devil's arcade - part V
Dec. 11th, 2009 12:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janie_tangerineJune 14th, 1944, Rome
He might be in Rome, but as he had figured he would, Desmond doesn’t play tourist often.
Right, he has a five days’ leave like mostly everyone in their division which is stationed in a sort of half-run down hotel somewhere in the center, if he understood right, whose only occupants are British soldiers; if he looks up at the sky he sees it’s of a clear, pure blue and then he remembers that he’s on leave and that if he looks in front of him instead of above, the scenery won’t be much different from what he got used since they started fighting in cities or villages or places where civilians are. Right, the buildings are mostly standing up and he can’t smell gunpowder or breathe dust like in Naples, but he can’t help noticing that most of the people who thank him profusely as he takes a walk are wearing torn clothes and no shoes and that while everyone looks pretty much happy (he’s sure it’ll wear off soon, but he hopes not too soon) they all look so tired. Desmond is tired too.
The only person from his old squad at Alamein that he sees more or less regularly is Sayid because he’s bunking in the room next to Desmond; they took a couple of walks together since they got on leave, and Desmond didn’t ask Sayid how it was that he knew precisely where to go already. Knowing the bloke, he might have studied it when training. Or when he was learning Italian. Or something. Anyway, they don’t even really talk much to each other when they’re around together, but Desmond doesn’t really mind it. After you spend one year and a half trusting a man to cover your back while you throw grenades, you don’t need to talk to him to get what he means.
The bed in his room isn’t so bad, definitely more comfortable than ninety-eight per cent of the surfaces he has slept on since he enrolled, and he finds out he can still look out of his window at six in the morning and think that the view outside his room, a stretch of houses and churches and Roman ruins (not bomb ruins) bathed in the warm pink light of dawn, is breathtaking.
That’s pretty much the best thing that has happened to him lately.
He wonders if he should try to contact Penny, if she’s still in London and if she’s still alive (which isn’t indeed a sure thing). They had been exchanging letters for a while before the Blitz; but now she seems mostly a faraway memory of a perfect time that won’t ever be again and anyway, what would he tell her? Or what should he ask her? The more he thinks about it, the more it sounds like a useless idea.
The second evening, he’s with Sayid at the hotel’s bar. Which has enough supplies, but then again, considering that it’s all soldiers in here, it’s probably the army providing for it.
“Can I ask you somethin’, brother?”
“I figure you might. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know you. Am I right?”
“Bloody right. You have a wife back home? Or a girl?”
Sayid sips from his coffee and looks at the street at his left.
“Not a wife, but yes, there was someone. Once. Before I enrolled. She was named Nadia. I thought I could have asked her to marry me after I reached a good position and had enough money, but she left the country after 1941. After Rashid Ali’s coup d’etat, in 1940.”
Desmond suspects that his face definitely shows that he doesn’t have an idea about the salient facts in Iraq’s recent history. Sayid just shakes his head, though.
“I was not expecting you to know about it. Anyway, I think her family went to Europe. I do not know where specifically. I wouldn’t even know how to track her down. So I think it is safe to say that I don’t have one. Did you ask that for a reason?”
Desmond shrugs. He doesn’t have a reason. He glances back at the hotel’s hall; Jack is playing chess with some Italian janitor, Sawyer is cheering for the Italian who seemingly gets it even if his English is downright bloody awful and Jin is sitting on an armchair writing a letter. Sometimes he misses Michael, but he figures he’s better off with his kid back to the States. It almost looks nice. If only Sawyer wasn’t practically using one arm only and if Charlie wasn’t lost somewhere, but the lad can take care of himself.
He hopes. It’s still three days before his leave is over and Desmond thinks that he definitely needs a stronger drink than the coffee Sayid has been making him nurse all evening. He wasn’t raised for coffee, bloody hell.
“Did you decide what are you goin’ to do after?” Desmond suddenly asks, and he’s not drunk enough to justify such a question. Wait, he isn’t drunk at all. And he definitely needs to be drunk in order to do this. Hell, last time he did that they were on a ship and he felt high enough on his spirits, but for now he really doesn’t feel that great and he isn’t even sure he wants to know the answer.
“You will be disappointed. But... let’s say I do not like planning too much ahead of time. It did not exactly serve me right until now. What about you?”
“Same thing, mate. We make a damn good pair, y’know that?”
Sayid half smiles at him and for a second Desmond thinks his heart misses a beat for some reason.
--
Three days later, they are all temporarily stationed here. Well, at least their division and that’s just fine in Desmond’s book; the weather is still lovely, the city is still beautiful even if he tries not to look too closely because otherwise he really should re-think that, people still haven’t started to dislike them and he really isn’t missing being on the field. For all he cares, he’d be done, but he still won’t dare hope to get stationed here for the rest of the war. If they call him, he’ll go; for now he patrols with whoever he gets for a partner (usually either Charlie or Sayid or someone else from the hotel). One of those evenings the pilot, Frank, the one with whom Desmond had a chat some time ago, pops up at the bar saying that tomorrow he’s leaving for England and that they should keep their eyes and ears open because from what he knows there’s something big going on. Desmond just shrugs. For him, the whole Italian campaign was big enough.
Though well, he figures that on the larger scale Alamein was bigger.
Or maybe not.
Bloody hell, he wasn’t trained to discuss that kind of information and he wasn’t even interested.
He doesn’t know why he feels so miserable when he really doesn’t have a reason. Maybe because he has never been actually stationed. When they ever were, they knew it wasn’t going to be long before leaving again. Now he doesn’t know and when someone slips him the name of some popular prostitute he just shrugs and says he’ll think about it.
It’s just so unfair that there’s such a bright sun shining outside and that he doesn’t feel allowed to feel bad. Or something like that.
Maybe it’s also because he’s talking to the people on the streets. Right, communication it’s not always that easy, but he does manage, and the more he hears the more he wishes he had stayed at Alamein. Hell, at least there weren’t any civilians included. He doesn’t think that he had ever seen civilians outside cities back then (but well, they weren’t fighting in cities, and Desmond liked that better).
A month goes away like this; he patrols, he talks to civilians, he pays a visit to that women everyone recommends and he gets out of her door thinking that it really wasn’t worth it. He patrols at times alone and at times with Sayid, sometimes he plays chess in the hotel’s lobby. The more the weather warms up, the more melancholy he becomes. Charlie sometimes asks him if he’s missing the crap summer rain at home and if he isn’t crazy if it is the case, but Desmond isn’t missing home. Not really. He’s just feeling like he’s slowly going crazy for some reason, which has to be that he hasn’t moved for one month and that he knows he won’t move soon; it just seems like he’s cut off even if he isn’t and it just gives him get headaches.
The hotel has a radio perpetually on, tuned to some British station which broadcasts from someplace in the south; there’s always someone sitting near it, and Desmond sometimes does too. He listens greedily to news from France and he can’t help notice that the more their brothers in arms advance, the lighter the mood gets here; but after all, it’s normal. They’re stationed here so they’re in no immediate danger, things in France are seemingly faring as well as they could and maybe, maybe this winter it could be over.
That’s probably when he realizes that if it’s over this winter it leaves him nowhere.
Oh, he’d rather be anywhere but here and he doesn’t think he can stomach the idea of fighting in the field again, but here he has a place, more or less, and a role, and something to do. If and when he’s discharged (because he knows he doesn’t want this for a living, he can’t, he never could), then he won’t have a place to go back, or someone to wait for him, or some kind of job like his previous one. Sure, he could search for Penny, maybe the army would even track her down for him, but should he? Could it work or seeing her would just remind him of everything he won’t ever get back?
On August 25th, he’s sitting at the radio when they announce that Paris was taken.
The hall erupts in a cheer so loud that almost makes him dizzy. He can feel happiness radiating from everyone next to him and it sort of eases into him too, to the point that after finding himself with Charlie’s arms around his neck for at least a minute he ends up half-hugging Sawyer, who keeps his arm out of the way and shouts that he just doesn’t get what’s the problem, it’s just a damned French city, but he’s laughing as he says it and he ends up clapping Jack on the shoulder at least five times before saying they should all get a drink.
Most of the hall agrees.
Desmond doesn’t really feel like it though, and he just stays back, enjoying the scene and relishing the warmth that fills him up right this second, trying just to seize the moment. Like he could fold it like a picture and take it with him and unfold it whenever he feels like it.
Wishful thinking, sure, but he won’t let himself think about that just now.
“Aren’t you celebrating?” a soft voice asks from his left, and Desmond isn’t too surprised to find next to him the only person in the hall who doesn’t drink.
“I am. In my own way, brother. You aren’t?”
“I doubt they would let me to drink coffee, were I to join them.”
“Maybe. So, you happy for the news?”
“Well, yes. Things look definitely good, I dare say.”
Sayid smiles at him then, small and sort of enigmatic and definitely there; Desmond’s heart sort of skips a beat for some reason like it happened ages ago in Alamein.
“Aye. They… they do.”
“Any reason you are not drinking?”
“For once I kinda don’t feel like it. It’s good like this. Also, I don’t want to owe Sawyer. Even if the army’s payin’, but it’s the principle.”
“Yes, I figure that it does. Indeed.”
There’s silence for a second before Sayid speaks again. “I have spoken with a number of people. They say they’re going to ask to be sent on a mission again. Either France or here.”
Desmond nods; he can imagine why someone would ask that now. They probably feel like it’s almost over and they might have the chance to be there when it is. There meaning Germany, he figures.
“Will you?”
“Ask, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“… no. I’m alright here. I mean, I just feel like I’ve done my share. You aren’t going to tell Jack or anyone with an actual rank that I’m not even considerin’ it, are you?” Desmond asks.
“I wouldn’t, do not concern yourself with this.”
“I just… I’m tired. Here, it isn’t so bad. And just, I’m sick of all the rest.”
“I was not going to ask either. It happens that I agree with you. And...”
Desmond’s eyes meet Sayid’s again and he can see it mirrored; he can read plain as day that Sayid is dead tired too, and Desmond swallows before nodding. And apparently, he’s also staring at Sayid’s lips and he doesn’t even know how it happened.
“And...?”
“No, it’s nothing,” Sayid answers, but he isn’t looking at him and Desmond has an idea that he isn’t telling the whole truth here.
Meanwhile, outside it’s getting dark. Desmond spares a glance at Charlie sort of dragging Boone out of the hotel. He shrugs and looks at Sayid again.
“I’ll turn in, I guess.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Not really. Apart from having that patrol tomorrow, but... maybe I just don’t feel like getting wasted when it isn’t really done.”
Sayid nods and then after Desmond has taken two steps towards the exit of the hall, he moves from the wall and joins him.
“I think I will go with you. It’s not like I have someone to talk to, otherwise.”
Desmond nods and they climb the stairs until the last floor; his room is before Sayid’s, so by all means Sayid should just wave at him and reach the next door, but Desmond somehow doesn’t feel too surprised when he stops instead of going forward.
“Sayid?” he breathes, wishing the light in the hallway wasn’t so dim. “What’s going on...?”
The answer is lips hastily brushing against his for one second before Sayid breaks it as if he got burned.
Desmond should feel shocked, but somehow he isn’t.
“I... I am sorry. I shouldn’t have... it was not...”
And then Sayid just bolts and shuts the door.
Desmond brings a hand to his lips; it was just a bare touch but it felt like goddamned fire and now he doesn’t know what he should do.
Right. He needs to think about this.
He goes inside his room, sits on his bed, takes a breath. It was the first time that, considering the situation, he touched another fellow soldier like that. Well. He didn’t do anything, but Sayid obviously wasn’t too okay with it even if he did start it.
Also he’s pretty sure he never was one to give free handjobs either.
To be honest, Desmond hadn’t found that too wrong. Actually, for the two seconds it lasted, he had liked it. Four years ago Desmond would have probably lost his head at the mere idea of not finding it wrong (well, four years ago he was in a monastery; he figures he would have indeed). Maybe it’s just that after all he has seen, it just seems so trivial to think about all of the reasons why he shouldn’t when it felt everything but something he shouldn’t have done. Or agreed with.
He wonders if knocking at Sayid’s door and bringing that bottle of whiskey he has in his room which someone gave him out of sheer gratitude for something he can’t even remember he did while they were trying to get Cassino would help, but then again no. Sayid isn’t really the kind of person who drinks and he has had more than one occasion to witness it.
Point is, he likes the man. He has since there was that sort of spark between them at Alamein, and while he thinks that brother Campbell at the monastery would probably lecture him a lot, and Desmond is pretty sure that in his book kissing a man who is also definitely Muslim would buy him a straight ticket downstairs, it’s also true that if he had bought himself a ticket downstairs, he did it the day he volunteered for this. That really is not what worries him.
But maybe it worries someone else. Then again, Sayid did start it.
Oh, to Hell, he thinks as he stands up and grabs the whiskey. He thinks he wants to do it again and while he can’t say that part of his decision isn’t being influenced by the couple of drinks he had downstairs, he really isn’t in the mood to think about it too much. Fifteen minutes passed. He figures they might be enough.
He stands up and knocks on Sayid’s door, asking if he can come in; when the answer is yes, he pushes on the doorknob and then bolts the door before turning in Sayid’s direction.
The other man has just stood up and Desmond can’t help noticing that he looks pretty perplexed. Oh. Right. The whiskey.
“Fancy a drink?” he says, shrugging and trying to sound nonchalant.
“In normal circumstances, I would say no.” Then Sayid takes a breath, grabs two glasses and comes closer, looking slightly more at ease than before. “But... I don’t believe this is a normal circumstance. Not much though.”
Desmond nods and pours him half a glass, then he pours himself an entire one. He takes a sip. It’s not bad at all.
Sayid takes one too. A very tiny one. Then some more. Then he takes a breath and meets his eyes for the first time since... since.
“Desmond, I am sorry for...”
“I didn’t mind it.”
Sayid looks so shocked that Desmond would laugh, if there was anything fun to laugh about.
“You... but aren’t you... I mean, I shouldn’t want it. It shouldn’t be right.”
“I think it doesn’t rank too high in my list of things I should atone for, brother.”
Sayid nods, wordlessly giving him a point, then finishes his glass and asks for a refill. Desmond gives it and he can’t help feeling slightly surprised when Sayid drinks it all at once.
“It isn’t... too bad. Another thing I will add to my list.”
“I hope you don’t regret it,” Desmond answers, and then he realizes that they’re close, closer than before, and Sayid is staring at him and damn, he’s a man after all and he has already decided where he stands, and so he just says to hell with it and closes the distance between them.
For a second, it’s almost a shock; Desmond hasn’t kissed anyone since Penny and it was years ago; and while he hasn’t been, no pun intended, a monk in the last two years and a half, he never kissed whoever it was that he happened to share a bed with. It just didn’t seem like the right thing to do, but now it does, oh it does, and he doesn’t know how they even got here but it feels good like nothing else has felt good lately. Sayid’s lips are soft and his mouth is blissfully warm, his frame real and tangible against Desmond’s like no other partners he has had since the war started ever were, and the strangest thing is that there’s nothing harsh about this. It’s slow, almost sweet, which is a countersense in itself because that’s not how things should be. Sayid kisses him the same way he does pretty much everything. Slowly, thoroughly, methodically, even if he’s kind of sloppy at times (but he tastes of Desmond’s whiskey, that was kind of a given) and Desmond moans when hands grab his waist and push him forward.
Desmond’s hand reaches the band keeping Sayid’s hair tied (at least one of them found a way to avoid the regular hair cuts) and his fingers grip softly around dark, soft curls.
It feels so not like it should, but Desmond keeps the kiss going because he doesn’t know what happens when it’s over and he doesn’t really want it to be over. Right, it is weird someway because Desmond has never looked at a man like this (even if now the more he thinks about it the more he isn’t exactly sure that he has never looked at Sayid like this) but right now it just makes sense. As the kiss breaks he has to take a long breath; Sayid’s lips are still mere inches from his own, his hands on Desmond’s waist. Desmond’s don’t move and they just look at each other for a minute. Desmond takes another long breath.
“What are we doing?” Sayid asks then, even if he doesn’t sound like he’s regretting it. And it doesn’t sound like he’ll flee this time too, either.
“You want my honest opinion, brother? I don’t have an idea, but if you’re fine with it, I won’t ever say anything that’s gonna make you get discharged with dishonour.”
“I... just, it should be...”
“It should feel wrong, shouldn’t it?”
“... yes. It should be wrong. But...”
“But it isn’t.”
Sayid nods, taking a shaky breath himself; it isn’t. Really.
“No. I should care, but... no. I don’t. I was not planning on...”
“Well, me neither. So. Do you... do we...”
Desmond decides that he doesn’t have much to say right this moment. He kisses Sayid again instead.
Later, though not much, they will get rid of their uniforms carefully and they will fall on Desmond’s bad, the sheets tangling between them. They will touch each other without really thinking about what they’re doing, just going with what feels good.
They will fumble, they will hesitate, they will clutch at each other, half-broken nails leaving red trails on their backs; they will rub against each other, naked skin on naked skin, and for this time (which won’t be the last) they won’t really need much else. At one point Desmond will take the initiative; his right hand will reach down in between them, and it won’t take much for them both to come against each other while they can faintly hear people celebrating down in the street. Sayid won’t move for a while, then he will ask whether he might stay and Desmond will just say yes.
For now, they just barely touch, hands roaming under the respective uniforms, and they just stay there kissing because it feels good, and different somewhat but not necessarily in a negative sense, and not like they’re two men but just like they are two people who, in this precise moment, need each other even if they can’t (or won’t) exactly say the specific, actual reason.
Or maybe there is more than one, but that’s not really the whole point.
--
“What’s her name?”
Desmond almost spits his coffee as Sawyer sits near him.
“Excuse me?”
“Spit it out. You obviously got laid last night, and it was a good one.”
“And how would you know that?”
“’S written all over your face. Also, it was a skill I needed in my previous line of employment. Obviously she ain’t the one they’re all recommendin’, since I know you went there already and you weren’t that impressed. So?”
Desmond smiles slightly and does definitely not look at his left, knowing that Sayid is sitting at the opposite side of the counter.
“Well, brother, a man’s got to have his secrets. Have a good day,” he says, and then leaves the hotel. If his shoulder brushes against Sayid’s as he gets out, no one notices.
--
Sawyer keeps on staring at the door even after Desmond is out.
“Mate, you’re gonna catch flies if you keep your mouth open like that.”
“Charlie, shut the fucking hell up.”
“You called someone by his given name?”
“Prettiness, shut up too.”
“Now I recognize you.”
“Oh, get fucking lost,” he mutters before seeing that Jin is playing against some New Zealander at the chess table. “I’m gonna have some fun watchin’ before I need to get on fucking duty,” he says before standing up and joining them.
Charlie turns and looks at Boone, who in turn seems like he hasn’t decided if he should look amused or perplexed.
“I think I’m missing something here, mate.”
“Well, someone is being all dramatic for no reason and your friend seemingly had a nice night. I mean, Sawyer is being dramatic. Desmond seemingly had a nice night.”
“I’m pretty sure he went upstairs last evening tho. Or at least, while we were goin’ out I saw him and Sayid going back to the rooms. Or so I figured. Nice night my ass, if you ask me.”
Boone just shrugs and looks at him again, blue eyes so piercing that for a second Charlie feels lightheaded. He likes having the bloke around, sure, but when he stares at you? So not comfortable. Then he half-smiles and he becomes human again instead of some kind of otherwordly creature with eyes too huge to be legal.
“Charlie, how much is two plus two?”
“... four?”
“That’s a principle you might want to apply. Well, I’ve got rounds.”
“That hospital inside the church again?”
“That one. If you want to drop by sometime this afternoon, that wouldn’t be too bad.”
Boone winks at him before disappearing through the door again and then Charlie gets it.
Getting laid. Desmond and Sayid. Going upstairs. Two plus two makes four.
Bloody hell.
For a second he blushes for no actual reason except the result his maths gave him.
Then he realizes that he should care but he really doesn’t.
Then he realizes he should be on sodding patrol already and so should Jin. So he just forces himself to go and grab him, Sawyer can go on with the chess game anyway since it’s not like he follows orders to the letter and Jack isn’t around to make him.
He’ll definitely drop by later. He needs a drink.
--
That evening, Sawyer doesn’t really pay attention when Desmond goes upstairs early again and Sayid follows soon after. A lot of people are turning in early anyway.
Then he notices that Jack is sitting right next to him and he wasn’t ten seconds ago.
“Doc. Anythin’ important to say? I ain’t seen you ‘round much, lately.”
He figures that when you get promoted again and get constantly called to the headquarters you don’t have much time to hang around.
“Yeah, I had stuff going on at the headquarters. You know about Florence, right?”
“That we took it? Yeah, sure. What ‘bout it?”
“They’re planning on breaking the Gothic line this fall. And they want me to go. I should bring at least ten people, but it doesn’t have to be the same with whom I arrived. I mean, it’s not like we didn’t change divisions already. I’m not bringing anyone who wants to stay here, but I already asked around.”
“Who’s comin’?”
“Jin is. That Straume guy who was already here when we arrived. Of the people with you, no one. Except you, but I’m asking you now. Do you want to come?”
“Any particular reason you’re askin’ me?”
“Well, makes sense that I would ask someone that I’ve known for a while first, right?”
Sawyer nods, taking a drink from the glass in front of him. Water, which is lame, but still. It isn’t even nine in the evening and he’s still half-hungover from last night. He closes his eyes and takes a breath, weighs the pro and cons. After a while, he realizes that it’s exactly the same thing. Either he stays and when the war is over he will have to fade in the background or disappear somewhere because someone will find out that he isn’t exactly registered regularly in the British Army, or he goes and in that case he could either die or live and it’d be the same damn thing. It’s not like he can go back to the States anyway. He reaches for a coin in the pocket of his trousers.
“What the hell..?”
“Heads I’m stayin’, tails I’m comin’.”
“You can’t decide by throwing a coin!”
“It’s the same. I damn well can.”
He flips it, then grabs it as it falls and slams it on the back of his hand. He lifts the one holding it.
Tails.
“Well, guess I’m comin’ then.”
“You’re crazy,” Jack mutters asking for something stronger than water. Sawyer figures that he is but the idea of going doesn’t disturb him half as much as it should.
--
When they leave it’s mid September; Sawyer is surprised to hear Desmond say that he’s probably going to miss his face. Charlie just scowls but then he says it too. He shakes hands with Sayid, formal and generally respectful as it always was between the two of them, he tells Boone to stay pretty for them and earns an annoyed face (Jack gets a full hug, but whatever, in between patching people up Sawyer figures you develop some kind of connection or whatever crap it is), he notices that Desmond and Sayid do kind of stay closer than usual and then he’s out to fetch the car bringing all of them to some train station in order to get to Florence first.
Jack sits next to him more or less the whole time even if they don’t say nothing.
Sawyer doesn’t exactly mind. Fuck knows if he has an idea why.
Part VI
He might be in Rome, but as he had figured he would, Desmond doesn’t play tourist often.
Right, he has a five days’ leave like mostly everyone in their division which is stationed in a sort of half-run down hotel somewhere in the center, if he understood right, whose only occupants are British soldiers; if he looks up at the sky he sees it’s of a clear, pure blue and then he remembers that he’s on leave and that if he looks in front of him instead of above, the scenery won’t be much different from what he got used since they started fighting in cities or villages or places where civilians are. Right, the buildings are mostly standing up and he can’t smell gunpowder or breathe dust like in Naples, but he can’t help noticing that most of the people who thank him profusely as he takes a walk are wearing torn clothes and no shoes and that while everyone looks pretty much happy (he’s sure it’ll wear off soon, but he hopes not too soon) they all look so tired. Desmond is tired too.
The only person from his old squad at Alamein that he sees more or less regularly is Sayid because he’s bunking in the room next to Desmond; they took a couple of walks together since they got on leave, and Desmond didn’t ask Sayid how it was that he knew precisely where to go already. Knowing the bloke, he might have studied it when training. Or when he was learning Italian. Or something. Anyway, they don’t even really talk much to each other when they’re around together, but Desmond doesn’t really mind it. After you spend one year and a half trusting a man to cover your back while you throw grenades, you don’t need to talk to him to get what he means.
The bed in his room isn’t so bad, definitely more comfortable than ninety-eight per cent of the surfaces he has slept on since he enrolled, and he finds out he can still look out of his window at six in the morning and think that the view outside his room, a stretch of houses and churches and Roman ruins (not bomb ruins) bathed in the warm pink light of dawn, is breathtaking.
That’s pretty much the best thing that has happened to him lately.
He wonders if he should try to contact Penny, if she’s still in London and if she’s still alive (which isn’t indeed a sure thing). They had been exchanging letters for a while before the Blitz; but now she seems mostly a faraway memory of a perfect time that won’t ever be again and anyway, what would he tell her? Or what should he ask her? The more he thinks about it, the more it sounds like a useless idea.
The second evening, he’s with Sayid at the hotel’s bar. Which has enough supplies, but then again, considering that it’s all soldiers in here, it’s probably the army providing for it.
“Can I ask you somethin’, brother?”
“I figure you might. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know you. Am I right?”
“Bloody right. You have a wife back home? Or a girl?”
Sayid sips from his coffee and looks at the street at his left.
“Not a wife, but yes, there was someone. Once. Before I enrolled. She was named Nadia. I thought I could have asked her to marry me after I reached a good position and had enough money, but she left the country after 1941. After Rashid Ali’s coup d’etat, in 1940.”
Desmond suspects that his face definitely shows that he doesn’t have an idea about the salient facts in Iraq’s recent history. Sayid just shakes his head, though.
“I was not expecting you to know about it. Anyway, I think her family went to Europe. I do not know where specifically. I wouldn’t even know how to track her down. So I think it is safe to say that I don’t have one. Did you ask that for a reason?”
Desmond shrugs. He doesn’t have a reason. He glances back at the hotel’s hall; Jack is playing chess with some Italian janitor, Sawyer is cheering for the Italian who seemingly gets it even if his English is downright bloody awful and Jin is sitting on an armchair writing a letter. Sometimes he misses Michael, but he figures he’s better off with his kid back to the States. It almost looks nice. If only Sawyer wasn’t practically using one arm only and if Charlie wasn’t lost somewhere, but the lad can take care of himself.
He hopes. It’s still three days before his leave is over and Desmond thinks that he definitely needs a stronger drink than the coffee Sayid has been making him nurse all evening. He wasn’t raised for coffee, bloody hell.
“Did you decide what are you goin’ to do after?” Desmond suddenly asks, and he’s not drunk enough to justify such a question. Wait, he isn’t drunk at all. And he definitely needs to be drunk in order to do this. Hell, last time he did that they were on a ship and he felt high enough on his spirits, but for now he really doesn’t feel that great and he isn’t even sure he wants to know the answer.
“You will be disappointed. But... let’s say I do not like planning too much ahead of time. It did not exactly serve me right until now. What about you?”
“Same thing, mate. We make a damn good pair, y’know that?”
Sayid half smiles at him and for a second Desmond thinks his heart misses a beat for some reason.
--
Three days later, they are all temporarily stationed here. Well, at least their division and that’s just fine in Desmond’s book; the weather is still lovely, the city is still beautiful even if he tries not to look too closely because otherwise he really should re-think that, people still haven’t started to dislike them and he really isn’t missing being on the field. For all he cares, he’d be done, but he still won’t dare hope to get stationed here for the rest of the war. If they call him, he’ll go; for now he patrols with whoever he gets for a partner (usually either Charlie or Sayid or someone else from the hotel). One of those evenings the pilot, Frank, the one with whom Desmond had a chat some time ago, pops up at the bar saying that tomorrow he’s leaving for England and that they should keep their eyes and ears open because from what he knows there’s something big going on. Desmond just shrugs. For him, the whole Italian campaign was big enough.
Though well, he figures that on the larger scale Alamein was bigger.
Or maybe not.
Bloody hell, he wasn’t trained to discuss that kind of information and he wasn’t even interested.
He doesn’t know why he feels so miserable when he really doesn’t have a reason. Maybe because he has never been actually stationed. When they ever were, they knew it wasn’t going to be long before leaving again. Now he doesn’t know and when someone slips him the name of some popular prostitute he just shrugs and says he’ll think about it.
It’s just so unfair that there’s such a bright sun shining outside and that he doesn’t feel allowed to feel bad. Or something like that.
Maybe it’s also because he’s talking to the people on the streets. Right, communication it’s not always that easy, but he does manage, and the more he hears the more he wishes he had stayed at Alamein. Hell, at least there weren’t any civilians included. He doesn’t think that he had ever seen civilians outside cities back then (but well, they weren’t fighting in cities, and Desmond liked that better).
A month goes away like this; he patrols, he talks to civilians, he pays a visit to that women everyone recommends and he gets out of her door thinking that it really wasn’t worth it. He patrols at times alone and at times with Sayid, sometimes he plays chess in the hotel’s lobby. The more the weather warms up, the more melancholy he becomes. Charlie sometimes asks him if he’s missing the crap summer rain at home and if he isn’t crazy if it is the case, but Desmond isn’t missing home. Not really. He’s just feeling like he’s slowly going crazy for some reason, which has to be that he hasn’t moved for one month and that he knows he won’t move soon; it just seems like he’s cut off even if he isn’t and it just gives him get headaches.
The hotel has a radio perpetually on, tuned to some British station which broadcasts from someplace in the south; there’s always someone sitting near it, and Desmond sometimes does too. He listens greedily to news from France and he can’t help notice that the more their brothers in arms advance, the lighter the mood gets here; but after all, it’s normal. They’re stationed here so they’re in no immediate danger, things in France are seemingly faring as well as they could and maybe, maybe this winter it could be over.
That’s probably when he realizes that if it’s over this winter it leaves him nowhere.
Oh, he’d rather be anywhere but here and he doesn’t think he can stomach the idea of fighting in the field again, but here he has a place, more or less, and a role, and something to do. If and when he’s discharged (because he knows he doesn’t want this for a living, he can’t, he never could), then he won’t have a place to go back, or someone to wait for him, or some kind of job like his previous one. Sure, he could search for Penny, maybe the army would even track her down for him, but should he? Could it work or seeing her would just remind him of everything he won’t ever get back?
On August 25th, he’s sitting at the radio when they announce that Paris was taken.
The hall erupts in a cheer so loud that almost makes him dizzy. He can feel happiness radiating from everyone next to him and it sort of eases into him too, to the point that after finding himself with Charlie’s arms around his neck for at least a minute he ends up half-hugging Sawyer, who keeps his arm out of the way and shouts that he just doesn’t get what’s the problem, it’s just a damned French city, but he’s laughing as he says it and he ends up clapping Jack on the shoulder at least five times before saying they should all get a drink.
Most of the hall agrees.
Desmond doesn’t really feel like it though, and he just stays back, enjoying the scene and relishing the warmth that fills him up right this second, trying just to seize the moment. Like he could fold it like a picture and take it with him and unfold it whenever he feels like it.
Wishful thinking, sure, but he won’t let himself think about that just now.
“Aren’t you celebrating?” a soft voice asks from his left, and Desmond isn’t too surprised to find next to him the only person in the hall who doesn’t drink.
“I am. In my own way, brother. You aren’t?”
“I doubt they would let me to drink coffee, were I to join them.”
“Maybe. So, you happy for the news?”
“Well, yes. Things look definitely good, I dare say.”
Sayid smiles at him then, small and sort of enigmatic and definitely there; Desmond’s heart sort of skips a beat for some reason like it happened ages ago in Alamein.
“Aye. They… they do.”
“Any reason you are not drinking?”
“For once I kinda don’t feel like it. It’s good like this. Also, I don’t want to owe Sawyer. Even if the army’s payin’, but it’s the principle.”
“Yes, I figure that it does. Indeed.”
There’s silence for a second before Sayid speaks again. “I have spoken with a number of people. They say they’re going to ask to be sent on a mission again. Either France or here.”
Desmond nods; he can imagine why someone would ask that now. They probably feel like it’s almost over and they might have the chance to be there when it is. There meaning Germany, he figures.
“Will you?”
“Ask, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“… no. I’m alright here. I mean, I just feel like I’ve done my share. You aren’t going to tell Jack or anyone with an actual rank that I’m not even considerin’ it, are you?” Desmond asks.
“I wouldn’t, do not concern yourself with this.”
“I just… I’m tired. Here, it isn’t so bad. And just, I’m sick of all the rest.”
“I was not going to ask either. It happens that I agree with you. And...”
Desmond’s eyes meet Sayid’s again and he can see it mirrored; he can read plain as day that Sayid is dead tired too, and Desmond swallows before nodding. And apparently, he’s also staring at Sayid’s lips and he doesn’t even know how it happened.
“And...?”
“No, it’s nothing,” Sayid answers, but he isn’t looking at him and Desmond has an idea that he isn’t telling the whole truth here.
Meanwhile, outside it’s getting dark. Desmond spares a glance at Charlie sort of dragging Boone out of the hotel. He shrugs and looks at Sayid again.
“I’ll turn in, I guess.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Not really. Apart from having that patrol tomorrow, but... maybe I just don’t feel like getting wasted when it isn’t really done.”
Sayid nods and then after Desmond has taken two steps towards the exit of the hall, he moves from the wall and joins him.
“I think I will go with you. It’s not like I have someone to talk to, otherwise.”
Desmond nods and they climb the stairs until the last floor; his room is before Sayid’s, so by all means Sayid should just wave at him and reach the next door, but Desmond somehow doesn’t feel too surprised when he stops instead of going forward.
“Sayid?” he breathes, wishing the light in the hallway wasn’t so dim. “What’s going on...?”
The answer is lips hastily brushing against his for one second before Sayid breaks it as if he got burned.
Desmond should feel shocked, but somehow he isn’t.
“I... I am sorry. I shouldn’t have... it was not...”
And then Sayid just bolts and shuts the door.
Desmond brings a hand to his lips; it was just a bare touch but it felt like goddamned fire and now he doesn’t know what he should do.
Right. He needs to think about this.
He goes inside his room, sits on his bed, takes a breath. It was the first time that, considering the situation, he touched another fellow soldier like that. Well. He didn’t do anything, but Sayid obviously wasn’t too okay with it even if he did start it.
Also he’s pretty sure he never was one to give free handjobs either.
To be honest, Desmond hadn’t found that too wrong. Actually, for the two seconds it lasted, he had liked it. Four years ago Desmond would have probably lost his head at the mere idea of not finding it wrong (well, four years ago he was in a monastery; he figures he would have indeed). Maybe it’s just that after all he has seen, it just seems so trivial to think about all of the reasons why he shouldn’t when it felt everything but something he shouldn’t have done. Or agreed with.
He wonders if knocking at Sayid’s door and bringing that bottle of whiskey he has in his room which someone gave him out of sheer gratitude for something he can’t even remember he did while they were trying to get Cassino would help, but then again no. Sayid isn’t really the kind of person who drinks and he has had more than one occasion to witness it.
Point is, he likes the man. He has since there was that sort of spark between them at Alamein, and while he thinks that brother Campbell at the monastery would probably lecture him a lot, and Desmond is pretty sure that in his book kissing a man who is also definitely Muslim would buy him a straight ticket downstairs, it’s also true that if he had bought himself a ticket downstairs, he did it the day he volunteered for this. That really is not what worries him.
But maybe it worries someone else. Then again, Sayid did start it.
Oh, to Hell, he thinks as he stands up and grabs the whiskey. He thinks he wants to do it again and while he can’t say that part of his decision isn’t being influenced by the couple of drinks he had downstairs, he really isn’t in the mood to think about it too much. Fifteen minutes passed. He figures they might be enough.
He stands up and knocks on Sayid’s door, asking if he can come in; when the answer is yes, he pushes on the doorknob and then bolts the door before turning in Sayid’s direction.
The other man has just stood up and Desmond can’t help noticing that he looks pretty perplexed. Oh. Right. The whiskey.
“Fancy a drink?” he says, shrugging and trying to sound nonchalant.
“In normal circumstances, I would say no.” Then Sayid takes a breath, grabs two glasses and comes closer, looking slightly more at ease than before. “But... I don’t believe this is a normal circumstance. Not much though.”
Desmond nods and pours him half a glass, then he pours himself an entire one. He takes a sip. It’s not bad at all.
Sayid takes one too. A very tiny one. Then some more. Then he takes a breath and meets his eyes for the first time since... since.
“Desmond, I am sorry for...”
“I didn’t mind it.”
Sayid looks so shocked that Desmond would laugh, if there was anything fun to laugh about.
“You... but aren’t you... I mean, I shouldn’t want it. It shouldn’t be right.”
“I think it doesn’t rank too high in my list of things I should atone for, brother.”
Sayid nods, wordlessly giving him a point, then finishes his glass and asks for a refill. Desmond gives it and he can’t help feeling slightly surprised when Sayid drinks it all at once.
“It isn’t... too bad. Another thing I will add to my list.”
“I hope you don’t regret it,” Desmond answers, and then he realizes that they’re close, closer than before, and Sayid is staring at him and damn, he’s a man after all and he has already decided where he stands, and so he just says to hell with it and closes the distance between them.
For a second, it’s almost a shock; Desmond hasn’t kissed anyone since Penny and it was years ago; and while he hasn’t been, no pun intended, a monk in the last two years and a half, he never kissed whoever it was that he happened to share a bed with. It just didn’t seem like the right thing to do, but now it does, oh it does, and he doesn’t know how they even got here but it feels good like nothing else has felt good lately. Sayid’s lips are soft and his mouth is blissfully warm, his frame real and tangible against Desmond’s like no other partners he has had since the war started ever were, and the strangest thing is that there’s nothing harsh about this. It’s slow, almost sweet, which is a countersense in itself because that’s not how things should be. Sayid kisses him the same way he does pretty much everything. Slowly, thoroughly, methodically, even if he’s kind of sloppy at times (but he tastes of Desmond’s whiskey, that was kind of a given) and Desmond moans when hands grab his waist and push him forward.
Desmond’s hand reaches the band keeping Sayid’s hair tied (at least one of them found a way to avoid the regular hair cuts) and his fingers grip softly around dark, soft curls.
It feels so not like it should, but Desmond keeps the kiss going because he doesn’t know what happens when it’s over and he doesn’t really want it to be over. Right, it is weird someway because Desmond has never looked at a man like this (even if now the more he thinks about it the more he isn’t exactly sure that he has never looked at Sayid like this) but right now it just makes sense. As the kiss breaks he has to take a long breath; Sayid’s lips are still mere inches from his own, his hands on Desmond’s waist. Desmond’s don’t move and they just look at each other for a minute. Desmond takes another long breath.
“What are we doing?” Sayid asks then, even if he doesn’t sound like he’s regretting it. And it doesn’t sound like he’ll flee this time too, either.
“You want my honest opinion, brother? I don’t have an idea, but if you’re fine with it, I won’t ever say anything that’s gonna make you get discharged with dishonour.”
“I... just, it should be...”
“It should feel wrong, shouldn’t it?”
“... yes. It should be wrong. But...”
“But it isn’t.”
Sayid nods, taking a shaky breath himself; it isn’t. Really.
“No. I should care, but... no. I don’t. I was not planning on...”
“Well, me neither. So. Do you... do we...”
Desmond decides that he doesn’t have much to say right this moment. He kisses Sayid again instead.
Later, though not much, they will get rid of their uniforms carefully and they will fall on Desmond’s bad, the sheets tangling between them. They will touch each other without really thinking about what they’re doing, just going with what feels good.
They will fumble, they will hesitate, they will clutch at each other, half-broken nails leaving red trails on their backs; they will rub against each other, naked skin on naked skin, and for this time (which won’t be the last) they won’t really need much else. At one point Desmond will take the initiative; his right hand will reach down in between them, and it won’t take much for them both to come against each other while they can faintly hear people celebrating down in the street. Sayid won’t move for a while, then he will ask whether he might stay and Desmond will just say yes.
For now, they just barely touch, hands roaming under the respective uniforms, and they just stay there kissing because it feels good, and different somewhat but not necessarily in a negative sense, and not like they’re two men but just like they are two people who, in this precise moment, need each other even if they can’t (or won’t) exactly say the specific, actual reason.
Or maybe there is more than one, but that’s not really the whole point.
--
“What’s her name?”
Desmond almost spits his coffee as Sawyer sits near him.
“Excuse me?”
“Spit it out. You obviously got laid last night, and it was a good one.”
“And how would you know that?”
“’S written all over your face. Also, it was a skill I needed in my previous line of employment. Obviously she ain’t the one they’re all recommendin’, since I know you went there already and you weren’t that impressed. So?”
Desmond smiles slightly and does definitely not look at his left, knowing that Sayid is sitting at the opposite side of the counter.
“Well, brother, a man’s got to have his secrets. Have a good day,” he says, and then leaves the hotel. If his shoulder brushes against Sayid’s as he gets out, no one notices.
--
Sawyer keeps on staring at the door even after Desmond is out.
“Mate, you’re gonna catch flies if you keep your mouth open like that.”
“Charlie, shut the fucking hell up.”
“You called someone by his given name?”
“Prettiness, shut up too.”
“Now I recognize you.”
“Oh, get fucking lost,” he mutters before seeing that Jin is playing against some New Zealander at the chess table. “I’m gonna have some fun watchin’ before I need to get on fucking duty,” he says before standing up and joining them.
Charlie turns and looks at Boone, who in turn seems like he hasn’t decided if he should look amused or perplexed.
“I think I’m missing something here, mate.”
“Well, someone is being all dramatic for no reason and your friend seemingly had a nice night. I mean, Sawyer is being dramatic. Desmond seemingly had a nice night.”
“I’m pretty sure he went upstairs last evening tho. Or at least, while we were goin’ out I saw him and Sayid going back to the rooms. Or so I figured. Nice night my ass, if you ask me.”
Boone just shrugs and looks at him again, blue eyes so piercing that for a second Charlie feels lightheaded. He likes having the bloke around, sure, but when he stares at you? So not comfortable. Then he half-smiles and he becomes human again instead of some kind of otherwordly creature with eyes too huge to be legal.
“Charlie, how much is two plus two?”
“... four?”
“That’s a principle you might want to apply. Well, I’ve got rounds.”
“That hospital inside the church again?”
“That one. If you want to drop by sometime this afternoon, that wouldn’t be too bad.”
Boone winks at him before disappearing through the door again and then Charlie gets it.
Getting laid. Desmond and Sayid. Going upstairs. Two plus two makes four.
Bloody hell.
For a second he blushes for no actual reason except the result his maths gave him.
Then he realizes that he should care but he really doesn’t.
Then he realizes he should be on sodding patrol already and so should Jin. So he just forces himself to go and grab him, Sawyer can go on with the chess game anyway since it’s not like he follows orders to the letter and Jack isn’t around to make him.
He’ll definitely drop by later. He needs a drink.
--
That evening, Sawyer doesn’t really pay attention when Desmond goes upstairs early again and Sayid follows soon after. A lot of people are turning in early anyway.
Then he notices that Jack is sitting right next to him and he wasn’t ten seconds ago.
“Doc. Anythin’ important to say? I ain’t seen you ‘round much, lately.”
He figures that when you get promoted again and get constantly called to the headquarters you don’t have much time to hang around.
“Yeah, I had stuff going on at the headquarters. You know about Florence, right?”
“That we took it? Yeah, sure. What ‘bout it?”
“They’re planning on breaking the Gothic line this fall. And they want me to go. I should bring at least ten people, but it doesn’t have to be the same with whom I arrived. I mean, it’s not like we didn’t change divisions already. I’m not bringing anyone who wants to stay here, but I already asked around.”
“Who’s comin’?”
“Jin is. That Straume guy who was already here when we arrived. Of the people with you, no one. Except you, but I’m asking you now. Do you want to come?”
“Any particular reason you’re askin’ me?”
“Well, makes sense that I would ask someone that I’ve known for a while first, right?”
Sawyer nods, taking a drink from the glass in front of him. Water, which is lame, but still. It isn’t even nine in the evening and he’s still half-hungover from last night. He closes his eyes and takes a breath, weighs the pro and cons. After a while, he realizes that it’s exactly the same thing. Either he stays and when the war is over he will have to fade in the background or disappear somewhere because someone will find out that he isn’t exactly registered regularly in the British Army, or he goes and in that case he could either die or live and it’d be the same damn thing. It’s not like he can go back to the States anyway. He reaches for a coin in the pocket of his trousers.
“What the hell..?”
“Heads I’m stayin’, tails I’m comin’.”
“You can’t decide by throwing a coin!”
“It’s the same. I damn well can.”
He flips it, then grabs it as it falls and slams it on the back of his hand. He lifts the one holding it.
Tails.
“Well, guess I’m comin’ then.”
“You’re crazy,” Jack mutters asking for something stronger than water. Sawyer figures that he is but the idea of going doesn’t disturb him half as much as it should.
--
When they leave it’s mid September; Sawyer is surprised to hear Desmond say that he’s probably going to miss his face. Charlie just scowls but then he says it too. He shakes hands with Sayid, formal and generally respectful as it always was between the two of them, he tells Boone to stay pretty for them and earns an annoyed face (Jack gets a full hug, but whatever, in between patching people up Sawyer figures you develop some kind of connection or whatever crap it is), he notices that Desmond and Sayid do kind of stay closer than usual and then he’s out to fetch the car bringing all of them to some train station in order to get to Florence first.
Jack sits next to him more or less the whole time even if they don’t say nothing.
Sawyer doesn’t exactly mind. Fuck knows if he has an idea why.
Part VI
