to watch the Red Cross workers file between cots in the field. He didn't want to see the expression on Dragomir's face, he could already feel it eating through the back of his head, and that was enough.
He must know that Constantin did not mean it personally. He must know.
"You should sit, you know, instead of speaking down to me."
"If I sit I won't get back up," he admitted with a sigh. Constantin kept his arms behind his back so that his posture would not flag, so that he could stay standing and so that he would keep his eyes open.
A hand wrapped around the back of Constantin's knee just above the boot. Tenderness lived within the thumb stroking the softness there, and he felt suddenly sick enough to go hot, then cold. It should not be him who was comforted right now. He grit his teeth through the roil in his gut and turned his face down to take in the disappointment in his friend's expression. "When did you last eat?"
"Yesterday," he ground through bared fangs.
"On one of them, didn't you," Dragomir winced, then pinched the soft flesh under his thumb hard enough to bring Constantin down on his ass with a yelp. "But I'm not sick, only your men."
Constantin shoved him, righting himself so that he could at least sit with dignity. Nothing like the defeated slouch Dragomir embodied. He closed his eyes through another wave of discomfort. No, not defeated. Dragomir knew when his men were done fighting and settled in to reserve his strength, Constantin knew that. He pushed away the wrist that pressed against his mouth while he wasn't looking. "I can't take that from you, I'll get you sick."
"You need to eat from someone who is well eventually, don't die over something like this," he gusted an exhale and leaned into Constantin's side. This, he could allow. Constantin rested his head on the other man's dark hair and let his hand be pulled into Dragomir's lap, cradled between two warm, rough palms.