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"Krauser and Kennedy."
The names hung in the air like a raised guillotine, ready for the release. Not a gasp, not a cough could be heard; the gathering was silent as the grave, although some participants fought a mighty battle with their facial muscles as they waited for a reaction from either party. It wasn’t a long time coming.
Krauser coughed softly as he began. "Colonel Brighton, Sir, if I may…"
The older man turned his head, his clean-shaven face a perfect mask of indifference. "You may, Major."
"I... uh…"
"Take a moment to gather your thoughts, we’ve got time."
"No, I...” Krauser took a deep breath. The tips of his ears took on a faint color. “I request to be transferred to another assignment."
"I understand your feelings, Major, I really do, but if you are not satisfied with your current placement, take up the issue with HR, although I’m sure that they are going tell you the same thing I am—suck it up. We all have to do our part in this… Charity gala, and frankly, it’s you lots’ fault that barely any female soldiers wanted to sign up for the dances, which is why we had to do a raffle. Next time when one comes to our base for a joint exercise, maybe keep your thoughts yourself and behave something like a human. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Sir,” the crowd replied in unison.
Brighton’s eyes narrowed as they zeroed in on half-hidden in the back. “Private Kennedy, are you all right?"
Heads rotated away from the red-faced Krauser to the shrunken shape. Kennedy sat transfixed, as if his soul had been sucked from him, his glassy eyes focused on the Major. No wonder; everyone knew that no love was lost between the two men. Krauser had new tests, punishments, and insults ready for Kennedy, who, as if to spite the man, let the insults roll off of him, passed the tests with flying colors, and didn’t seem to much care about the punishments. Although a couple months ago Colonel Brighton had to interfere on his behalf when they found him passed out in a puddle of vomit for the fourth time in a row. Krauser seemed to ease up a bit on Kennedy after that. And although many agreed that this was the right thing to do, evil tongues were also pouring poison into the ears of those who were willing to listen—preferential treatment, again? Just who was the guy?
One of Brighton’s bushy eyebrows began ascending his forehead, and still Kennedy snapped to standing only when one of his neighbors elbowed him in the side.
“Sir?”
“Pay attention when spoken to, Private.” Breaths were held—he should be telling Kennedy off, he should be assigning him to toilet duty for the month or something, but once again, no mention of such a thing. Kennedy was above natural order, once again. “I just asked if you are all right.”
"Sir, yes, Sir. Just something I ate yesterday."
"I wasn't asking for details.” Brighton sighed and slammed the book shut. It resonated through the air like the hammer of judgement. “That is all. Those who didn’t hear their names can expect to be appointed to further. If anyone has any other complaints, go to HR and leave me out of it. Dismissed."
Should he be happy, or should he be angry? Leon didn’t know. In the semi-privacy of the toilet the most he could feel was dread as it hung onto him with five pairs of wicked-sharp claws.
Dancing. He had to dance with Jack Krauser.
He buried his face into his hands and groaned.
Spending one on one time with him in training and pretending to feel nothing was bad enough. But dancing? How was he gonna survive that? When his hand would be holding the man’s hand, not trying to stop his blade from reaching his throat…
Leon froze when the door of the bathroom banged open and pulled his feet up. It was a silly precaution, of course, people had as much right to use this bathroom as he did—some had more, in fact—but once he recognized the familiar beat of the boots as they approached the stalls, he knew their owner was not there to offer help or reassurance.
As if to confirm his suspicion, rapid knocking rattled one of the doors and a cheerful voice called out, "Copper, you in there?"
Copper. The stupid nickname stuck to him like mud, courtesy of some jackass who got kicked out of the program two weeks after his arrival, but not before he learned about his brief stint as a cop and left him with the nickname as a parting gift.
He hoped that if he kept silent, his bunkmate would kindly fuck off, but no such luck—the stall door next to his opened, and a grinning face with short-shorn hair appeared above the partition.
"Shitting on company time?"
"Every time is company time."
"Preaching to the choir, man. Did you see the look on the Major's face though? If only I had a camera with me..."
Leon did see. All of it. The disbelief morphing into shock, to anger, and then the real punch in the face, disgust. He'd already known the Major harbored no warm feelings for him. He doubted Leon, doubted the reasons for his presence, doubted the Colonel’s insistence on letting him continue. It wasn’t entirely unfounded; despite the 10-week-long basic training before he was dropped off at the base, Leon still had a hard time keeping up in anything that didn’t involve firearms, and while his stamina was coming along nicely, he still more often than not ate dust in hand-to-hand. If it was up to him, he’d have quit a long time ago. Hell, he wouldn’t be on base in the first place. But just like Krauser wasn’t asked before Leon was forced onto him as a new recruit, no one asked Leon’s opinion on joining the military, however briefly. So, he was stuck; living with them, but never really feeling like one of them. No explanation offered to anyone but the Colonel as to why he was to keep his hair as is, why he had to leave twice a month. (It was Benford. The man seemed to distrust the reports of the training officers and the instructors.)
With each week, the Major’s dislike, which was palpable from the get-go, grew. But the open hostility still twisted the proverbial knife in his gut.
"You'd be scraping out the pieces from where the sun don't shine," he said, dragging himself out from the quagmire of his thoughts.
"As long as I got to keep the film. Hey, can I come to your classes?"
Leon looked up in surprise. "Classes?"
"Weren’t you listening? Dancers will have to attend classes. Since they don't want us to look like baboons in a suit. Especially since they say proper ladies might come to this zoo, not just the ones from Fort Redcreek. Man, it’s been a while..."
"Baboon in a suit, that's me,” Leon said, leaning back against the tank, unwilling to listen to Doley’s self-pitying monologue about how they only had two women on base— the cook, who was about as cheerful as a donkey stung by a bee on a good day, and the doctor, who knew precisely where to stick it if you displeased her. Since one was in charge of food and the other could hand out pills or take them away on a whim, most men behaved themselves around them, though.
"You are coming at it from..."
The door of the bathroom opened again.
"Daley! Get down from there this instant!"
For the first time in a long while, he prayed. Not just to God; to any deity, spirit, ghost who was willing to listen and grant him just a tiny little miracle. For example, lightning striking him down during drills, but no. That honor went to Sergeant Brown while he was out on his morning run. He survived and was carted off to the nearest hospital, yet Leon couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous. The man was supposed to dance waltz at the gala, with a woman at that; how come he got to sit it out, while Leon had to face the man of his dreams, who jeered at him whenever the chance presented itself?
Resigning himself to fate, though, he reported to the assigned ‘classroom’ with a heavy heart.
Krauser was already there.
Leon’s heart jumped to his throat when the man turned to him with a frown. "Rookie. You are late."
"Sir,” he said as he saluted. “Yes, sir. I'm sorry, it won't happen again."
Except, it will. Krauser was petty enough to start coming earlier, eager for a chance to tell him off for one perceived mistake or another.
Even worse, although it was humiliating to admit, he was secretly looking forward to being admonished by the man. It was only in those moments that Krauser truly acknowledged his existence, which otherwise he very much seemed to want to forget.
About five minutes later the teacher arrived too; a woman he had met a few times while drinking his woes away in the town. She gave him a smile that said “I recognize you”, introduced herself, then set to work.
"Do you have your shoes?"
Krauser looked down at his freshly polished boots. "Something wrong with these?"
"Oh no, it's just better if you practice in something like what you'll wear to the gala,” she explained while setting up the boombox. “I've seen guys fall over their feet because their shoes were more slippery than they anticipated."
"That won't happen."
"It might. Anyway, the plan for today is choosing the music and then I’m going to show you some basic steps, but I have to ask; who's going to be the lead?"
"I am," Krauser said without hesitation.
"Okay. First things first, music…”
The first few classes went surprisingly fine, although Krauser had made it clear that he'd be climbing Mount Everest naked than touching Leon, which, although he was prepared for it, still hurt.
He knew that his crush was destined to fail from the start—the man was older, his superior officer, and abrasive. He clearly had a thing against men being together, and he loathed Leon. Not a lucky combination.
Still, everything went quite smoothly, all thing considered; until one stuffy July afternoon.
“Jack… May I call you Jack?”
“No.”
Dorothy, unphased by the tone, continued, “Alright. I want you to let Leon take the lead for the rest of the class. Just to see what happens?”
“Why?”
“To be frank, you have about as much rhythm sense as my Uncle Joe on a good day, which is to say, none. That can be overcome with the right partner, but you gotta let the other lead.”
Krauser’s lips turned white as he hissed. “Sure.”
It was a bona-fide disaster, only topped by the one just a week before the gala, when Dorothy got the idea that a section would work even better if Krauser would lean back just a bit.
He did so. One moment he was in Leon’s arms; the next he was lying on the ground, his eyes burning with hatred as they glared up at him.
“You need to loosen up, Major,” Dorothy said. “It’s just a dance, not the battlefield.”
Except, Leon thought that it was precisely what it was to Krauser. A battlefield where he had to go against his very nature, everything he believed in. Like how unnatural it was for two men to dance, no matter what those “fucking brainiac thoughts would make for a good show”. Colonel Brighton said to take it up with HR; and Leon probably would have, if he wasn’t already skating on thin ice with the Major.
So after the very last class (which ironically fell on his birthday; he’d have forgotten all about it had their instructor not made him run two extra laps in celebration of the occasion), when Dorothy let them go with a “well, I’ve done everything I could”, he bolted out of the room, brushed off Daley who tried to coerce him into going into town to celebrate on their afternoon off, and headed for the one place he knew he could be alone; a derelict watchtower, not far from the buildings, but safely hidden by the trees.
Darkness descended slowly, stretching the shadows and putting the birds to sleep. He listened to the last notes of the dusk chorus die around him with eyes closed. He should have started back, he knew; lights off was at nine. He was already late as it was. But he could still feel the warmth of the man in his hands.
He let out a dry chuckle. What was it that he read in one of his ex’s lifestyle magazines?
‘People look for their parents in their partners, patterns they are familiar with…’
Well, trust him to prove that right and start crushing on first Ada and then Krauser. A woman who used him to get what she wanted, her care hinging on the fact that Leon played along, and a man who despised his very existence.
And yet…
Ada didn’t have to treat the wound after Anette shot him. Krauser didn’t have to be the one who took him to the infirmary when a bathroom scuffle ended in a minor concussion. Which was when he began to dream of Krauser, of a world where he was more than a speck of dirt on the man’s boot.
“You are twenty-two now,” he said to himself. “Stop being an idiot.”
His pathetic feelings were always destined to come to nothing. And besides, he’ll be gone in six months or so—six long, torturous months.
The burning white of a flashlight blinded him for a moment.
“What the hell are you doing up there, rookie?” barked a familiar, rough voice.
Leon jumped and the tower underneath swayed lightly. “Major, Sir!”
“Are your eyes only for decoration?” he asked, knocking the ‘no entry’ table for good measure. “Get down from there.”
Shamefaced, he began to climb, worried as to what he will be waiting for him, but Krauser for once didn’t seem angry, just… Tired. There were lines under his eyes he didn’t notice before, carved deeper by the night hour.
“I’m gonna ask you again—what were you doing up there?”
“I...” Leon swallowed. “I wanted to be alone for a bit.”
“Isn’t it your birthday? Why not use your time off to celebrate?”
“It is,” Leon’s mouth went dry, but something in his chest fluttered. Krauser knew when his birthday was? Why? “And I was. I just didn’t feel like going into town.”
“Not up there you weren’t.”
“It’s quite…”
“Are you dumb or just pretending?” the man snapped. “If I say you weren’t celebrating up there, if I say you weren’t up there, then you weren’t.”
It clicked. Leon lowered his head, hoping his hair would hide the heat creeping into his cheeks. “Oh.”
“Now he gets it,” Krauser mocked, then turned. “Follow me.”
As it turned out, they were going into his office. It wasn’t Leon’s first time visiting—he made many trips to the small, gray room on account of multiple fights during the first few months, and one time for insubordination—but it was the first time he felt curiosity instead of apprehension when entering.
Krauser opened a cabinet and pulled out a dark golden bottle of bourbon and two shot glasses. “Got this for a special occasion. Guess this is as good as any.”
“Thank you, but I’m…”
Krauser pushed one of glasses at him.
“If you say you are not a drinker, I’m gonna write you up for lying to your superior officer. I’ve seen you around in town, rookie. Take the fucking glass.”
With a trembling hand (which he hoped Krauser wouldn’t notice), Leon did so, then looked up. “Permission to speak freely, Sir?”
Krauser popped the bottle open and poured them both. He watched Leon down his before nodding. “Go ahead.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t read too much into it. I just don’t want my partner to break his leg before the big night. We gotta dance alone even if the other one is out of commission, remember?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Krauser swallowed the liquid with a satisfied sigh. “And besides, I couldn’t bear how pathetic your ass looked up there. Another?”
“I shouldn’t…”
“Lightweight.”
Spurred on by the challenge, Leon held out his glass. “Maybe just one.”
One turned into two, into four. The alcohol buzzed pleasantly through his veins, drawing a fog over everything he didn’t want to think about. For the moment, it was only the two of them in the world.
“I’m gonna ask the questions now, rookie.” Krauser downed his own glass and poured the both of them another. “Why?”
“What why?” After a moment of thinking he added, “Sir.”
“Why come here. It’s obvious you give no fucks and do the drills with a face as if you had to go to the dentist. Hell, I thought you were gonna kick the bucket during the first two weeks if one of the guys didn’t finish you off.”
“I didn’t know you care about my well-being.”
“Say that I do. What would you do?”
Krauser leaned forward, the usual malice missing from his eyes.
Spurred on by alcohol as much as instinct, Leon met him in the middle.
Hungrily, his lips pressed against the man’s own, then he broke off, shocked at his own courage.
“Sorry, Sir, I’m not sure what…”
Krauser reached out, grabbed a handful of hair, and brought him back in roughly. Little fires bloomed in Leon’s chest as he took it all in, the taste of the man himself, the fragrance of the liquor on his lips, which wandered over to his neck, kissing and nipping, the hot breath tickling his sensitive skin…
A knock on the door and they flew apart again.
“Under the desk,” Krauser growled and pressed one glass into his hands. As soon as Leon disappeared from sight, he called out, “Come in.”
The door creaked open. Leon could see only the visitor’s boots. The voice was vaguely familiar. “Major Krauser, Sir. I’m sorry, I just saw that the lights on and wanted to check that everything is okay…”
“It is. Just wanted to have me a glass.”
“I see. Good night, Major.”
The boots retreated back into the shadow of the corridor. Their owner pulled the door closed behind himself. For a long moment, neither of them moved; only when the steps faded away did Krauser look down.
“You can come out now.”
Leon clambered out, his cheeks burning. He straightened up with great difficulty (whatever Krauser had given him was the good stuff) and cleared his throat.
“Umm. I should… I should get going.”
“Yes,” Krauser said with barely discernible emotions. “You should.”
“So, where were you last night?”
Leon groaned internally. His bunkmate had seemed sound asleep when he got back, but just to be on the safe side, he avoided him (just like he avoided thinking about the previous night)—until now. With the gala already ongoing and the both of them performing, there was nowhere left to run.
“Just airing out my head.”
A cheeky smile flashed across Daley’s features. “With someone we know? I could smell the alcohol you know. You’re lucky we don’t get those daily tests. I was sure Krauser would clock it, but…” The man shrugged. “So, are you up for it? The big dance?”
“Could do without the crowd.”
“A charity gala without a crowd would be a poor affair indeed.”
“In a couple months it’s gonna be a new century. Big changes might be coming. Like charity galas with hired performers.”
“Spending the company’s money, Kennedy?”
Doley looked up and the smirk froze onto his face as he recognized the newcomer. “Major, Sir.”
“That’s your cue to leave.”
“I… Of course, Sir. Good luck,” he said and disappeared towards the back. Krauser watched him go with a sneer, then turned to Leon, “We are up in two, rookie. Are you ready?”
“Sir, yes, Sir.”
“Good. Because if you step on my feet again, you’re going to be running extra laps for a week.”
“Understood.”
Side by side, they began walking towards their assigned entry point. Krauser’s sleeve brushed against his own too deliberately to be an accident. “I hear you’ll go to town on your next leave.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I think I’ll do the same. If you…”—his Adam’s apple bobbed—"If you find a good bar, introduce me to it. I’m on the lookout for a new one. Old place was closed down. Cockroaches.”
Leon blinked. Should he dare hope? Perhaps not. Still, his lips tingled with the memory of Krauser’s own. So he did, with a smile, a tentative version of which he saw reflected in the Major’s face.
“I’ll do that, Sir.”