Babe left the foxhole a while ago, muttering something about Doc Spina. Bill’s alone, staring down at hands that don’t feel like anything and look like a mockery of what he was before. His bitterness rivals the cold. He wants a cigarette. He wants a fire. He wants to be back home where he belongs, not in some frozen hellhole, and most of all, he wants all his boys to stop fucking dying.
He also wants to go after Babe, keep him from doing something stupid, but he’s always been a terrible liar and Bill would know if something bad was up. He would know.
He’s about to give in and dig for one of his Chelsea’s when Joe slides under the splintery cover of the hole, blowing on his hands. “Shit. Babe ain’t here?” he asks, and Bill shakes his head. “Seen him anywhere?”
"Nah," he says. "Last I seen him he was talkin’ about goin’ to see Spina." Joe furrows his brow in the darkness, and his eyes are shadowed enough that Bill can’t tell if he’s looking straight at him or his hands.
"Guess he’ll be all right, then." Silence passes over them. Bill’s too numb to break it. He saw how Babe was after Julian, how all those on the patrol were, eyes dull and searching for something far beyond the trees. He can’t unstick himself from it.
"You okay?" Joe asks, when the pause bears down on them too hard.
He’s not, but can’t tell Joe that. Joe’s the toughest paratrooper there is to find, older than him, too, and he can’t think of any admittance of the awful, rotten feeling in his gut that wouldn’t embarrass him.
"He was a goddamn virgin," he says, and his voice comes out too soft. "Ain’t no goddamn kid supposed to bleed out that way, out on the snow like a dog." Bill glances up again, and Joe’s really looking at him, not his hands. White-silver light shines down through the cracks of splintered tree branches, and Bill sees Joe’s mouth pressed into a frown.
Joe shifts so he’s sitting beside him, not against the opposite wall. “Ain’t nobody supposed to die that way,” he agrees. “But it’s like Speirs said to Blithe, you know. We’re all already dead.”
Bill smiles. He can feel the chapped skin on his lips tearing, but his blood cools so fast he can hardly tell it’s there. “You really believe that, huh? Takin’ advice from murderers.”
"It’s them or us. You know that. Just ‘cause Speirs don’t got no shame about that shit don’t mean he’s the only murderer around."
Bill thinks back to Normandy, how he burned white-hot with anger after that letter. He slaughtered them and there were no rumors about him.
"And I don’t know what else I oughta believe." Joe smiles back at him, finally, and his eyes are dull, so dull and tired, just like the rest. "I was a choirboy back in Reading, for fuck’s sake, and here, Speirs makes more sense to me than any God ever did."
He forces his shoulders up to shrug. His joints crack something loud and awful, and he jumps. Joe sets a hand on his leg to steady him. “I still wanna think there’s somethin’. ‘Cause if there ain’t, Henry died in Monte Cassino for nothin’. Julian died for nothing, too, and all these other boys, they’re all just dead and it don’t matter ‘cause Speirs said so and-“
"Bill," Joe says, and whatever anger he’s working up dissolves. Just like that.
"Joe," he says back, and he wants to smile again, just to see how much he can bleed, how much pain he has to go through to get to feel it.
"You ain’t all right." He makes the admission for him, and Bill supposes that’s embarrassing, but better than it could be. "And that’s… That’s all right."
Joe’s got his other hand on his shoulder, pulling him closer. He knows he could say no, he isn’t like that, and he knows Joe would stop, but he lets their cold lips press together like it’s all he has in the world.
And really, it is. He’s got himself and he’s got Joe. Neither of their lives are guaranteed. They could die from a shell right then.
Speirs might’ve been right. He’s on the edge of death every second of every hour, clinging to the mercy of luck, and he’s so close to getting flipped off the edge that he should be dead already.
"It’s okay, Bill, it’s okay," Joe says, between gasps of air after the first bruising kiss. Bill kisses him again and again, buries himself in them while he sits all the while in a grave he dug for himself. He fists a hand into the front of Joe’s jacket and presses their mouths together as hard as he can, just because he’s feeling something, shocks of electricity, for the first time in a long time, and he’s feeling warm for the first time in a long time, too.
Joe lets him decompress. He guides him into slower kisses after, licks into his mouth like it’s the only thing he’s wanted to do in his life, and it’s soon that Bill’s grabbing onto him with both his hands. He’s a lifeline. Joe’s hand slides up to the back of his neck from his shoulder and rubs over his short hair.
When he’s out of breath and panting, Bill pulls away and licks the taste of Joe off his lips. He pushes his forehead onto Joe’s shoulder. Joe doesn’t pull away, just tucks his arm around him and sighs.
"It’s all right, Bill. We’ll be all right."
They won’t. That’s common sense. He’s glad for the distraction, though, enough to try to believe him.
Lew takes Dick to Chicago. At first, it’s something of a joke. They made it out of the war and he’s a man of his word.
Then Dick starts coming out shirtless in the mornings to make coffee. He smiles at him like they’re the only two alive when they accidentally bump into each other, trying to make dinner. He crawls into his bed during thunderstorms and moonless nights, molds himself as close to Lew’s side as he dares, and Lew listens to his breathing even out until there’s something close to nothingness.
Or, rather: Lew starts pining after him.
Their courtship- if it could be called that, since Lew swears it’s like he’s in middle school and plucking up the courage to give Jenny Johnson flowers after school- is slow and awkward.
He drops hints.
"Let’s go down to Jack’s," he says, over breakfast, on one occasion. "Been a while since we went out and danced."
Dick sets down his coffee. “We’ve got work tomorrow. Can’t afford to be late because you’re hungover and I have to take care of you.” His voice is colored with warm amusement.
"I…" he says, and his mouth goes dry, dry like it’d forgotten the orange juice that was just in it. "But I want to dance. With you."
He smiles the smile that Lew jumped into a lake in Austria just to see. He never paid much attention in Sunday school, but Dick has to look something like an angel. His red hair is bright and mussed into a halo, and the curve of his mouth is so sweet, the sweetness he’s dreamed of kissing, and God, everything about him is perfect.
"I know you do, Nix. And I want to dance with you." For a moment, his heart thumps against his ribs. He grips his toast so hard it splits in half. He has him, he thinks, and then Dick continues, "but we can’t just go down to clubs all the time. Especially on Sundays."
Well, he drops hints until he realizes Dick’s oblivious.
There’s a storm a few weeks after that first attempt, and Dick appears in the doorway in a flash of lightning. Lew jumps. He hadn’t heard him coming, and seeing a pale figure in his doorway on a dark, stormy night is the last thing he needs.
Especially when they just watched Dead of Night that Friday.
Dick’s in the bed, under the covers, when the thunder rumbles loud and sends down another crack of light. Lew stares up at the ceiling.
"I’m sorry," Dick mumbles, and Lew strains to hear him over the rain sheeting down against the windows. "I keep thinking."
He knows what he’s thinking of. Yellow-white flares that were there for a second, and then, in the next, had destroyed everything in their wake.
"Don’t be sorry. I can’t stop thinking, too." He’s thinking of how Dick stiffened in his seat during the movie. He’s thinking of how Dick kept close to him all the way home. He’s thinking of telling Dick those things and what it would be like if he thought of them, too.
Dick shifts closer. Their legs are touching. Lew’s thoughts pass by him with another lightning bolt, a million does-he-knows and please-let-him-knows and God-I’m-not-readys in a split second. “You’re my best friend, Nix.”
Lew wants to sigh. He nods instead. “You’re my best friend, too, Dick.” He takes a risk and tugs Dick to his side with an arm slung around his shoulders. Lew’s palm slides over his warm skin, and he wants to tell him right then and there, but his words stick to his throat. Dick pushes his head against his neck, and by the way his breathing is slowing, he’ll be asleep soon.
The storm rumbles outside, and lightning doesn’t stop turning his room bleached-bone white, but Dick falls asleep.
Lew waits for a few minutes after that. He cranes his neck and brushes his lips over Dick’s forehead, takes in his smell and the softness of his hair, and tries to ignore how badly he wants him.
He doesn’t need to tell him, not yet, he urges himself, and looks up at the ceiling again. He doesn’t ever need to tell him.
Is it/its the same or similar to they/them? Is there a difference?
both sets of pronouns are similar in being gender neutral, but it/its is different because it's generally used against trans folks- as in calling them it instead of he/she/etc- as opposed to they, which is used in every day speech instead of he/she or him/her
