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The low hum of the refrigerator is the only noise Babe can hear in the house, shoddy generator in the other room not reaching the kitchen with its noise or its heat. His ass is getting numb from the hard tile floor, but it's nothing he hasn't experienced before. It, like the shiver that comes from sitting on a cold surface in the middle of winter, is familiar in a way that is sometimes easier to handle than the soft bed he shares with Eugene or the heat of their bare skin touching, no need for layers upon layers of clothing in a house in Philadelphia instead of a foxhole in Bastogne.
He releases a long, slow breath and closes his eyes, head tipping back against the cupboard that holds their mixing bowls. He has to resist the urge to wrench them back open again, keeping watch over a house that doesn't need it, not like that. There are no Germans here, hiding amongst splintered trees and crumbling buildings. There's just the silhouettes of the chairs around their rickety little kitchen table, shadows dancing unnaturally and transforming into impossible images. There's no gunshots or whistling of mortars, just that refrigerator humming and Babe's own breathing in the stillness.
"Edward?" someone calls, voice muffled by walls and carpets and doors. He sighs, linking his fingers together behind his head, bending until his forehead touches his knees.
"In the kitchen," he calls nonetheless. Eugene's footsteps are near-silent, never taking up more attention than necessary, but Babe's skin prickles with awareness as he rounds the corner, no doubt standing in the doorway to survey the scene, conducting triage.
He wasn't sure if he would wake up. Babe is the lighter sleeper of the two now, wandering the halls of their house at all hours, unable to shake the phantom feeling of his rifle in his hands, the niggling feeling that something will go terribly, horribly wrong if he doesn't keep watch.
It's so fucking stupid. Oversees, it was easy to fall asleep when he was allowed to, passing out on the floor of a crumbling house or sitting upright in a foxhole. Here, he chases it futilely for hours every night.
He feels Eugene sit down next to him, close like they're back in that godforsaken forest, huddled together out of a naive hope to stay alive another night rather than freeze to death. Their shoulders are pressed together, and although Eugene is wearing long sleeves, Babe can feel his body heat against his bare shoulder. A shiver tremors through him.
"Edward," Eugene repeats, pressing closer. "Are you cold?"
It's laughable, really. He knows that he is, but he can't bring himself to say it, not when he knows how much worse it could be. Not when he's in a comfortable house instead of an icy wasteland. Not when he knows what it feels like to have fingers that won't work due to the cold, unable to feel anything not covered by multiple layers, feeling frozen through in a way he thought he would never be able to undo.
"Yeah," he forces out eventually. "A little."
He finally lifts his head, blinking out at the shadows ahead of him instead of turning to the dark, shapeless form of Eugene by his side. He feels like they haven't seen each other in years, even though they share the same kitchen, the same bathroom, the same bed. Eugene works early every day at a construction site and comes home exhausted, dark circles under his eyes better than they were in the war, but not by much. Babe spends his days listlessly circling job postings in the newspaper and trying to figure out what to do with himself. Somehow, they keep missing each other, meals taken at asynchronous times and drifting off to sleep without touching.
Babe misses him so bad he aches with it, even with him next to him now.
"What's wrong?" Eugene asks. Babe swallows.
They're done. They're here. Babe made it back home unscathed, and he knows that he's less alone than most of the other guys. He has Eugene, who left his family in Louisiana to come with him to Pennsylvania instead. He has Bill, who is in this same city and alive and who understands most of it, who also watched people die and even got his fucking leg blown off. He has letters in the drawer of his bedside table that he still needs to reply to from the guys. He has his family a few blocks away, close enough for his mother to invite him to dinner and press the leftovers into his hands because she's worried that he's not eating enough, still not back at his proper weight even though he was never starving, not like the prisoners that they saw in Landsberg.
So why can't he fucking handle it? Why isn't it easy? How is he supposed to explain that sitting here with cold from the uncomfortable tile seeping through his sleep pants to turn his ass numb, goosebumps decorating his arms from the chill, is the most comfortable he has felt since coming home? How is he supposed to describe how sometimes, even though he hates himself for it and doesn't understand it and wants to throw up at the thought, he wishes he was back in that forest?
Eugene sighs, something soft that he doesn't mean for Babe to hear. It makes his guts twist painfully in his stomach.
Eugene shouldn't have to take care of him still, not when that's all he did during the war. Babe did his best to reciprocate, but he was better at it, over there. He knew what Eugene needed: food, water, rest, someone to crack a joke so he smiles, someone who treated him like another one of the guys rather than the company medic. Here, he doesn't know what he needs.
He still calls Babe Edward most of the time, like they still need that distance. Like he's still expecting someone to leave.
"Can you--" he starts, throat dry. He clears it clumsily, too loud. He tenses, expecting someone to chastise him about sound restrictions, but there's no one else here. It's just them.
"Can I what?" Eugene asks in his slow drawl. Babe wants to wear his accent like a blanket.
"Can you stay?"
Eugene doesn't freeze, but he doesn't move, either, still blending into the stillness of the night.
"Of course," he says eventually. "I'm not going anywhere, Edward."
Babe's exhale shakes on the way out, chest constricting.
"Are you sure?" he asks. He finally turns his head towards him, just enough to see the small furrow between Eugene's eyebrows, that same lost expression that he saw so often in the woods. Babe fucking hates that look.
"Why wouldn't I be?" Eugene asks eventually.
Babe returns his gaze forward, resting his chin on his knees. He tries to sort through his thoughts, keeping his mouth firmly shut in case he starts babbling nonsense instead, needing to figure out how best to tell Eugene that his sadness is palpable, that Babe doesn't fucking know what he needs, that Babe will give him anything but Eugene needs to ask, and even then there's no guarantee that Babe will actually be able to. Overseas, Babe was enough, because it was temporary. It was supposed to be easier when they got home. Eugene wasn't supposed to be slipping away from him. His grief wasn't supposed to be a thick, cloying thing that Babe's hands can't reach through.
Sometimes Babe wishes that he had gone to Louisiana, rather than Gene coming here. That way, if something goes wrong, Babe will be the one leaving, not the one being left. So many people have slipped through his hands, and if Eugene becomes one of them…
"You're pulling away, Gene," he says eventually, voice small. It sounds defeated, like he fought his way across Europe only to surrender here in Philly. "You don't---I want to help you, but you never ask for anything. I don't know what you need."
Eugene inhales. It’s not a gasp, not even close, but it’s something pained nonetheless.
“I don’t need anything,” he says. Babe is already shaking his head before he finishes the sentence.
“Bullshit,” he says. “That’s bullshit , Gene.”
The refrigerator hums, deafening in the quiet.
Eugene has never been one for words, but Babe used to be able to coax them out of him, back in the woods and then beyond, through Germany and Austria. He wonders sometimes if Gene left his voice back there, in the sunny days of Zell am See where Babe first heard Gene let out a loud, genuine laugh.
“You never talk to me anymore,” Babe says eventually, whispering like they’re worried about being caught. There were so many instances overseas where they would have both been given a blue discharge if someone had walked in on the wrong time, hands on the wrong side of familiar and words too saturated in affection. There were a million stolen moments that they shared that could’ve been the end, a million bullets that never managed to hit them.
Now that they’re safe, shouldn’t things be better? Is Babe only worthwhile with a gun in his hands?
“I just wish…” he starts, not knowing how the sentence ends.
“Babe,” Eugene murmurs, shifting to face him. One hand wraps around Babe’s bicep, as cold as fresh white snow. Babe’s face tips toward him, like orbiting Gene is hardwired into him as much as shooting a rifle.
“What am I supposed to do?” Babe asks, voice breaking. “Just tell me what you need me to do. I’ll do it. Godamnit, Gene, I promise I will.”
“Come here,” Eugene says, tugging him forward until Babe’s face meets the spot where Eugene’s shoulder meets his neck, the collar of his shirt frayed and stretched out.
It’s the easiest order Babe has ever had to follow. He reaches for Eugene and finds him there, only a breath away. His hands flutter by Eugene’s waist, circling around to his back. Eugene pulls him closer, one hand coming up to cup the back of Babe’s head, fingers scratching lightly through his hair. Babe shudders, the air in his lungs shaky and unsettled.
He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t remember how to. Instead, they sit there on the floor for what feels like hours, Babe clinging and Eugene doing his best to gently soothe. He smells familiar, not like blood and sulfa and soft cotton like he did all throughout the war, but the underlying warm scent of skin and gentle tang of sweat is the same. It’s been a while since Babe has been pressed close enough to smell it. He lets out a shaky breath at the realization.
“It’s okay,” Gene murmurs, voice low and steady. “You’re okay, Babe.”
But he doesn’t feel okay. Not like he was before the war. Gene didn’t know him then, so he doesn’t know where the differences lie, just like Babe is clueless on what Eugene needs on this side of the Atlantic.
Maybe the war changed them too much for peacetime at home. Maybe it changed them too much for each other, only if that’s true then Babe’s completely fucked. If Eugene leaves–
“Babe, breathe,” Eugene says in the same commanding tone he used to use with men whose guts were on the wrong side of their skin, staining Eugene’s hands red. His lungs constrict, but he forces himself to inhale. He takes another breath before the words come out.
“I’m okay,” Babe says. “I’m okay.”
He pulls away, pressing the palms of his hands against his eyes briefly despite the lack of moisture. Eugene’s hands hang suspended by his shoulders helplessly, no longer touching.
“Babe?”
Babe doesn’t want to look at him. He doesn’t want to see the dark circles around his eyes or the furrow between his brows. He doesn’t want to see whether his shaky breaths have forced Eugene to transform back into the empty, stoic medic that he turned his back on or the lost, helpless lover. He doesn’t know which one would be worse.
“I’m sorry, Gene,” he sighs. “I’m okay.”
Eugene’s hands drop down to his lap. Outside, a lone car passes by. Babe wonders where they’re going at this time of night, whether they’re headed towards someone or away. The faint rumble of the engine fades out of his ears, and they’re left in silence once again.
The refrigerator hums.
“No,” Eugene says. His voice startles Babe enough that he looks up without thinking, bringing him face to face with Gene’s clenched jaw and shining eyes. He’s still cast in shadow, but Babe’s eyes have adjusted since Eugene joined him on the floor, allowing him to see the tightness in the corners of his mouth and the tension in his shoulders. It’s the most on edge that Babe has seen him since he met him at the train station to bring him home for the first time.
“What?” he asks.
“No, Edward. You’re not.”
Babe’s heart drops.
“I swear I am,” he protests, adrenaline shooting through his system. He hears the whistle of German artillery singing in his ears. He reaches for Eugene and for a moment sees Julian staring back at him with wide, scared eyes, then the red patch of snow that still held a vague impression of Bill and Joe when Babe ventured out of his foxhole to see the proof for himself.
“You’re not,” Eugene repeats, catching his hands and running his thumbs over the backs. His hands aren’t as cold as they usually are, but maybe Babe is just freezing in comparison. He feels like all of the warmth has been forced from his body, everything icy and desolate if Eugene leaves.
“I don’t think any man who saw what we did came back okay, not if he didn’t leave his soul over there, too.”
All of the fight leaves Babe as quickly as it came, tension falling out of him like a marionette whose strings were suddenly cut and leaving only exhaustion in its wake. Eugene doesn’t say anything, just blinks at him with sad understanding.
“Thought you didn’t need anything,” Babe says after a few moments. Eugene sighs, shoulders drooping and grip on Babe’s hands going slack. Babe adjusts his own hold to keep them tethered together, not letting him pull away.
“Maybe,” Eugene starts slowly, every word always carefully chosen, “saying that was easier than admitting that I don’t know what I need.”
Babe exhales.
That’s it, then. Knowing what Eugene needs is supposed to be Babe’s job, and he’s failed at it. Eugene will either stay or he’ll go, and there’s nothing that Babe can do about it either way.
“I don’t know either, Gene,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry.”
Eugene shakes his head, one of his hands moving to cup the back of Babe’s neck. Babe relaxes into it, the way that the calluses and lines of his palm are as familiar as Babe’s own.
“That’s not your job, Babe,” Eugene says gently. Babe shakes his head vehemently, but Eugene squeezes and continues talking before Babe can find his words. “It’s not. I know you think it is, and you take care of me better than anyone else, but it’s not your job. Not when you should be taken care of, too, and I can’t anymore.”
“Yes you can,” Babe says, desperation leaking into his words. “You do. I’m not bleeding out here, Gene, I just need–”
I just need you to look at me like you love me. To laugh at my jokes again, even the bad ones. To cook me dinner sometimes and sit down to eat it with me. To call me Babe like it tastes sweet in your mouth. To keep pressing your cold toes against mine in bed and kiss me on my forehead when you wake up, even if I’m not awake to witness it. To come home to me every night and ask how my day was. To love me.
Except that’s too much when Babe can’t reciprocate. It’s too much when Babe can barely look at Gene these days without feeling like crying. When he hasn’t told a joke in weeks, if not months. When they’re never home for dinner at the same time and Babe has no appetite, anyway. When they don’t talk enough to speak each other’s names frequently. When Eugene hates the cold with a fiery vengeance and has been wearing socks to bed to battle the east coast winter. When Babe doesn’t know if Eugene kisses him on the forehead when he wakes, because Babe stays up half the night jumping at shadows and then sleeps through Eugene leaving in the morning. When Babe isn’t always home when Gene comes back. When Babe loves Eugene with his whole being, but if he loved him a little better he’d know what he needs and be able to fix this.
“What do you need, Babe?” Eugene asks, leaning towards him, brow furrowed. “Tell me.”
“Stay,” he begs. “Just stay, Gene.”
Eugene's voice is rough when he answers, tugging Babe forward until he has to squeeze his eyes shut, too close for comfort after feeling so far away.
“I’m not goin’ anywhere,” he says, squeezing the back of Babe’s neck. “I love you.”
He feels Eugene’s dry, chapped lips against his forehead and releases a shaky breath. When Eugene’s lips meet his, they’re the warmest thing he’s felt since the sunshine in Austria. Babe presses against him, bringing his hands up to Eugene’s shoulders. Eugene’s hand at the back of his neck holds him in place, the other gripping his bicep and tugging Babe ever closer. Babe follows easily, trying to instill everything he can’t bring himself to say in the movement of their lips against each other. They learned how to speak like this in Europe, and maybe they still know the language. Everything has changed, but this part of them is familiar even if the taste is distant. Most of it is the same right down to the ache in Babe’s joints and the hint of stubble around Eugene’s mouth.
Eugene breathes against him, warm and present and real. Something inside Babe unthaws. He doesn’t want to be cold anymore.
“Babe,” Eugene murmurs, turning his name into a prayer. He pulls away just far enough to run his thumbs under Babe’s eyes, catching the tears that have appeared there, water dripping from melting ice.
“I love you,” Babe says thickly. Eugene smiles in that sad way he does, eyes softening while his mouth stays downturned. Babe thinks he can hear everything Babe can’t say.
“I love you, too.”
Babe swallows. He’s never wanted to believe something as much as this.
“What do you need?” he asks while Eugene wipes away more of his tears.
“Come back to bed,” Eugene says. “You’re freezing, Babe.”
Babe swallows and nods. Eugene helps him stand, and before they leave the kitchen Babe wraps him in his arms, pulling Eugene flush against him and leaching his warmth. Eugene makes a soft noise in the back of his throat and encircles Babe in his arms, like nothing bad can happen to them if they keep holding on. When Eugene exhales, Babe can feel him relax against him, muscles in his back unclenching under Babe’s hands.
He’s going to hug him more, in the future. He’ll be there for Eugene. He’s not going to let him pull away.
“Come on,” Eugene murmurs when Babe feels steady enough to loosen his grip. He leads him to their bedroom, pulling the covers back for Babe and following him under them. Babe isn’t sure what to do with his body, but Eugene pulls them together, wrapping them in each other until Babe can feel his skin burning everywhere. When Babe looks up, Eugene is already gazing at him, eyes dark and endless.
“I still don’t know how to fix it,” Babe confesses. Eugene exhales, breaking their staring contest.
“We’ll figure it out,” he says quietly. “Ain't no guidebook to this, Babe, but we’ve made it through worse.”
Eugene pulls the quilt tighter around them, cocooning them in warmth. He brushes his hand down Babe’s back, leaving a trail of heat in his wake, and tethers them securely together again when he settles. His body is heavy and relaxed, already beginning to drift off to sleep again. Babe shifts to make them both more comfortable, and more of the tension leaks out of Eugene’s face.
He works early. Babe should give him all the sleep he can.
“Yeah,” Babe says into the silence. “We’ve survived worse.”
Eugene replies only with a hum, more of an exhale than an affirmation. Babe closes his eyes and tries to match their breathing, letting the gentle rhythm of Eugene’s lungs fill him instead of memories. If he focuses on their bodies fighting to keep them alive and the soft covers surrounding them rather than snow and ice, maybe he can convince himself that they’ll be okay.
Eugene is here. His arms are around Babe, his body heat keeping him warm like it did so often in the forest, his socked feet entangled with Babe’s own.
He’s staying, and for now that has to be enough.