Fraul, 26

When he woke, there was a flask of whiskey beside him. He glanced behind him; Fraul had not moved. He drank it like it was a lover and watched Fraul’s face as he lowered it.

His mouth stung anew with the alcohol. He wondered where that tooth was, if he should have kept it. His nose was swollen and he could only breathe out of his mouth; he thought wryly to himself that this was the second time the other man had broken his nose.

At some point he had to get up to eat. When he returned, he heard Crowe’s voice from inside the tent. He felt sick to his stomach and turned away, bringing his plate to the edge of his company.

Crowe had pulled up the stool inside and was sitting with elbows on his knees, his dark hair falling into his eyes. He said, “Do you remember what happened?”

Fraul knew only that what had been painless days had become some new and delicate form of hell. He was hot. He was thirsty. He could not move. Who was this man to question him now?

“General,” he breathed. “Not now.”

“I need your word. This can never happen again.”

Fraul closed his eyes. The pain sparked dully and hovered. He sighed and said, “What, General?”

Crowe met his gaze steadily. “Do you remember?”

“What?” Fraul’s voice was sharp. “I remember your knee in my back. That was most unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant,” Crowe huffed, shaking his head. “You nearly killed two of us.” His gaze was pointed. Fraul had not seen Raru yet, had not been conscious when he was in the tent. His brow creased, trying to think back.

“I remember…Leonard,” he said. His eyes opened, frustrated. “What? What?”

Crowe had folded his arms and was studying the other man, lips pressed together. He said, “Let me get one thing clear. I want you on our side. I do not want to fight you. I…well, I’ve never seen someone, anyone, fight like that.”

Fraul sighed at the ceiling–now was not the time in which he wanted to have this conversation. He wanted to sleep, he wanted blissful unconsciousness. He asked impatiently, “What is this term, berserking? I hear it often.”

“You weren’t there, Captain.” Crowe’s voice softened. “I looked in your eyes and I saw nothing.”

“Ah. Yes. I understand. This skill, I have had a long time.”

“You broke Raru’s nose.”

“Did I?” Fraul was unruffled. “Poor creature.”

“Fraul…” Crowe uncrossed his legs and put both feet on the ground. “You nearly killed him. You were like a wolf among sheep. And if that ever happens again, mark my words, I’ll be the shepherd.” He leaned forward and held Fraul’s gaze with no expression. Fraul’s nose wrinkled.

“General,” he said, “I am doing the best with what I have.”

“And I’m doing my best to protect you.” Crowe stood, gripped his forearm, and Fraul would not let him see his pain. He held his gaze quietly, and he must have been going slightly cross-eyed when black spots appeared in his vision. Crowe released him and he couldn’t help but breathe out.

“I don’t understand, General,” he said. Raru burst into the tent, smelling of whiskey, and got up in Crowe’s face with a voice low and remote.

“If you ever,” he began, his words shaking. “Ever do that again, my discharge will not be honorable. Mark my fucking words.”

“Calm down, Raru,” Crowe said. “It seems he doesn’t remember.” Raru’s eyes shot to Fraul, not expecting him to be awake. He got on his knees and put his fingers in the grass to steady himself, both drunk and injured. Fraul reached out with the only arm that wouldn’t cause him blinding pain and at the last moment withdrew, remembering that Crowe would tolerate only so much between them.

“Era,” he said, taking stock of the blood with a single sweep of his eyes. “What happened to you?” His gaze darted to the general. “Did I do this?”

Crowe smiled, but he was not pleased. “So you see,” he said. Fraul’s lips parted and he said urgently, “Come closer.” Raru was reluctant. Fraul reached out and grabbed his chin and turned it, seeing the slit along his throat. His eyes traveled to Raru’s broken nose, but they returned again and again to his throat. He turned his hand to look at it and the blood on his rings soaked them so absolutely that he couldn’t tell if it was Raru’s.

“Did I do that to you?” he asked firmly, and Raru nodded. Then he giggled.

“You had four men on you and it still took a fifth to stop you.”

“Good lord, is that why I feel this way?” Fraul looked baffled. He touched his head. “Usually I remember.”

“I’ve never seen you like that.” Raru looked to Crowe and his voice hardened. “It still wasn’t right, August, what you did.”

Fraul shook his head. “I need to be alone,” he said, one hand on his forehead. Crowe dipped his head and answered, “My threat stands.”

“You needn’t threaten me, General. I nearly killed…” His unsaid words seemed to reverberate in the silence. His head hurt. He pressed the hand over his eyes and tried, tried to remember. How had it happened?

Crowe left, but Raru hesitated.

“You didn’t know,” he attempted, but the pain leaked through Fraul’s voice and he said sharply, “Leave me, era.”

Raru watched him sadly, and then murmured, “Sir.” He ducked out of the tent and left Fraul in darkness. He caught up to Crowe and said, “General.”

“Are you going to berate me some more, Captain?”

“No, sir.”

“You’ve been drinking.”

“Damn right.” Raru could have laughed. But his voice was somber. “I just…thank you. I don’t know what would have happened without you and Leonard.”

Crowe folded his arms. “You were losing badly to a cripple.”

Raru rolled his eyes, and the general was smiling. One of Raru’s arms rubbed the outside of his other. “Thank you, sir. Again.”

“Go eat, Raru.” Crowe’s eyes were soft and Raru turned away, feeling the other man’s gaze on him for a long time. He got a plate of food and went meekly back to Fraul’s tent.

“Sir?” he breathed. Fraul had thrown a hand over his eyes and made soft, shuddering sounds in the nighttime quiet. Raru set the food down, tied the flap of the tent closed tight. Then he stepped out of his pants and snuggled on the ground beside Fraul, who opened his arm and then winced and retracted.

“I can’t,” he breathed. Every reverberation of his shivering body sent awful shocks through him. Raru did not touch him, until he rolled over and pushed himself numbly onto hands and knees and threw up.

Raru sat up and watched him, feeling sleepy and drunk. He held the other man’s hair out of his face and touched his back, and Fraul whimpered and shrank away.

On elbows and knees he melted back into the ground, his forehead to the dirt. He turned his head with teary eyes and whispered, “Let me see.”

“What?” Raru asked dumbly, staring at the shape of his body, his inner thighs growing hot. He shook himself out of it and saw Fraul’s eyes on him. “See what?”

“Your neck. Let me see it.” Fraul, though he winced, shifted his weight to take off his rings and set them in the grass. Raru inched closer, as if he could stay a safe distance away, but Fraul reached out and tugged him closer, past the animal smell of piss and blood. The long cold fingers grabbed Raru’s chin and turned him on, to his own surprise. His lips parted and he breathed through his mouth, yielding to Fraul’s fingers as the other man turned his chin this way and that. He released Raru, who was disappointed.

“It was close,” Raru admitted. “But it was my fault. I’ve seen you like that. I shouldn’t have tried to stop you. It was the fighting that kept you in it. If I had backed off…you would have come out of it on your own.”

“What happened?” Fraul murmured.

“I tried to stop you. You went for me. I asked for Leonard’s help. You went for Leonard. Well, I think you did.” In truth, the whole thing had been a blur for Raru. He frowned and considered. “And then…uh…I don’t know. Three of them held you down. And you got two of them off, somehow.” Fraul’s eyebrows raised with pleasant surprise, for the first time. His forehead was down on the ground and he tilted it toward Raru.

“Really?” he asked.

“Really. Then four of them. You were…” Raru laughed. “You were going for your sword, sir. I was terrified. I thought, oh, god, don’t let him grab it, or I’m in trouble.”

“When did I drop it?” Fraul asked, eyes closed, enjoying the distraction.

“I don’t know, to be honest. I think…” Raru looked outward. “When I went to stop you, you had your sword. I blocked it. Then…ah, Leonard grabbed your shoulders.”

“Ah,” said Fraul, understanding the pain in his shoulder blades. “And then?”

The younger man sat back on the heels of his hands. “When Leonard grabbed you, I heard your sword fall. Crowe stepped on it. You went for Crowe’s feet. That’s when he put the knee on you.” Fraul frowned. He felt damaged. Raru saw it and begged, “I tried to stop him, sir.”

“No, no. I’m glad he stopped me. I…I would rather…feel like this than have the guilt of killing a soldier.” His eyes traveled to the rings on the ground. “I’m sorry, Captain. It won’t happen again.”

“It’s all right, sir.” Absently, Raru touched his broken nose. He needed to go to Tere before it set. They were silent a few moments more, and then Fraul took a shaky breath.

“I can’t walk,” he breathed. “What if tomorrow…”

“I’ll find you a horse,” said Raru.

“Oh, no,” said Fraul. “But…thank you, eiveau.” He sighed, melting onto his side, head tucked to his chest. Raru put a hand on his back. Fraul glanced over his shoulder, reading his thoughts, and rasped, “Have you seen Leonard?”

“I’m sure he’s getting ready for bed.”

“Mm,” murmured the other man. “See him tomorrow.”

Raru smiled, rubbing his back, basking in the company. The alcohol was dropping him quickly and he was wide awake. He got up to steal some of Thatcher’s whiskey and saw Crowe sitting by his lonesome in the light of embers.

His brow creased. The man looked hunched. Raru stepped up to him carefully, seeing in his hand a stick of tobacco. Crowe shifted as if drawn from a daze and looked up at his captain’s gaunt form.

“Raru,” he said. “Have you seen Leonard?”

“No, sir.”

“Do so, first thing in the morning.”

“Yes, sir.” Raru hesitated, and then sat down in the grass a ways off and stared into the coals. He was not angry with this man.

Crowe frowned at the fire, smoking his cigarette, and Raru drawled, “Something on your mind, August?”

The general smiled. “You shouldn’t call me that.”

“Should, shouldn’t.” Raru waved his hand with the last of the drunken carelessness. Crowe smiled.

“I don’t complain, mind,” he said. “I envy you.”

“Envy me what?”

The general gave him a pointed look. Still Raru’s brows drew together. He looked the general from feet to head, considering him as Crowe’s gaze went back to the coals. Something Heath had once said struck him. He said, “Did you know a Bazairi man once, sir?”

“I have known many Bazairi men, Ashin included.”

Raru was silent, not knowing if they were talking about the same thing. He cleared his throat with discomfort and let the matter drop. Crowe cast his gaze around and, seeing no one about, said, “There was one man in particular. He was a close friend.”

“What happened?”

“What always happens.” Crowe tossed the cigarette into the fire and looked at him. “He died.” Then he rose and said, “Good night, Raru.”

Ire watched him go, the words like cold stones in his stomach. His mouth was dry. He sat staring at the fire a little longer, and then he got up with purpose and straightened his nose with a little crack. Then, tears streaming from his eyes, he strode to Fraul’s tent and entered quietly, seeing the valleys of the blanket. He paused, and his name in Fraul’s voice came soft. He hesitated again. He felt Fraul’s eyes on him, the rustle of fabric.

He got on his knees and shuffled forward, feeling for the edge of the blanket, feeling for Fraul’s arm and his shoulder and neck. Raru took his face in both hands and found himself taking little hitching breaths, and with a creased brow Fraul put his good hand over Raru’s.

“I love you,” Raru whispered. “What if you had died?” He shook his head, his chest shaking, trying his best to be silent. He cried and bowed his head to Fraul’s chest and sniffed wetly in the linen all bloodstained. Fraul stroked his hair with one hand, eyes closed, wishing for poppy again.

He still felt Crowe’s knee in his spine and the thought made him nauseous. He started to push himself up to vomit and Raru, still crying, lifted his head. Fraul rolled over on one elbow and just barely cleared the blanket, and his back spasmed with his heaving and he groaned Ezuran swear words, coming down to hands and knees. The bow of his spine rolled him to his side and his eyes tried to roll backwards.

Raru sat bolt upright to help him but could only touch him on the shoulder, biting his lips between his teeth.

Fraul pressed his face into the damp earth and released a furious snarl that shook like a sob. His head pounded. He heard people shifting in the other tents and he couldn’t care less. He pressed his mouth into the crook of his arm and screamed, and screamed. The release felt good. He had always tried to bear it silently, with dignity, and now he put all that to bed. The crying made him shake, the shaking made him hurt, and the hurting made him cry.

When he had nothing more to give to the ground, he felt the mold of the earth around his forehead. He couldn’t move. He decided to fall asleep that way if he could, a mouthful of dirt.

Long before dawn, Raru was awake. Fraul wasn’t sure if he had slept. He felt himself being lifted in a state of half-consciousness. He smelled the chest beside his face and murmured, “Where’re we…?”

“You’re dirty.” Raru almost smiled. “We’re going to the creek.”

Fraul’s eyes snapped open, wide-awake. “No.”

Raru held him close and another spasm went through his spine, and Raru absorbed it with his arms and Fraul choked on it. Weakly, his throat like knives, he said, “I don’t want to.”

“I’ll be gentle with you. I promise. Please.”

Fraul had no more energy to resist and went limp as a rag doll, rasping the word, “Fine.” What was a little more pain, compared to all this?

Raru set him down in the water and took his clothes off, tossing the blanket in a rumpled pile on the rocks. Fraul was trying to go back to sleep but his conscious mind now registered the pain. He was angry that he’d been woken. The water was too cold. He jerked away from Raru like a child and that made him cry out. Raru, somber, held something up against his teeth and he opened his mouth and bit it. It felt like linen.

He went silent, his head on a smooth rock, turning his face to the side and trying to dissociate as he watched the moonlight on the water. Raru used a clean part of his old shirt to wipe him off, starting at his crown, running the water over his tearstained, mudstained face. Fraul felt a thick crust falling chip by chip from his skin. The army had moved further north and the rivers were icy, and the pain of his back came to him as if from far away. He moaned soft and Raru went across the eyes of his elbows, kneeling in the water, scrubbing under his arms and stopping when he felt Fraul’s body draw away.

He cleaned Fraul’s feet, the calves which had walked so far in those short weeks. He moved upwards, tracing scars, feeling sick at the swollen tissue under the kneecaps and making sure they were immersed in the icy water. Raru was no healer, and he had often regretted it. But at least he knew when a person needed a bath.

He took special care between Fraul’s legs. He relished it, not sure when they would have privacy again, not sure when all would be well again. He ran a clean square of the shirt over the feathery scars around Fraul’s hips, the scars of skin stretched and broken.

He heard a little hum and he stopped, realizing that he was fixating there and Fraul was pressing into his hands. He drew away and muttered, “Sorry.” But Fraul reached out to catch his hand, and Raru thought he saw a smile in the dark. He shook his head.

“You’re crazy,” he said. “You’re insane. You almost went into shock a few hours ago.”

“You said it yourself,” Fraul murmured. “What if I died?”

Raru rolled his eyes and whacked him with the wet shirt. “I won’t be used by you,” he said, smiling. He was lying: he would be used.

“Raru,” Fraul said, their voices low in the dark. “Have pity.”

“Now you want pity.”

Fraul frowned, nose wrinkling. Raru felt the electricity coming off him and he almost gave in, but he imagined the tongue lashing he would get from Heath if the healer ever found out, and instead took to cursing Crowe.

“Just don’t put yourself in that place again,” he said. Fraul pushed himself onto his elbows. He frowned.

“I don’t know what happened,” he insisted. “I remember feeling terror. I remember his knee. You shouldn’t have tried to stop me.” His voice was unduly harsh and Raru shook his head. He busied himself with the pile of clean clothes he had brought and helped the other man out of the water, wrapping him in the blanket and grunting at his weight. Soon he wouldn’t be able to carry him, and he felt deep pride at that thought.

Fraul huffed when Raru helped him sit on the bank, pulling on his pants and to Raru’s surprise pushing himself to his feet. But the braces were back at the tent and he collapsed against a tree, retching.

“Fuck,” he swore, wiping his mouth. He waved Raru away and steeled himself, not breathing, and with his legs stiff he walked back to camp. Raru watched openmouthed, wondering if he was proving a point, not sure what he was doing, and followed with the blanket over his shoulder. He left the soiled clothes on the riverbank.

“Do you like the pain?” he demanded sharply. “I don’t understand.”

Fraul stopped at the edge of the camp, his face drawn, and said with words precise and measured, “I have taken much of your help. I need you–to let me–focus.”

Raru stood there, no longer following, as he walked back to the tent and got on the braces. He stood by the fire like a statue, waiting for the others to wake, refusing to give himself relief. He knew how sweet relief would be. He could just sit down.

But he was angry, and the anger thumped in his blood along with a spurned orgasm, and he found a good long tree branch and leaned on that instead. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? He found another branch and, along with the braces, used them as crutches. Some relief flowed into his bones but his elbows were like dry wood, grating against itself. He wanted to laugh at the pitiable way things had turned out. If his father had only known.

He was grateful to dissolve into the lines of men beside Tere. Leonard watched him carefully, noting the crutches, noting his silence. Fraul seemed almost to be meditating, if a wrinkled nose and a clenched jaw could be called meditation. The story had gotten around to all three companies, and they watched him in curiosity. Raru hated it.

That night, Fraul was nowhere to be found. Raru gambled with the men and was grateful for the distraction. He remembered that somewhere, sometime, he had existed apart from this man. The thought comforted him.

Fraul, falling asleep, imagined back to the past. His mind was always going back to the past. He wasn’t even old yet, and still he felt like most of his life was behind him.

Just when he was drifting off to sleep, Raru stepped into the tent and came to lay beside him, belly to his back. He whispered, “Had to wait for Crowe.”

Fraul smiled, feeling Raru’s chin on his collarbone, and reached up to put a hand on his cheek. Raru snuggled up tight to him and felt his ribs, the hills of his hips and the small of his back. Men wheezed laughter and spoke in muted voices all around, and Fraul decided that if they were heard talking, no one would assume anything different than they had always assumed. He murmured, “Do you remember when you came to us?”

Raru was silent. For a moment Fraul thought he was asleep. He said, “Actually, I don’t, really. I drank a lot back then. What was I, fifteen?”

Fraul nodded. “Yes, you were quite disheveled. I believe our captain expected you not to make it.”

Raru grinned. “Me, I’m nothing but a soldier.”

“Yes, yes.” Fraul glanced over his shoulder and wanted to turn over. Raru, reading his mind, clambered gingerly over him and flopped down facing him, so that he did not have to move.

Fraul looked down at him and their noses touched. He put both hands on Raru’s face, feeling a rush of warmth. He scooted up and Raru helped him, wrapping arms around Fraul’s hips and hitching him up close. His breath was warm on Raru’s face.

Raru looked away beneath his thick lashes and muttered, “I was just thinking…how it was when we didn’t know each other.”

“Oh?” Fraul laughed, thinking of it. He had been young once. “I would find you in the meal tent,” he murmured. Raru nodded. “You always had all these judgments. You kept saying, ‘why don’t we do it this way? That doesn’t work very well,’ all this.” He flashed Raru a little grin. “So confident. I wanted your judgment around me, after Lieutenant Faron died.”

“Were you and Faron close?” Raru asked. Fraul yawned, the pain abating.

“Close?” he repeated around the yawn.

“Did you work well together?” Raru clarified.

“Oh, yes. Faron was a strategist. He was soft-spoken, too. And I think he didn’t like that I was not native-born.”

“Ah.” All at once, Raru remembered. “Faron!” he whispered. “That blonde man with the blue knot.”

“Yes, yes.” Their breath mingled. “He died of sleeping sickness.”

“So…why did you choose me, sir?”

“What I said.” Fraul reached down to touch the knife wound near his hip. “I liked your judgments,” he murmured. “And I thought, I shall either choose this man, or he will make another lieutenant jealous.”

Raru shifted. “I made him jealous?”

“Yes. And both you and I were foreign-born.”

“Not me, sir. I’m a native Ezuran.”

Fraul’s eyebrow raised again. “No, you’re not,” he said. “You’re from New Oreia.”

“No, sir. My father took us to New Oreia when I was young. But I’m from here. My parents were from this country.”

“This is untrue.”

“Swear on my mother, sir.” Raru looked in his eyes and Fraul laughed, looking away, forgetting that he was withdrawing and forgetting his pain.

“Well, now,” he said, shaking his head, “here is something I did not know.”

“Anyway,” said Raru, “You were saying how I made your lieutenant jealous.”

Dreaux rolled his eyes and tilted his head downward, their noses touching, their lips. He said, his breath warming Ire’s cheeks, “Because I listened to you.”

“You shouldn’t have,” said Raru, and Fraul cut off his words by pressing their mouths together. He took a long breath, sighed it out, and there was a little smack as he pulled away.

“Get back to your tent,” he murmured. Raru frowned.

“Soon we’ll be home,” he offered.

“Yes.” Fraul’s lips pursed, the pain coming back to him. “In many miles.”