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In The Bleak Mid-Winter
| Rating: |
18 |
| Past Life:
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WW I Christmas 1918 |
| Warnings: |
Sexxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. And angst. A lot
of angst. |
| Notes: |
Sequel to my first December Challenge, It Came Upon A
Midnight Clear. This isn’t in the slightest bit how I expected it to be – so
much so that I ended up changing the title. This was supposed to be a happy
little romp in a stable. Unfortunately, I forgot, in my cutesy, Christmassy
state, that Daniel would have issues. He, however, DIDN’T forget, and
promptly angsted all over the damn page. At first draft this was 1524 words
long, and I thought I would just cut out 24 words and be happy with it, but
then I decided that I’d already proved to myself I could meet the original
challenge head on, so I gave myself a different challenge – which was 3000
words and first time sex… plus using all the original challenge words. I’m
not getting a prize, but I did achieve all I set out to. As the warnings
say, though, this is angsty, and I’m not altogether sure it has a happy
ending. Hopeful, maybe, but not happy, which is a bit of a bummer really…
but then, the chances of coming through that war unscathed either physically
or mentally must have been pretty much zero. |
| Word Count: |
3000 - go me. |
He’s come through the snow. Come carrying the same sprig
of mistletoe he took from his front door only two nights ago. There’s hope in
his eyes, and fear in his trembling hands, and I close the heavy door behind us
and draw him close to me.
“You’re cold,” I whisper into his chilled cheek, and he
nods and presses his gloveless hands inside my coat - trying to warm them on my
sweater.
“That damn snowman they built…” he answers me.
“It was supposed to welcome you home,” I remind him
quietly.
“They used my scarf and my gloves and…”
“You have others…”
“I won’t wear them,” he tells me roughly, and I know why.
I know it’s because they’re army issue. Because they remind him of where he’s
been and what he’s had to do. “I want my own things back. My REAL things… and
instead they went through my drawers and poked about in my things, and now half
my wardrobe is on a pile of snow, and I’m supposed to think it’s funny.”
“Don’t be angry with them,” I plead. “They meant well.
They’ve missed you so much and going into your room made them feel closer to
you. It’s Christmas, Daniel.”
“What? Peace and goodwill to all men? You think I should
be celebrating? Going to Church? Falling on my knees and thanking God and his
angels for bringing me safe home here when… when so many others…?”
I wrap him more closely to me, trying with everything I
have to stop him from shaking. “Daniel…” I murmur.
“I don’t want it. Don’t want anything to do with it.
Mother threw that stuff on the fire,” he says grimly.
“What stuff?”
“The holly,” he answers viciously. “I picked some up. Cut
myself on it. Stupid… just stupid, and only a little prick, but the blood… I
can’t see any more blood. I lost control. Smashed two of those glasses she’s
always going on about…”
“The goblets?”
“They’re just glasses. Meaningless rubbish. She only uses
them at Christmas and I hate them. I hate all of it… and I didn’t want to come
here. I didn’t want to need you… but I do, Jack… I do…”
“Daniel…” I whisper, but he shakes his head and I fall
silent, just cradling him against me while he shivers with the memories.
“I was awake in the night. I heard midnight strike on
father’s clock in the study,” he murmurs. “And I got up and sat on the window
sill and looked at the stars. Thought about you. About how it was… how it could
be… and all the time there were voices banging and banging at my head. I can’t
sleep, Jack. Haven’t slept for months. Years, maybe. I keep hoping exhaustion
will just take me, but it doesn’t. There’s no peace out there. None. I thought
there would be. I thought that when I came home it would all stop, but it
hasn’t. It’s getting worse and I can’t make it go away. All I hear is screaming.
Whenever I close my eyes, it’s all I see and hear? Men. Screaming. Dying. And I
didn’t want to burden you with it. I wanted to stay away until I was whole, but
I don’t think I’m ever going to be whole again. I feel trapped. Weighed down
with it all. And I can’t stay up there in that stupid, gilded cage for another
minute playing ridiculous games of cards, while my mother sits by the fire and
roasts endless amounts of chestnuts that we all politely gag on as we stuff them
down our throats because we all fucking HATE chestnuts and no one’s ever been
brave enough to tell her.” He runs out of breath and his face twists in agony,
and my heart breaks for him because he’s so young and so precious to me, and he
has his whole life in front of him if only he could somehow realise it.
“She needs to get the old traditions back, Daniel,” I try
to explain. “She needs things to be as they were before the war. This has hurt
her, too. The worry. The waiting. She needs to feel as if her son is home.”
“Her son? She doesn’t treat me like her son. She treats me
like a baby. A child.”
“You’ll always be her child.”
“I’m a man. I’ve seen things none of the rest of you have.
I’ve lain in mud dyed red with blood. I’ve smelled the stench of rotting flesh.
I’ve killed men. Run them through. Seen blood dripping from their mouths as
their eyes stare at me. I’ve killed my FRIENDS, for God’s sake. Killed them so
that they don’t bleed to death. So that the rats don’t eat them. So that I don’t
have to look at their agony. And she wants to pass a fucking wassailing bowl
because it’s two hundred fucking years old, and pretend that the new year will
make it all better – and it WON’T be better, Jack. It WON’T.”
He pushes his hands into my chest and spins away from me,
and I let him go. Let him take a few steps away before coming back to me – his
hands hard on my face as he crushes my jaw and drags me to him. Makes me kiss
him. Makes me hurt him – mashing our lips and tongues together until he slumps
against me again and lets me hold him up.
“Is this how it’s going to be?” he asks softly, voice
crowded with barely held in tears, and I kiss the side of his neck and stroke
his hair back from his face.
“I don’t know,” I answer him honestly, because I can’t lie
to him. I have no clue what the future holds. No clue if he’ll get better. What
he’s seen… what he’s done… it’ll scar him for the rest of his life, and I don’t
know how any of us will learn to deal with it.
“It’s the only time it stops,” he says gently.
“What is?”
“This. With you. When you kissed me before… the other
night… and then just now. It’s the only time the screaming has stopped.” His
mouth touches mine again, and I kiss him back. Holding him. Loving him. “I need
to see you,” he gasps. “Need to be with you. You’re the only one who
understands. The only one I told. All the other letters… they were stupid stuff.
Nonsense. But you know what it was like. What I had to do, and I can’t go on
like this. Can’t go on not being with you. It’ll drive me crazy. I just… I need
it to be quiet.”
“We can make it quiet,” I promise, letting my mouth wander
over his as my hands stray down his back. “I’ll help you. We’ll get through it.”
“I need that. I need YOU,” he answers roughly, and his
mouth is on mine again, demanding and eager, and when he draws away, he’s
frowning. “Is this the only place we can meet? In a stable? With the door shut
and only the hay to keep us warm?”
“I’m a working man,” I remind him. “A farmer. This is all
I have. If I had more, it’d be yours for the taking, but there IS nothing else.
I AM nothing else.”
“And I love you,” he tells me brokenly, and I hush him and
rock him and his head moves so that our lips can meet again – more gently this
time. Kiss after kiss. His lips stroking over mine. His body swaying gently as
our tongues rub together.
“I love you, too,” I whisper when he pulls away from me.
“More than you know. And I’ve missed you and wanted you every day since… every
day since I realised. And yes, this is all we can have. I have a wife. I have a
son.” And I have a responsibility towards them that I can’t break.
“I don’t WANT…” he snaps viciously, and turns away from
me, spinning out into the middle of the stable and walking restlessly backwards
and forwards, arms wrapped tightly around his body. “I don’t want… them. That. I
can’t deal with it.”
“But they’re my family,” I sigh at him. “They’re the
screaming in MY head.” And he shouldn’t think for a single minute that anything
I’m doing with him… anything I’ve DREAMED of doing with him has been easy for me
to handle. It hasn’t been. I have a wife and a son and I’ve cared for them for a
long time, and it tears me apart to know that I don’t love them enough to walk
away from this. That I don’t love them enough to refuse him. That I don’t love
them enough to spare them the possibility of finding us… embracing… wanting…
loving. And his dreams are of dying men, but my dreams are of him. Naked.
Writhing in the light of the fire… and me… above him. Taking him. Devouring him…
and then my wife. Her face. Seeing us. Understanding. My dick driving into
Daniel’s body while she screams and screams and screams…
“There’s no peace in the farmhouse,” I assure him. “No
room for you there. No room for us anywhere. There’s only here. A stable. On the
hay. And I’m sorry… I’m so sorry I have nothing more to offer you.”
He lifts his head and looks around, taking in the cold and
the damp and, when he looks back at me, there’s desolation in his eyes.
“I need to forget,” he tells me fiercely. “I need you to
help me forget…”
“But I don’t… I don’t know how,” I answer him, looking
around me at the emptiness of the barn and knowing that this is our life. That
the hope and the exultation of his homecoming on Christmas Eve means nothing in
the cold light of day.
“Stop the pain,” he begs. “Please. Stop the pain.”
He hesitates for a moment and I look at him… gaze at him –
wrapped up against the cold as he is, and he must be able to see the love I have
for him on my face, because he comes to me, striding over the distance between
us, and his hunger and need are violent and fierce. So fierce that I have to
grab him to stop from falling. His kiss devours me – his mouth hot and desperate
against mine and we stumble backwards, tripping and tumbling until the hay
catches us, and then his body is on mine – hard and wanting. I moan out and he
answers me, clawing at me. Stripping me – his fingernails harsh as they scrape
down my skin.
“I have nothing to use,” I tell him weakly.
“I don’t want anything,” he grunts back, and my hands
tangle with his shirt and I slip them on to the surprisingly hot skin of his
back.
He fights with me. Rolling me. Urging me to be more
powerful. More cruel, and his hand comes on top of mine and pushes… makes me
slide it down… under his pants. Down onto his ass. And he gasps into my mouth
and grinds forward, rubbing his hardened, angry cock frantically against mine.
“Fuck me, Jack. Please, God, fuck me,” he grates out, and
I moan at his words, unused to hearing them – but wanting him to say more. To
ask for it. BEG for it. “Fuck me like you can’t live without me,” he pleads, and
I tear at his clothes, just as he’s tearing at mine.
The hay is prickly and uncomfortable, but he’s pale and
beautiful, and I kiss him hard – almost screaming into his mouth – and then I
kiss his body. Trail my tongue down his breast bone. Bite at his nipples, and
then his stomach, pushing his thighs open with my elbow so I can suck his rigid
cock into my mouth and swallow it down my throat.
He gurgles incoherently, splaying his legs wide… wide… for
an instant, but then he’s pushing on me. Making me move so that he can turn onto
his front… and neither of us knows what we’re doing, but it doesn’t seem to
matter. I spit into my hand, and it’s not enough, so I do it again. And again.
And I don’t know how slippery it all needs to be, so I just wipe it on my dick
and hope for the best… and I don’t think he’d care if I split him in two.
He’s desperate. Begging for it in needy, wrenching little
gasps, and I push against him, holding his hips tightly to stop him from
slipping away from me, and it’s that simple. That easy. He groans and writhes,
and I think I must be tearing him apart inside, but he doesn’t care. He rides it
out and takes me… takes me whole… sucking me inside him so that I don’t know how
I keep my sanity.
“Daniel…” I gasp. “Jesus. Daniel…”
“Do it. Just do it,” he orders, and I know I couldn’t stop
even if I wanted to. I draw out a little and thrust into him… driving deep and
hard, and he cries out and begs for more, and something snaps inside me, because
it’s so easy to be brutal. So easy to give him what he wants. And I don’t know
how much noise we’re making. Don’t care. All I know is that he’s naked beneath
me and his body is filled to the brim with my own, and we’re fucking. Rocking
and driving and chasing away all the hurt and all the pain and all the longing.
This is all we’re ever going to have. Just this. And I thrust my dick deep –
holding it… holding… screwing it inside him… rubbing it tortuously against him
so that he starts to shudder and whine – head thrown back, mouth blissfully half
open, eyes tightly closed.
“Oh, Christ,” he gasps out. “Jack… please… please…” And he
comes. Explodes. Drags me with him, over the edge and into the abyss of
nothingness, and it’s not until I feel the scratch of the hay that I realise I’m
still alive.
I withdraw from him slowly, and he hisses in pain, and
then I gather him to me, pulling our discarded coats over us to keep us warm
while we lay there, staring up at the stable roof and waiting for night to fall.
“Do you have to be at home soon?” I ask quietly, and he
shakes his head.
“I told them I was going out. Not to follow me. Not to
look for me.”
“They’ll be worried.”
“I’m not a child,” he spits angrily through gritted teeth,
and I kiss his forehead.
“No,” I agree tenderly. “Not a child. Not anymore.” I let
my thumb stroke circles on his arm and whisper, “Did it help? What we did? Did
it help?”
“It helped,” he answers and his hair tickles my shoulder
as he nods his head.
“I want it to be like this for us,” I tell him quietly.
“For this to be how it is all the time. You falling asleep in my arms. Me
holding you. Keeping you safe, but you know it can’t be.”
“All I know is that I can’t give this up, Jack. I can’t
pretend I don’t feel this way. You make me complete. Fill that void in my heart
that I’ve had all my life. I can’t give you up. You can’t ask me to.”
“I couldn’t live without you even if I tried,” I promise
him. “But this is the only place we have, and I don’t think that’s enough. How
long before you need more? How long before I’m driving myself crazy with wanting
to give you what I don’t HAVE to give? I’m scared of taking something I can’t
give back. I’m scared of making promises I can’t keep.”
“And I’m scared of growing old without you,” he tells me
gently. “Your letter telling me you loved me came when I was ready to die, Jack.
You saved me out there and you can save me here. And in the summer, we can go to
the riverbank,” he murmurs. “You can teach me to catch fish, and we can swim
naked…” he sits up slightly and looks down at me. “And you can hold my hand and
kiss me, and we can make love in the long grass at the edge of the meadow.” His
voice is tight with emotion and my heart lurches in my chest because I want
nothing more than to walk through the fields with him, following the line of the
river to the trees. I want nothing more than to pull him to me and kiss his lips
and lie on a blanket with him – our feet tangling as we hold each other in the
warmth of the sun… and it’ll never happen. We both know it. Instead I’ll strip
him… tear his clothes off him, and I’ll hold him down and drive my cock deep
into him – my hand over his mouth to hold in his screams… and it’ll never
change… never…
“Daniel…”
“Because you love me,” he says quietly. “You’ll fuck me
because you love me.”
I reach up and cup his face into my hand and he’s
trembling again – the haunted look back in his beautiful eyes.
“Because I love you,” I whisper in reply and we both know
that there has to be more than this. That we WANT there to be more. That the
words of love we whispered to each other in our letters meant more than a fuck
in the shadows of a stable on a cold winter afternoon – but that will have to
wait. For now, we’ll take whatever we can and we’ll treasure it and nurture it,
and one day... one day he’ll be able to fall asleep in my arms.
contact pepe:
pepe@pepesplace.co.uk
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