Baker Six

by komodobits

Summary:

Summer, 1944. Dean doesn’t think about First Lieutenant Novak.

Notes:

This is for Abby! Thank you so much and I hope you enjoy it! She asked for Dean POV snippets early in the Normandy campaign to try and unpick Dean making the ballsiest first move in human history. I hope this is everything you dreamed it would be!

Please support Palestine in any way you can. It’s one thing to read about the horrors of war; it’s another thing to live through it. If you want to help, please consider looking into the UNRWA or Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, , as well as speaking to your local representatives to continue pushing for a ceasefire.

Also, this is a companion piece to Ninety One Whiskey so it likely won’t make much sense if you haven’t read that first.

June 6th, 1944

 

Under his hands, Novak is human, vulnerable. Not an unfeeling machine, not an officer, nothing so remote and untouchable. Dean can touch him, here, and can find that he’s just a man. Flinching a little at Dean’s cold fingers. Skin softer and paler beneath the collar, a scattering of moles, bruises on his elbows. The ragged shrapnel wound between shoulder blade and spine. Novak’s got no idea how lucky an escape he had. An inch or so further in any direction could’ve either cost him his arm, paralysed him, or bled him dry in minutes.

 

The wound looks angry, swollen, the blood crusted brown around the entry site. Quick eval: only one ballistic, shallow, muscle damage only. Already clotting—but the shrapnel is dangerously close to his subclavian artery, and if he leaves it in, the damned thing could shift over time. It needs to come out. It’ll hurt, though, and Dean only has two syrettes of morphine left. He hopes no-one needs anything amputating tomorrow. Dean hesitates. “Now, sir, can I save my morphine for someone else, or are you going to be a little bitch?”

 

He is fully expecting to get snapped at, told off, something. Novak doesn’t turn around. In a voice that is hard with resolve, Novak says, “Save it.”

 

Headlamp lit, retractor and forceps in hand, Dean digs in. He catches a glimpse of Novak’s knuckles whitening where he grips his own knees, the muscles in his back squeezing as he tenses. Blood starts to flow again, a slow hot trickle over Novak’s skin. The shrapnel is a flat shard of metal, maybe an inch and a half in length. One serrated edge, necessitating an especially careful removal. No other scraps of debris. Shouldn’t need stitches if he does it right. He follows the path of the entry wound as best he can, slow and cautious, forceps steady on the metal.

 

Novak’s blood spills dark over Dean’s hand, but he makes short work of it. He drops the shrapnel with a dull thump in the dirt, and he moves quick to retrieve sulfa powder, gauze packing, tape, and bandages from his musette bag. In the meantime, Novak sags at the spine, his body curving into Dean’s palm. As he works at cleaning the wound, Dean stays focused. He is not meant to be looking at the ridges of Novak’s spine, the pale wings of his shoulder blades, the soft give of flesh at his waist where his skin would dimple under the gentlest press of fingertips. There is the faint sheen of sweat on his skin.

 

“You done?” Novak’s voice is strained, ragged.

 

Dean has a mouthful of tape at that moment. “Nearly, hold on,” he mumbles round it. He finishes disinfecting and dressing the shrapnel site, and bandages it securely before he goes on, “There. Good as new, sir.”

 

While Dean is packing his equipment away, Novak sighs and stretches gingerly. He says, “Thank you, Winchester,” and then he turns partway to face him.

 

The movement upends Dean’s packet of gauze, tipping bandages into his lap. He hardly notices. There is Lieutenant Novak, near enough to taste. So close that when Dean lifts his head he can feel the lieutenant’s breath on his cheek.

 

Novak’s bare arm presses against the front of Dean’s jacket. His skin is washed out by the hard white light, made ghostly pale, shadows under his eyes. There is a fine spray of dried blood up by his ear. A grimy smear across his brow, dark baby hair sweat-plastered to his skin. Crucifix resting in the dip of his naked collarbone. Novak, dazzled by the headlamp, blinks in the glare. In the light, his eyes are iron-blue, so cold and clear it makes Dean’s breath catch.

 

Dean can hear his pulse in his ears. “You’re welcome,” he murmurs. His voice is not as steady as he would have liked.

 

Novak opens his mouth, as though to speak, and goes no further, lips parted. His breath is slow, shallow. There is silence between them and nothing else.

 

Dean remains perfectly still, hands loose in his lap, bandages forgotten. There is a slow shiver that climbs the length of his spine. A bloom of warmth in his belly, a tightening in his chest.

 

Novak’s gaze flickers and Dean is caught by the fan of his dark eyelashes. His eyes move over Dean’s face, such a slow and intense study that Dean can feel goosebumps lift on the back of his neck as Novak takes him in. Takes him apart. It is almost imperceptible, then, the way that he leans in. Dean’s throat feels close and hot, and he isn’t sure if he is breathing. Then, finally, Novak’s eyes fall to Dean’s mouth.

 

Dean doesn’t move. He scarcely remembers how. He can’t think of a single thing except for wanting him.

 

Novak’s breath hitches. His lips part, and Dean is looking at his mouth now, and he is imagining it. The way he might taste. The scrape of his stubble. The sounds he might make. 

 

He lets his mouth fall open. He tilts towards him, a fraction. Just enough, he thinks, to say, you can. I’ll let you. I want you to. Please. God, please.

 

Then, he meets Novak’s eyes, and his expression is raw, aching, with a desperation that is almost frightening. He looks softer and more vulnerable than Dean has ever seen him. He looks torn open. 

 

Abruptly, Novak pulls back. He turns away, leaving Dean staring at the back of his head, and Dean lets out all his breath. 

 

The sound of Novak’s breath is shaky. His shoulders are pulled so tense that the tape over his shrapnel wound strains. He swallows hard and says, “Thank you, sergeant,” which he has said already. His voice is a low rasp. Dean says nothing at all.

 

He sits there, motionless, watching as Novak snatches up his shirt and jacket from the side of the shell scraping. He dresses in quick, clumsy motions, retrieves his helmet, and then he scrambles up and away without another word.

 

Dean watches the shape of him disappear into the darkness, and once he loses sight of him, he looks down at his scattered equipment. He is going to need to re-pack his bandages, collect together his safety pins where they have tipped into the dirt. Probably should count up his syrettes as well, make sure he didn’t lose any. He doesn’t do any of this.

 

Instead, Dean picks up the shrapnel from the bottom of the shell scraping and thoughtlessly turns it over in his fingers. A twisted hunk of metal, wet and shiny with blood. It is still warm with the heat of Novak’s body.

 

***

 

June 8th, 1944

 

Dean is not smart. His dad used to joke, if the price of stupid goes up, I’m drilling a hole in your head first, son, and even though it would piss Sam off to no end, Dean would always laugh and agree and play it up because that’s his job, obviously. He knows he’s not exactly an intellectual. But one thing he does know is when someone is into him. He knows the little moves, the flirtatious looks. The glance, the lip bite, the tilt of the head. Women and men, both. He has had almost no dealings with men, but he knows what it looks like. Hell, Arthur in the 2nd Armoured is testament to that. It wasn’t much, him and Arthur —seven minutes in an alley behind The Seven Stars in Falmouth, his mouth full and his knees aching on the brick—but it put a spring in Dean’s step and it proved him right. Arthur had wanted him, and that felt good. He can recognise the signs.

 

But this? He has no idea what he’s dealing with.

 

Dean once won Sammy a beat-up tin kaleidoscope at the county fair, a dumb thing the kid loved literally to pieces, and when Dean finally got a chance to peer through he understood the obsession: it was dizzying, beautiful, breathtaking, incomprehensible. That’s Lieutenant Novak for you. Shifting shapes and colours every time Dean tries to hold him up to the light. He doesn’t know what he is or what he wants. Whenever Dean starts to get the sense that he’s figuring him out, he twists again, becomes something else.

 

Sometimes Dean thinks—well, it’s ridiculous, what he thinks. It’s unthinkable. So he doesn’t think it.

 

They’re getting ready to move, the dawn light thin and fragile where it scatters through the clouds, and the men are meant to be checking their ammunition and making ready their weapons. Dean, unarmed but for scissors and a can-do attitude, has nothing to check right now. Instead, he is crouched at the edge of one-platoon, re-rolling a length of bandage and watching the lieutenant.

 

Ten or fifteen feet away, Novak stands at the heart of all the movement and preparation, studying a map, a pencil trapped horizontally between his teeth. He also has a cigarette burning low between two fingers, dropping ash at his feet, near where his helmet lies upside down in the dirt.

 

His dark hair is half-wild, lopsidedly dishevelled in such a way that Dean knows which way he slept. He looks scruffy and sour-tempered, like he woke up on the wrong side of the bivouac, and Dean can’t stop looking at him.

 

See, the thing no-one remembers half the time is that Dean isn’t from Baker. He trained with the 104th and he got reassigned twice before he wound up in the 116th, and he has served under more commanding officers than most. He has seen his fair share of neurotic assholes, power-crazed dicks, and self-centred jerks that the U.S Army saw fit to slap a bronze bar on, and he can yessir his way through anything—his dad taught him well—but the good ones always stand out. The officers who talk to their men like people, who ask whether they slept okay, whether they ate; who can indulge every now and then in the sheer dipshit silliness that keeps four-dozen or so men from each other’s throats. Novak stands out.

 

He’s kind when it doesn’t suit him to be, and he sees straight through the bullshit, and he sees the best in his men even when they fuck up, and Dean is pretty sure most of Baker would take a bullet for him. Himself included. Even the ones who don’t like Novak—and there are plenty of those, too, because to be honest, the guy is also a dick. Unsmiling and aloof and abrasive, either disdainful of social niceties or just not interested in them. Sometimes, he’s lucky he’s handsome.

 

As Dean watches, Novak’s frown deepens. He scratches idly at his temple with his thumb and then—tries to write with the cigarette. He gets halfway to the map before he realises what he’s doing, annoyance flashing on his face, and Dean can’t help but let out a laugh.

 

Novak’s gaze flicks up at the sound and he meets Dean’s eyes with an expression like he’s thinking about throwing something at him.

 

Shameless, Dean just grins wider. “You need a hand there, lieutenant?”

 

At the tail-end of one-platoon, Kevin looks over, and then just says, “Well, here we go again.”

 

Novak drops his cigarette and grinds it out under the toe of his boot. Taking the pencil out of his mouth, he calls across, “No, thank you.”

 

“You sure? Happy to lend a hand,” Dean says, cheerful as anything, “and I’ve been told I’m real good with my hands.”

 

Groaning, Kevin buries his face in his hands; Charlie kicks Dean’s boot.

 

Novak doesn’t look up. “Not necessary.”

 

At the other end of one-platoon, Adam says, “Bradbury, tell Dean to knock it off.”

 

Dean splutters in protest. “I’m not doing anything!”

 

Charlie says, “Dean, knock it off.”

 

“Suddenly it’s a crime to be helpful, Jesus,” Dean says. 

 

They finish getting ready, checking rifles, checking webbing, nothing rattles, nothing shines, packing up their kit. They get into formation, Dean with his hands in his pockets while the others shoulder their rifles, and as they’re about to move out, Dean sees Novak glance over again.

 

It’s only a fleeting thing, Novak’s eyes on him. Dean pretends not to notice, his attention turned towards the rest of his platoon. He waits until Novak is striding away through the undergrowth before he turns to watch him go. 

 

It’s stupid. The guy doesn’t even like him. This fixation—it’ll get him fired, or discharged, or sectioned, or killed. It’s unthinkable.

 

***

 

June 9th, 1944

 

Sometimes he feels like he’s permanently sleepwalking until he hears the word Medic! —and then he’s galvanised, lightning, unable to slow down or stop or think or feel.

 

The first bullet enters Howard’s abdomen between his sixth and seventh ribs—no exit wound. The second enters above his hipbone and comes out through the front of his pelvis. As Dean works to pack the junctional wound with gauze, blood continues to pump hot across his hands, staining his fingers, making his tools slippery. There is a growing stench, dark and sharp. The bowels. Abdominal cavity growing taut, hard. The entry wound seems to shrink as the skin swells. Less than a minute to get the bleeding under control. Dean is speaking, barely conscious of the words in his mouth. You’re okay. You’re doing great, I got you. You’re gonna be fine.

 

Howard is losing colour, breathing fast and shallow. One leg jerks against the ground, boot heel scraping across brick. You’re okay. You’re okay, I’m right here. I’m gonna get you out of here and back to the aid station and— Howard goes still.

 

Dean looks up and he understands.

 

Shit. Okay. He fishes for dog tags, pulls them free with a clatter, scrambles to the next.

 

Shrapnel lacerations. Superficial. No other injury. Walk it off. Gunshot wound to the forearm, low-velocity machine gun rounds. Tourniquet twisted so tight that Alan starts to cry, the time painted in wobbly numbers on his cheek. Next one. And then the next.

 

They’re taking Grandcamp—or at least trying to—and for a small town, the Krauts are annoyingly stubborn about letting go of it. Once again, the scream sounds: Medic! Oh, Jesus, fuck, medic, I need a goddamn medic.

 

Dean is on his feet immediately to move, but then a hand seizes his jacket and yanks him back into cover, hard enough that he cracks his elbow hard against the brick wall. “Wait, Winchester—”

 

A loud bang knocks loose all the dust in the air as a grenade detonates, and Novak still does not let go of his sleeve.

 

The lieutenant isn’t looking at him, instead studying the crumbling buildings opposite with razor-sharp focus. His jaw is tight, his expression hard; the flat line of his mouth betrays nothing. There is the gleam of sweat on his throat, shining along the ridge of his collarbone where his shirt falls open. His hands are big and steady on his rifle, scuffs and scrapes on his knuckles. Dean wants to wash them carefully clean.

 

Dean tugs his arm free of Novak's hand. “Sir, I gotta go,” he says. “Someone needs me.”

 

“Wait.” Novak watches the buildings. His eyes, in the harsh summer light, are the blue of a flame as they flicker fast across the rubble and glass. Without breaking focus, he calls out, “Pond? Get two-platoon on the line.”

 

“Baker-two-one, hold for the six—”

 

Novak takes the radio and starts giving orders like he’s reading it out, the battle unfolding before his eyes like a script. There’s muzzle flash in the far windows centre-left of axis, needs flanking to clear it, and hold for artillery coordinates—and someone is screaming again.

 

Fuck this. Dean grabs his musette bag, steadies his helmet with one hand.

 

That gets Novak’s attention, his gaze flashing to Dean’s face with mingled annoyance and alarm. There is brick dust peppering the bridge of his nose and clinging to his dark eyelashes. The radio mouth-piece squawks faintly at him, forgotten in one hand, while Novak snaps, “Winchester, wait. There’s a fucking sniper.”

 

Dean grins, sunny and fearless. “Good thing I’m Red Cross.”

 

“That may not matter to them,” Novak says sharply. There is a muscle pulsing at the hinge of his jaw. “You’re no good to me dead.”

 

Dean huffs. “I promise I won’t die,” he says, and he gets up and he runs. At his back, he hears Novak yelling at him, but tough shit. 

 

Medic! Fuck, I need a medic!

 

First casualty is dead. Second is Mickey Aldridge: abdominal laceration, bilateral leg loss. Unconscious, barely breathing. Dean thinks, by accident, of Sam. This kid isn’t much older, and he is going to die. Below the knees is a tangle of gore; the volume of blood across the brick is staggering.

 

Dean shakes himself, focuses. As he leans over to daub a clumsy E on his forehead to indicate that he’s not going to make it back to the aid station, Mickey’s eyes open and meet Dean’s, glazed and pain-delirious. Shit.

 

“What—” he slurs. “Where’s—what am I—”

 

“Hey, there he is. I got you, it’s okay,” Dean says, low and soothing. He fumbles in his webbing for the morphine. “You’re just fine, alright? You’re doing fine. It’s not even that bad. I’m just gonna get you something for the pain and then I’m gonna get you out of here.” The rattle of machine gun fire makes him flinch lower; he lifts his head and scans for his next casualty. There’s another body some hundred feet or so away, prone but at least moving, blood puddling beneath their torso. Dean finds the morphine, jabs the syrette into the meat of Mickey’s thigh, and watches the tension start immediately to drain from his body. “There you go, buddy,” he murmurs, hand gentle on Mickey’s knee. “Right with you.”

 

Mickey’s eyes grow heavier, heavier, but there’s no time for Dean to watch him slip away. In the midst of the groggy haze, Dean reaches out and yanks off his dog tags.

 

Third casualty is dead. Fourth, Max, walking wounded. Dean helps him to cover and runs back out to the screams for help. Ewan, half-sprawled in Laurie Gideon’s lap and tilted onto his side, groaning Doc, you gotta help me, I think my guts are coming out— and he’s not wrong. Perforating gunshot wound, the exit wound the size of a fist. Abdominal evisceration, a loop of intestine coiling on the rubble while Laurie’s hand hovers nervously over it like he doesn’t know what to do with it. Intestine’s intact, though, as far as Dean can tell. He works fast.

 

Baker moves, and Dean moves with them, never enough time to wipe his hands clean. He keeps counting supplies in his head—three more syrettes of morphine, four rolls of gauze, three packets of sulfa powder, and he lost his best scissors somewhere. He can’t think if he dropped them while packing Howard’s wound or while cutting gauze for Ewan’s guts. No time to go back for it. Keep moving forwards.

 

***

 

June 11th, 1944

 

Andy Gallagher heaves a sigh. “Would you jerk me off if I asked nicely?”

 

The question is asked conversationally, off-handedly, without any real preamble, while Joe is shuffling his cards. Joe answers instantly, without even looking up: “Not if you paid me.”

 

Andy scoffs, offended. “Why you gotta cheapen it like that? What about just doing it to make me feel good?”

 

“I don’t want you to feel good,” Joe says. He tosses down a run of three diamonds. “I want you to feel terrible.”

 

“Is that what you’ve been thinking about, instead of taking your damn turn?” Benny asks Andy. 

 

Andy rolls his eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you have somewhere to be?”

 

Reluctantly, Benny grunts to concede the point.

 

Four hours ago, they were told to stand down and await further orders. Somewhere in hour one, most of the officers sloped off somewhere to talk to the brass. Seventy-six minutes in, Adam told them they could stand easy until the officers came back. By hour three, one-platoon have taken it as granted that they’re not going anywhere fast. Rudy is writing a letter; Pat Barnes is taking a nap with his head pillowed on his combat jacket, helmet over his eyes; Kevin is changing his socks. 

 

Dean has no idea what’s taking so long, but he’s not going to complain. He lost his D-rations to Charlie two days ago and this game is shaping to be his big chance to get some back.

 

“Can’t believe none of you are willing to help out your best friend,” Andy says.

 

Joe snorts. “I’m not your best friend.”

 

Charlie offers, “I’m just here out of pity.”

 

“I'm only here ‘cause Eisenhower won't let me go home,” Benny says.

 

Dean says, “I don’t even know who you are.”

 

“Oh, they’re funny, now! Look at that, everyone. We got the fucking Marx Brothers of the front line out here.”

 

“Get fucked,” Joe says mildly.

 

“Hey, man, I’m trying .”

 

Dean laughs.

 

The sun is high and bright overhead, the air thick with cloudless summer heat. Charlie flaps one hand wildly to clear a midge from the air before picking up a card from the discard pile. “How long has it been since we last got mail, anyway?”

 

“Sixteen days. Back in Falmouth,” Johnny says with immediate certainty, laying down a set of four Jacks. “Look at that, assholes. I’m wiping the floor with you.”

 

Benny chuckles, shaking his head. “Not for long. I’m coming for your top spot, Mills.”

 

“Last time, my girl didn’t even send over a picture,” Andy goes on. “What am I supposed to do, use my fucking imagination? What am I, a poet?”

 

“If you ever become a poet,” Joe says, with affable lightness, “I’m going to kill myself.”

 

Andy splutters, outraged. “I could be a poet!”

 

Around his cigarette, Benny says, “I’m not even convinced you can read.”

 

Grinning, Dean sets down his run of four spades.

 

Charlie says, “Do me a favour, Andy—name five poets, right now.”

 

“What the hell for? I don’t need to know a bunch of shitty poets to be a poet.”

 

Charlie drops his head into his hands.

 

“What?” Andy challenges, turning to face Charlie. “You think I need to know every single poet ever? You’re a soldier, dipshit—can you name every fucking soldier?”

 

“No,” Charlie says with slow incredulity, “but I can sure name five.”

 

“What—”

 

Johnny starts to laugh so hard he’s in danger of hurting himself. Benny puts his head in his hands.

 

Dean holds a hand up, cards and all, to try and de-escalate. “Alright, cool it,” he starts. “Whose turn is it, anyway?”

 

“Andy, think about it. Think about it for a second.”

 

“The fuck are you even talking about—”

 

“Gallagher, I am astounded every single day that you remember how to breathe and stand upright at the same time,” Joe says drily. “You are so goddamn lucky that—”

 

Then, from nowhere, a yell: “Stand to!”

 

It slices through all peace and light-heartedness of Baker’s idle sprawl, and in an instant, they are all chaos, all movement. They throw down their cards—Andy says, “To me,” and starts collecting them clumsily to stow in his jacket—grab their equipment, going for rifles, Dean yanking the strap of his musette bag over his head— move, move, let’s go, stand to, fucking move it— Pat slamming his helmet back on his head, Kevin stuffing his bare feet into unlaced boots—scrambling to positions, frantic but rehearsed—the click of rifles loaded, cocked—and Dean keeps low, waiting. He sits on his heels, back pressed to a narrow splinter of a tree, the strap of his bag ready in his fist.

 

A moment after they’re all ready and in position, Virgil comes hurtling through the trees, one hand flat on top of his helmet to steady it, and then he drops to a knee beside Adam in the middle of their impromptu harbour area. Dean can’t hear what they’re saying, crouched at the far end of one-platoon, but he watches regardless, scrutinising. Virgil explains something, gesturing through the trees; Adam’s expression is attentive, serious.

 

For several minutes, all is silent and still, no movement but for the shift of trigger fingers, machine gunners trying to keep their bandoliers from clanking. Dean looks around the platoon and tries not to wonder who he might be stitching back together before the day is out.

 

There is a crunch of footsteps from nearby, and Dean lifts his head at the same time as Virgil and Adam to see a familiar figure approaching, stern and serious and sharp. Novak’s expression is pinched with strain, frown etched deep into his brow; he flattens a hand to the top of his helmet as he ducks under a low-hanging branch, and then he drops to crouch beside his platoon leaders. They speak in low, urgent voices.

 

From nearby, Dean hears Benny give a low, throaty laugh. “You boys smell that?” he whispers.

 

Johnny shakes his head ruefully. “Smells a lot like shit rolling downhill.”

 

Dean grins—and then there is a low, heavy thump that he feels through his knees. And another. He freezes, flinching low, at the same moment as every other man in Baker. In the middle of the company, the officers have instinctively scattered to put distance between them—Novak scrambles aside, crouches low at the base of the tree a few feet from Dean—and then there is an explosion in the distance. It is nowhere near, and still loud enough that Dean flinches.

 

Novak lets out his breath, slow and steadying, and he lifts his head to scrutinise the sky, the black twist of smoke overhead. “Where is that?” he asks. The second shell hits, startling a flock of small dark birds into flight. Novak goes on squinting into the sky, fishing his compass from his combats one-handed. “South-west—is that the 175th?”

 

“I’ll get them on the radio,” Adam says, and then he twists at the waist to call back over his shoulder. “Andy, get your ass up here.”

 

Novak nods, gives quick commands to Virgil to get his men ready to move and send him Hester on the way back, and then he looks over, as though searching for the next person he needs to bark an order at, and he sees Dean. The expression on his face tells a beautiful story—recognition, then, goddamnit, and straight through to annoyed before Dean has even opened his mouth.

 

Leaning against the tree at his back, Dean cracks his sunniest and most drop-dead charming smile. “So, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

 

Novak grabs his rifle, loads it and makes ready in fluid, easy movements, and gets to his feet.  “Shut up, Winchester.”

 

Dean grins.

 

***

 

June 13th, 1944

 

One time, Joe even asks about it. “What is even the deal with you and the lieutenant, anyway?” he says, digging wet chunks of mystery meat out of his K-rations. “I’ve never seen a guy get so consistently and deliberately on someone’s bad side.”

 

Dean rolls his eyes—and then finds he doesn’t even know what to say.

 

The first instinct is, Novak’s just an asshole, I’m not doing anything wrong, but he knows that isn’t true. He knows he’s being annoying. Most of the time, it’s deliberate. Hell, most of the time he enjoys it. Dean understands this. But he’s good at being the loudmouth jackass in a way that he’s not good at much else, and honestly, what other option even is there? Sometimes, it doesn’t even matter how good you are. Sometimes you spend your whole life working yourself ragged for someone who isn’t even paying attention. 

 

He’s not like Sammy. He’s not smart enough, not ambitious enough, not anything enough—for anything else. Being the idiot is easy. Fun, even. It’s one sure way to get noticed. Spend long enough lonely and a backhand isn’t too different from a palm cradling your face. At least someone is reaching out for him.

 

So Dean could stop. The dumb jokes, the teasing, the general buffoonery, he could stop all of it. He knows that most of Baker Company, one-platoon especially, would heave a sigh of relief if he could just go a single day without royally pissing off the CO. It’s doable. It’s not even like he would be bored without it. It’s just— Christ , when he looks at you.

 

Being the sole recipient of Castiel Novak’s focus is something else. Whether he’s pleased to see you or ready to hand you your ass, that narrow-eyed scrutiny, like there is nothing else worth looking at, is staggering. Eyes the blue of a Kansas prairie sky, clear and sharp, a careful study like he’s finding the edges of what’s possible. Every time, it makes Dean’s stomach drop a little. 

 

All his life, he’s been invisible, has felt like everyone glances through him—looks at him to see nothing more than his dad’s shadow, or Sammy’s lantern—and it feels like Novak is the first person to look right at him. Feels that way every fucking time. Even the first time, across a crowded bar, Dean drunk with a girl on his arm, the buzz of that single-minded focus had shivered under Dean’s skin. Little wonder that Dean has been trying to get his attention ever since.

 

He doesn’t say any of this to Joe. Talk about embarrassing. Unfortunately, Joe is still looking at him, impatient and expectant, waiting for an answer that isn’t bullshit. He’s gonna be disappointed—bullshit happens to be Dean’s specialty.

 

Dean picks absently at a loose flap of leather on his boot and shrugs. “I dunno. Think he just hates me.”

 

Even as he says it, Dean doesn’t think it’s true. Not anymore. Before they got to France, Dean would’ve said most days that Lieutenant Novak was just counting down the days until a stray bullet took his dumbass new medic off his hands. Something changed on the boat; something changed on the beach. Even earlier, to tell the truth. Under streetlights and Sinatra, something changed. Or he thought so, and then he didn’t, and then he’s just confused again. 

 

***

 

June 15th, 1944

 

Dean is hardly ever not busy. Just one of the perks of the job, he guesses—it’s constant. 

 

He runs himself ragged every time they go into combat, and even when they aren’t being shot at, he finds himself playing nurse to every scrape and cough and ailment. Kevin has a cold, forever sniffling from the end of the formation; Bearcey gives himself the M1 thumb and finds it now fat and purple, swollen beyond use; Johnny has a collection of blisters which are slowly turning putrid; Garth keeps going commando in his combats and then wonders why it hurts to piss. He hands out charcoal tablets for diarrhoea and constipation, and he hears more about Andy’s bowel movements than he wants to know, and every once in a while they go leaping into action and Dean gets to try and tape somebody's guts back together. It never ends.

 

There’s no time for getting distracted, and so it’s easy not to think about Novak.

 

Dean is finding this a harder sell right now.

 

Things have been slow recently. Baker has been moving between small and mostly indistinct French villages along the Elle river—square stone houses, squat farm buildings, roads torn to rubble by the movement of tanks, German flags left in the dust. In some of them, children run squawking along the street to accompany their march while women try to shepherd them back inside; in others, all is empty and still, and platoon leaders motion for silence and vigilance. There’s little need for it, though. It seems like the Germans have gone.

 

With positions this small and scattered, Baker is largely patrolling in platoons to cover more ground, and Dean is travelling with three-platoon. Early in the morning, they find an abandoned position dug into a hedgerows, but nothing of any value left behind; for three hours afterwards, Lieutenant Hester has them all moving in slow, tactical manoeuvres just in case.

 

Dean isn’t complaining exactly—he’s always glad when no-one is getting shot—but Christ, it’s boring. He gets the fidgets when he isn’t allowed to talk shit to the men nearby, and he is trying to distract himself with chewing out a splinter embedded in his knuckle.

 

It’s easy not to think about Novak. 

 

Just three hours alone with his thoughts. 

 

Dean tilts his head towards Staff Sergeant Masters, the next man in the line by about ten or twelve feet. “Psst,” he says in a dramatic stage-whisper. “Hey. Hey. You hear this one? What’s—”

 

Mark glances at him. “If this isn’t important, you’re going to regret talking to me.”

 

Dean grins. “What’s the best way to carve wood?”

 

Mark sighs.

 

“Whittle by whittle,” Dean says.

 

Mark says, “I’m going to shoot you and make it look like an accident.”

 

Dean rolls his eyes. There’s no pleasing some people.

 

The sun is climbing high over a day that is muggy and grey with humidity, Dean’s shirt sticking to his back under his combats. They walk another few minutes, traversing another field, dusty and scabbed with shorn wheat that threatens to turn their ankles if they step on it wrong. They clear the treeline. Ed sneezes, and Hester snaps at him about noise discipline.

 

Dean turns the other way, to Sorento. “Hey,” he whispers. “Hey. You know anything about carving wood?”

 

Sorento doesn’t like the joke either. Dean thinks it’s probably overkill to ask Lieutenant Hester if he can switch position in marching order to walk next to someone who thinks he’s funny.

 

He walks in silence, picking his way carefully through weeds and crop stubs and rabbit warrens. He wonders what Sam is doing right now. According to his watch, it’s thirteen-forty-seven—so, sleeping, probably. Farting under the covers so that Dean can gag when he opens the bedroom door. Or getting up for school, maybe. Brushing his teeth. 

 

He wonders whether his dad is okay. He wonders whether he’ll ever see them again. He doesn’t know what Sam looks like when he’s nineteen years old, if he is changed by it somehow. He wonders whether Sam ever thinks about him.

 

He wonders whether they're allowed to talk in the other platoons.

 

He wonders about Novak.

 

“Hey,” Dean whispers to Mark, leaning towards him. “Did you hear the one about the haunted elevator?”

 

Mark raises his voice. “Lieutenant, permission to put Winchester on point?”

 

From the far end of the platoon, Hester’s words ring out smug. “Granted.”

 

Dean scowls, and he obediently heads up to the front.

 

By the time they rejoin the rest of Baker—much later than the other platoons, due to their tediously slow and tactical progress—they have set up a temporary harbour area in a defensible triangle between two hedgerows. It is mostly dry dirt and gnarled tree roots, shaded overhead by branches, and in the distance, they can keep an eye on the Bayeux highway for any enemy movement. Shell scrapings are already being dug; sentries are already in position. Dean is glad to have missed the most boring admin aspects of setting up, and while they are being debriefed, Dean tries to figure out where his buddies are bivouacked. 

 

However, before he can find any trace of Joe, Charlie, or Benny—or any of one-platoon, for that matter—he is distracted.

 

On the other side of company CP, there is a small group of officers standing around discussing something. The conversation mostly seems to be between Wallace and the CO of Fox Company, a short and stocky fair-haired Captain Laufeyson that Dean doesn’t know too well, with Novak entirely distracted by a map which he studies with the expression of a man decoding ancient mysteries of the earth. Most importantly, more than anything, is the deeply surreal realisation that, for some insane reason, Lieutenant Novak is wearing a fucking hip holster.

 

Dean tries not to be annoying sometimes, he swears he does. But seriously—what is he supposed to do here? Novak looks all at once like a cowboy, and yet also a total square. Dean’s only human; he can’t resist.

 

The instant Hester dismisses them, Dean swings up, hands in his pockets, grinning wide. 

 

“Well, well, well!” he declares in a big loud voice, insinuating himself smoothly into the group of officers. “Sir, is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

 

Wallace and the captain burst out laughing; at his side, Novak doesn’t look up. “It’s a pistol.”

 

Of course, Novak is the only officer without a sense of humour. Wallace is still smothering a laugh; the captain arches his eyebrows, and he says, “Ask him nicely and he might even show it to you.”

 

Novak’s gaze flicks up to the captain. “Please don’t encourage him.”

 

“Too late! I’m encouraged,” Dean says brightly. He nods at the gleaming wooden grip visible above the leather holster. “What gives, sir? Is it for next time I’m being a pain in the ass?”

 

“If that were the case, I would already have it drawn,” Novak says.

 

Wallace tips his head over conspiratorially towards Dean. “Found it clearing one of the positions earlier,” he says. “If we don’t confiscate it, some moron in one-platoon’ll dick around with it and shoot their foot off.”

 

Dean gasps and flattens a hand across his chest, as though scandalised. “Sir! Are you saying one-platoon is full of morons?”

 

Wallace considers this. “Which platoon are you in again?”

 

The corner of Novak’s mouth tilts in a rare half-smile. He still isn’t looking at Dean, though. Instead, all his attention is on folding his map back into its case, careful and methodical up until it doesn’t fit, and then sort of shoving at it. “Anything else I can help you with, sergeant?” Dean is only half paying attention. One corner in particular of Novak’s map is creased to hell and refusing to sit flat enough for Novak to fasten the case closed. He doesn’t answer, and so Novak lifts his head to look at him. “Winchester.”

 

The focus makes Dean’s skin prickle, his mouth dry. “No, sir.”

 

Novak nods. “Right. We were just in the middle of something,” he says pointedly, and Dean gets the cue. He slopes away to find his friends. 

 

***

 

June 18th, 1944

 

At first, it was just the attention he was after. Desperate to be looked at, even if only in anger. He couldn’t tell you, exactly, when Dean realised he wanted him.

 

It’s not the first time he has felt like this. Dean’s not a fairy, obviously, there’s nothing wrong with him, but… he just notices, sometimes. The solid span of shoulders, the shape of a muscled chest under a flimsy t-shirt, the stubble-rough jawline. He would only think about it sometimes. He didn’t mean to. He just wondered. Never did anything about it, until Falmouth at least, and even that was just meant to be a quick reprieve. Getting it out of his system. Easy-peasy.

 

This feels different.

 

With Castiel Novak, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why that is. Okay, the guy is built like a wet dream, with big graceful hands and eyes so stupid blue it feels like you’re getting turned inside out when he looks at you—but it's not just that. He’s uncompromising and impatient and difficult to impress, and occasionally arrogant, which does things for Dean that he doesn’t want to acknowledge; he has a rare and terrible sense of humour, and he takes himself way too seriously, and he’s so blunt it’s almost unfriendly, and on the rare occasion he smiles, he’s so awkwardly sweet that Dean doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

 

Dean doesn’t remember how it started. On parade, maybe, chin lifted at attention in sleekly fitted service dress, his tie askew, squinting in the summer light; in a loud and claustrophobic bar where Novak didn’t tell him to fuck off but clearly wanted to; during calisthenics, his hair sweat-mussed and his mouth open as he caught his breath, big hands braced on his hips. Part of Dean feels like the wanting was there the whole time, fizzing underneath every cocky comment, every dumb joke, every tested boundary, every sweetheart.

 

Fuck if he knows what to do about it, though. He only gave Arthur that suckjob because he was a handsome stranger in the right place and the right time, and odds were he’d never see him again, even if the guy hadn’t got blown up on Juno. This—whatever this is—is nothing and is ridiculous and isn’t going anywhere. Even if Novak liked him, which he doesn’t. Even if he wanted him. Honestly, the idea of being hot for his CO is more humiliating than anything else. 

 

He tries hard not to think about it. Day to day, he has a job to do.

 

Even when he isn't holding anyone's guts together in his hands, he keeps busy around the company, checking on everyone, acting the knucklehead, making the German guns feel a little further away.

 

Then on sentry duty in the middle of the night, sitting in silence and staring through the dark trees, his mind wanders. He wonders about Novak. Castiel. Whether he's really as tightly wound and implacable as he wants everyone to think. Dean thinks he could get the guy to unravel. He'd put money on it.

 

***

 

June 22nd, 1944

 

Dean chews on the end of his pen for a long time. He doesn’t have enough paper to give this a rewrite or a second draft, and he doesn’t want to send something with a load of big scratch-throughs and second-guessing. Sign of weakness, he’s always been told. 

 

The morning is cold and crisp, mist curling in the distance, the sunrise pale and watery over the hedgerows. Oh-five-hundred, or near to it. They are due to move east towards Saint Pellerin at some point soon, but for now the harbour area is calm and quiet. A couple of the guys huddle around a hexi-cooker for warmth, cradling tin mugs of coffee; Mark is chasing late-risers to get their shelter-halves away and their gear packed; Joe is doing sit-ups while Ash throws pebbles at him. Dean estimates he has maybe fifteen, twenty minutes, to get this down on paper before he gets interrupted. 

 

He starts with, Hi Dad.

 

He can taste ink on his tongue even as it starts to bleed from the nib into the whorls of his fingers. He wants to write, please be safe , but he knows that if his dad is gone, he won’t see it, and if he comes back, he’ll mock Dean for it. He wants to say, Sammy, if you’re reading this, please don’t, but then Sam will definitely read it. He imagines—hopes—the letter will sit neatly on the mantel until his dad comes home.

 

I’m glad you’re home, he writes into a future where John has already come crawling back, whiskey-blurred and red-eyed, to apologise to his sons. He writes slow, double-checks his spelling as he goes, weighs every word with care. I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean that and as soon as I sent it off with the postal guys I regretted it. You know I’m real grateful for everything you do for us. Sammy is, too. I know he’s got a bad temper but he didn’t mean any of it. He’s sorry, too, I know he is. Please give him a chance to—

 

“Winchester? I need you to—where is he?”

 

“Here, sir.” Dean glances up to find Novak scanning the platoon as he approaches, rifle slung loose to hang by his hip, helmet in one hand.

 

Preemptively, Dean lowers his pen, starts folding his letter, but then Novak stops before him and is silent. Whatever he was about to say seems to slip his mind; instead, after a beat, Novak says, “Everything alright?”

 

“Yeah, fine.” Dean shoves his letter into the breast pocket of his combat jacket, fumbles in his lap for his pen lid. He waits for orders that don't come.

 

The silence perseveres. Novak doesn’t move, just goes on studying him, and then says, “Are you sure?”

 

Dean lifts his head, caught off-guard.

 

Novak looks back at him, expectant and unflinching. The question seems sincere, unsettlingly so, and Dean doesn’t know what to say. He is trying to remember the last time someone asked if he was okay and gave a shit about the answer. All the same, he doesn’t feel up for going into the specifics of his dad’s disappearing acts at five in the morning, especially not to his CO.

 

At last, he says, “Yeah.” He wipes a hand over his face—realises too late that there is ink on his fingers—and then pulls a goofy grimace. “Just bullshit family drama. You know how it is.”

 

Novak’s expression doesn’t change, his mouth flat and undemonstrative, but he lowers his eyes. 

 

Honestly, Dean finds him difficult to read at the best of times. Quiet, reserved, introspective. Dean still hasn’t figured whether he’s shy or just plain awkward, but the guy tries. He asks after Kevin’s mother every now and then. He remembers who got injured and he checks they’re feeling better. He shares his cigarettes when he has a few to spare. He tries hard to be fair, when it comes to sentry rotas and latrine duties. Dean has heard him speak softly to a recruit who was feeling homesick. He’s kind of a dick, and he never laughs, and Dean thinks sometimes, I bet Sammy’d like him. No higher compliment.

 

Now, he avoids Dean’s gaze and he looks at the dry dirt between them, and when he says, “Sure,” his voice is quiet. His fingers fidget on the lip of his helmet, and just for a moment, there is no trace of the steel-spined commander, stoic and fearless and self-assured. He looks human, then. He looks unspeakably lonely. Then, after a beat, he clears his throat, shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and Dean watches Novak pull himself up. Watches the shoulders straighten, the chin lift. He says, “We’re moving out soon. Du Mort’s under the weather today, so I want you with three-platoon. Do you have everything you need?”

 

Still cross-legged in the dirt, Dean makes a dramatic show of patting down his pockets, then shakes his head with a grimace. “More or less, but then—you know, it’s the darnedest thing, sir, but no-one will give me a goddamn gun.”

 

Novak rolls his eyes, glancing skywards like he’s using up all his prayers to send him strength because Dean’s so goddamn annoying, but then—holy shit, hallelujah, there it is—the corner of his mouth lifts, just a little. It’s not a smile, not really. But it’s something, and delight unfolds in Dean’s belly, makes him grin wider. Novak thinks he’s funny, and Dean could sing . 

 

Novak says, “I would not trust you with a gun.”

 

Feigning outrage, Dean leans back on his hands. “Sir! I’ll have you know I’m an excellent shot,” he tells him. “Get me any pistol. I can hit a can of beans at thirty paces, knock it clean off a fence post.”

 

Novak’s eyebrows lift, just slightly. “If we come up against a fascist pantry,” he says, dead-pan, “I’ll be sure to make General Patton aware of your particular expertise.”

 

Dean can’t help his loud, stupid bark of laughter; Novak’s wonky smile tips higher, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and then he reaches out a hand to pull Dean to his feet. Straightening up, Dean grins back at him, and then something comes over him, because he can never leave well enough alone. He always has to push further, test his luck to its limits, and so he does not let go.

 

His hand lingers a second too long in Novak’s, and he looks into Novak’s face, at the wintry cold colour of his eyes in the low light, at the neat line of his nose, at the grime smeared along the side of his jaw. The curve of his lower lip.

 

Novak holds Dean’s eyes, unblinking, and Dean swallows hard. There’s that focus again, like there’s nothing on earth that can hold a candle to whatever Novak finds in Dean’s face right now. Mouth dry, chest tight, Dean can feel his heart flying fast in his throat. For just a moment, Dean’s fingertips graze over the inside of the lieutenant’s wrist where the skin is soft.

 

Novak drops Dean’s hand.

 

Quickly, he takes one step backwards. Novak adjusts his rifle sling over his shoulder, palms his helmet on, and looks away, back towards the rest of the harbour area. There is a faint pink flush below his ears. He clears his throat. “Find Lieutenant Hester when you’re squared away,” he says, his voice clipped and cool. “Be ready to move out in ten.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Dean says, and he watches him walk away, fists clenched, without looking back.

 

***

 

June 29th, 1944

 

When no-one is shooting at them, France is actually pretty beautiful. Over the past several days, they have mostly been moving through empty stretches of farmland and along winding stretches of shaded roads, hearing the war only as distant shelling and gunfire from wherever other regiments are currently rooting out Germans. The summer sky is bright overhead, the air thick with heat, as Baker marches south-east to meet up with Fox and Able. 

 

For several hours, they have been patrolling in platoons, picking through half-wild crops long abandoned, clambering carefully through dogrose hedges and blackberry bushes; while they walk, Dean has been doing his level best to keep spirits up with dumb jokes that Sammy wrote him, or even dumber stories of Sammy making an idiot of himself in front of smart college girls. Now, a little after fourteen-hundred hours, they have stopped for a rest. Two- and four-platoon have caught up with them; three-platoon are somewhere nearby. 

 

Adam comes round to give the orders: Baker has got half an hour’s break before they start moving again, and they’ll have sentries but otherwise, no need for defensive positioning. It’s the best news he could possibly have given, short of ‘ the war is over and Rita Hayworth’s come to say thanks personally to each and every one of you’, and all along the line, men are all too happy to dump their kit and put their feet up. 

 

In spite of his aching lower back and his sore feet, Dean isn’t ready to sit back and relax just yet. He makes his way through the company in search of two- and four-platoon; he hasn’t seen those guys since late last night and feels someone needs to be checking that they’re all doing okay.

 

As he makes his way through the lazy disarray of Baker, he catches sight first of Kevin, digging through the contents of his webbing pouches, one fistful full of discarded K-ration boxes.

 

“There he is!” Dean calls as he approaches, and he grins as Kevin lifts his head and then immediately sags at the shoulders in despair. Dean goes on, “You ready to get your ass kicked yet, or you gonna pretend to lose your dice again?”

 

“I did lose my dice!” Kevin says plaintively. Meanwhile, a couple of feet away, Mark Masters is lighting a cigarette and immediately betrays him with raised eyebrows and a discreet shake of his head. Kevin gapes. “I did—”

 

Dean turns to Mark, hands on his hips, with a grimace. “He tells me he’s lost his dice. You believe this shit?”

 

“Not a goddamn word.”

 

“I swear!” Kevin insists.

 

“Un-fucking-believable,” Dean says as he carries on along the line. There is Don, taking the opportunity to brush his teeth, while Ronnie upends one of his boots to tip out a scattering of pebbles and grit, oblivious to Sorento scowling at the spray of dirt dangerously close to his coffee.

 

“Hey, sarge—you got any spare shoelaces?” Ronnie asks, from further along the section. 

 

At his side, Pat scoffs in disbelief. “The fuck would he have shoelaces for? He’s a medic.”

 

Ronnie throws his hands up defensively. “I don’t know, he has lots of things!”

 

Dean pats his pockets, rattles his webbing pouches, and then holds his empty hands out wide. “Nothing. You wanna lace your boots with a tourniquet?” he offers.

 

Ronnie grimaces. “Nah, I’m good.”

 

Dean pulls a face. He uses a hand on Don’s head to boost himself up the hedgerow—Don squawks, “Hey!” around his toothbrush—to reach where Garth is sprawled in the dirt, combat jacket unzipped, seemingly sunbathing. There is Ash, who knocks off a sloppy salute with his middle finger, and Brady, who glowers at him over his tin of shapeless brown rations, and Concino ignores him completely as he works at repairing some wires in the back of his radio. As he reaches the splay of four-section’s men, he raps a fist on top of Ed’s helmet to announce himself.

 

“Look alive, asshole,” he says. “How’s that ankle?”

 

Ed groans, slumping back against the hedgerow embankment. “You tell me, doc. Can I go home yet?”

 

Dean grins. “Easy, tiger. You sprained it, you didn’t get it amputated.”

 

Ed rolls his eyes. “Fucking wish I got it amputated,” he mutters.

 

“Gimme a minute, I’ll come back with a saw.”

 

There is Calahee, Roth, and Rudy, listening rapt to one of Campbell’s disgusting stories, and then at the tail-end of two-platoon, Lieutenants Novak and Wallace are standing together at the far end of the harbour area, talking indistinctly.

 

They lean towards each other with the easy, comfortable familiarity of old friends, and Novak looks almost relaxed. In the summer heat, he has ditched his combat jacket, knotting it round his hips by the sleeves, and his shirt sleeves are rolled to the elbow. He has raked his sweaty hair back off his face, and he is sunburnt across the nose, and he looks absurdly, ridiculously dashing. 

 

On the other hand, the conversation they’re having looks ridiculous. It could be about literally anything, Wallace speaking with wild, emphatic gestures, while Novak looks on with amusement. There’s an element of mime going on, impossible to figure out from here. Wallace makes a motion as though to grab Novak’s face, Novak swatting him away, some kind of protest—Dean hears fuck off once or twice—Wallace’s voice, pitching high and silly, and Novak actually laughs. Wide and gummy, his nose wrinkling, eyes creasing at the corners, and so handsome it makes Dean’s stomach hurt.

 

Wallace reels, hands splayed wide, face contorted in an overwrought expression of horror. Novak is still wearing that big, dumb smile, and then Wallace turns away towards the rest of his platoon, and Dean watches that smile fade a little at the corners.

 

“Hey, Etheridge!” Wallace calls across to one of his sections, still grinning. He holds both hands up, wiggling his fingers theatrically to show off the smear of red and brown across them. It looks like he might have fallen in cowshit. “You got a hankie or anything? I lost mine somewhere between here and the English Channel and someone won’t share.”

 

Novak’s expression is one of fond exasperation, but it is quieter now, smaller. Dean watches the lieutenant pull himself up a little.

 

Etheridge looks perplexed. “No, sir. Sorry.”

 

Wallace groans theatrically. “Anyone?” he asks, casting his attention around for help. “Miller? What about you? Winchester?” He clasps his hands together as though in prayer. “Hankie? Some gauze, an old sock—anything.”

 

Hands in his pockets, Dean comes nearer with a rueful shake of his head. “I don’t think you want mine, sir. Mine’s got vomit on it,” he says, and then, at Wallace’s aghast reaction, hastens to add, “Not mine.”

 

Recognition flickers in Novak’s face, and then he turns to Wallace and explains in the weariest voice Dean has ever heard, “Spangler chose to eat something… unsavoury.”

 

“Unsavoury?” Wallace echoes.

 

Dean fights to keep a straight face. “He tried to cook a squirrel, sir.”

 

Wallace’s face wrinkles in horror. “Jesus. What the hell inspired him to do that? Ten bucks and a packet of lights?”

 

“Twenty and a chocolate bar, I believe,” Novak says. The warm summer light catches on the hair of his forearms; he has a scattering of mosquito bites near his elbow. His shirt is dark with sweat at the throat and underarms. His collar is open, and there is his battered bronze crucifix, caught on one of his buttons. He glances at Dean, as though to check his facts, and Dean nods.

 

Shaking his head, Wallace tuts like an overbearing mother. “These men. Fucking animals, I swear.” With that, he twists at the waist to shout, “Harry, you sick bastard. What the hell is wrong with you?!” down the line in the direction of one-platoon.

 

“Food poisoning,” Novak says, and Dean snorts a laugh.

 

Novak’s eyes flick across to him again. The harsh afternoon light has Novak squinting a little to look at him, his eyes turned this sharp, kingfisher-blue that makes Dean totally incapable of remembering why he came over this way. Then the corner of Novak’s mouth ticks near a smile, almost. Just for a second, there and gone so fast Dean might’ve otherwise missed it. If Dean didn’t know better, he’d say that Novak likes him being here. Lucky he knows better. 

 

Wallace isn’t paying attention, yelling down towards Harry and Kenny, and so Dean and Lieutenant Novak are left standing together in silence. For once, there is no trace of the war, just the birds and the sunshine overhead. They look at each other, and Dean—company-renowned wise-ass with a smart mouth that can’t shut up—finds that he can’t think of a single goddamn thing to say.

 

After a moment, Novak grouches, “What?”

 

Like an idiot, Dean just grins at him. “Nothing. Just—gotta say, sir, you’re looking mighty chipper today.”

 

“Chipper,” Novak repeats, not without suspicion. Oblivious, Lieutenant Wallace is still jeering affectionately at someone nearby.

 

Dean nods at him. “You know. Cheerful.”

 

Novak tips his head over. The motion makes the crucifix at his throat catch the sun, winking dully against his dog tags. “Not familiar with the word.”

 

Dean’s grin spreads. “Bullshit.”

 

At that, Novak narrows his eyes in that appraising way, like he can’t decide whether or not to to tell Dean to go leave him alone—and then Dean’s eyes drop again to the crucifix, and Novak’s whole bearing shifts as he realises what the distraction is.

 

Novak steps back, tugs at the chain until it falls back in his shirt, and Dean only realises that there was softness in Novak’s expression when he watches it vanish. There is tension in his jaw that wasn’t there before, his gaze defensive. “Is there a problem, sergeant?”

 

However, before Dean can say anything, there is an authoritative call from the far end of the platoon: “Lieutenant?”

 

Novak and Wallace both look towards the voice; Dean is still looking at Novak, and so he watches up close and firsthand the moment he becomes the company commanding officer again. He straightens, his hand moving to steady his rifle sling, and his expression shifts. Focused, attentive, steadfast and unshakeable. He greets the approaching Battalion XO with a polite nod, and Dean knows his cue to make himself scarce.

 

They’re already talking about boring shit like supply runs and scouting patrols by the time Dean has ducked away, and he carries on his recon mission up to see how four-platoon are doing. As he makes his way back to his own platoon, he thinks of the commander: authoritative and assured, never a flicker of uncertainty or an instant of doubt. Cool, calm, unyielding.

 

In his life, Dean knows what it is to pretend. He knows what it looks like. The dutiful son, the staunch protector, the class clown—he knows the burden of the performance and what it feels like to forget who you are when the curtains are closed. It took him five thousand miles and a war to figure out. Novak, it seems, has a little further to go.

 

***

 

July 2nd, 1944

 

“What the fuck,” Dean says slowly, incredulously, “are you talking about?”

 

Charlie throws his hands up. “Do you want me to draw you a picture?” he whispers, throwing a surreptitious glance back over his shoulder. There’s little need for it—they’re alone out here, sharing the red-eye sentry at the rear line of the harbour area, and everyone else is fast asleep. The nearest foxhole is shared by Kenny and Reznik, who snores like a freight train and talks in his sleep and does a better job of undermining local conversation than any Kraut codebreaker. Charlie goes on, “I don’t know how else to explain this to you.”

 

Dean's mouth opens and closes. He feels profoundly stupid, and he is trying his hardest to understand, but this doesn’t make any sense. There is a sort of ringing sound in the back of his head. “There's just no way—”

 

“He was beating off!” Charlie hisses, and Dean makes a strangled sound he has very little control over. “I'm not an idiot, Dean. I know what—”

 

“You said you didn't see —”

 

“I didn't fucking need to, okay—I came out and the guy was—” Charlie makes a gesture which is incomprehensible in the dark, “— flustered. ”

 

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Dean objects. “Christ, you get flustered reading maps, you’re not—”

 

Charlie scoffs. “Not that kind of flustered. And I heard—” He cuts himself off and covers his face with his hands.

 

Dean feels unsteady. “You heard…?”

 

Still smothering himself, Charlie takes a slow, comically wheezing breath. “I heard—you know. I think.”

 

Dean doesn’t know what to do with this information. He starts to laugh.

 

Charlie punches him hard in the arm, and he shoves back at Charlie with his shoulder as they descend into furiously whispered squabbling— shut up, we’re meant to be silent—you be silent—swear to Christ—you’re the one being a problem— and Dean, with a deep breath, manages to contain himself. He has honest-to-God tears in his eyes.

 

They let silence fall between them and they look out at the darkness. No movement, no sound. There is the dim shape of trees a few feet away, and then nothing to report. Charlie shifts position, adjusting his folded legs in the shallow foxhole; his rifle clanks softly against the metal buckle of his webbing.

 

With his flashlight hidden under a discarded shelter-half, Dean checks his watch. Forty-three minutes to go. There is nothing in their sentry notebook other than oh-two-seventeen: rustle from trees, suspected animal. A fox, by Dean’s reckoning; Charlie thought rabbit.

 

“Jesus,” Dean says softly into the hush. “Poor bastard.”

 

“Poor me, I think you mean,” Charlie mutters. “I’m fucking traumatised.”

 

“Guy’s only human. I mean, I get it.”

 

“You get it?” Charlie echoes in disbelief. “You get what ?”

 

Dean shrugs. “Everyone’s doing it.”

 

“Everyone is not doing it. ” Charlie pauses, and it’s too dark to see his face, but Dean can just imagine the scrunched-up horror. “Are you doing it?”

 

“Not right now, no—”

 

“What—Dean, that is so not what I—”

 

“It’s not like it’s all the fucking time. Joe and I got a system,” Dean says lightly. “It’s fine. He’s a heavy sleeper.”

 

“Ew,” Charlie says.

 

“And Joe just asks me to take a walk, and then we never talk about it.” Dean considers this. “He does the same thing when he needs to take a monster shit, though. So.”

 

“He might just have bowel disease.”

 

“Nah. Too cheerful when he comes back.”

 

Charlie makes a grossed-out sound, but concedes. After a moment’s silence, in a voice which is low with dread, he says, “When we share a foxhole—you don’t…?”

 

“Oh, every night, baby.”

 

Charlie makes a drawn-out retching noise.

 

They fall again into silence. Dean checks his watch. Forty-one minutes to go, fucking hell. He rubs at his eyes and wriggles to get comfortable. His ass is going numb.

 

At oh-three-thirty, Charlie dusts off his hands and starts gathering up his rifle and kit. Dean tells him who’s next—Tom Morvey, who is nowhere near as much fun as Charlie—and while he sits alone in the foxhole, he tries not to fall asleep and he does not think about the lieutenant. Not even for an instant.

 

Morvey nearly falls into the foxhole, and he fucks up the password, too, but Dean is patient with him, lets him keep trying. November sierra? No, wait. November something. November tango. Then it is just another half hour until he can go back to bed.

 

They don’t talk much. Dean jams his cold fingers into his armpits, stares out at the darkened trees, and passes the time by trying to remember Sammy’s college class schedule. He tries to remember the names of every guy on his high school baseball team. Then he tries alphabetising one-platoon in his head. He doesn’t think about Novak.

 

At oh-three-fifty-two, there is a rustle in the dark and Dean thinks, don’t you fucking dare. Nothing happens. No German attack. No stand to. Morvey hides the flashlight under the tarp and jots it down.

 

Then at last, his duty is over, and he slaps a hand to Morvey’s shoulder as he scrambles inelegantly out of the foxhole. He follows the comms-cord back through to one-platoon, gets lost in the dark, tries to figure out where the fuck he is going, doubles back, and at last fumbles his way to a bivouac. He wakes up Johnny first by accident, who tells him to go fuck himself in the most disturbingly colourful terms, and then Kevin comes crawling out.

 

It isn’t until afterwards, when he’s finally back in his own bedding, that he lets himself properly think about it.

 

Curled under this thin blanket roll, Charlie’s story echoes in his head, and he fills in the details. Lieutenant Novak’s long, careful fingers. His narrow wrists, the curve of muscle in his forearm. The shape of his open mouth. The sound of his dick pushing wet through his fist, God. The low rumble of his voice, deep in his chest, the things he might say if he thought he was alone. Or with someone he liked. The shaky hitch of his breath.

 

Dean swallows hard.

 

He glances over at Joe, sprawled and snoring, on the other side of the foxhole. Like he said, Joe’s a heavy sleeper.

 

***

 

July 7th, 1944

 

Sometimes, Dean turns the possibility over in his head—whether he would do anything, if the lieutenant wanted him to. Which he doesn’t. But if he did. Yes, obviously. In a fucking heartbeat. Dean’s not queer but the guy is a dish by anybody’s standards, tall and solid and serious, and if Novak wanted to, he’d be game. Of course he would.

 

At the head of the column, leading the march to Couvains, there is Max, taking point-man; behind him, there is Mark Masters, scanning the landscape at all times, and behind Mark, there is Novak. Mostly the men of the company blend together, especially like this, all lined up and silent as they heave their kit to the next position, but Dean would recognise the CO anywhere. It’s something in the set of his shoulders, the way he moves, the way he carries his rifle.

 

Dean adjusts his haversack where the left strap digs into his shoulder. No time to adjust it now.

 

Under the blistering heat of the high afternoon sun, they march along endless bramble hedgerows that corral them ever west towards Saint Lo, occasionally broken by golden fields of rapeseed and barley. The sky is blue and cloudless overhead. Dean is sweating inside his helmet, and he has a blister rubbing sharp at his heel. At his side, Joe sneezes twice, red-eyed with hayfever.

 

If Novak wanted to—which he doesn’t—Dean would go for it, he thinks. Why the hell not?  It could be fun. It could put a little bounce in the lieutenant’s day, give him something else to think about. Dean’s no expert when it comes to men, but he bets he could make him feel good. Get his rocks off, at least. It could ease off that tight, troubled expression that he wears when he’s trying real hard not to flip out: the crease of his brow, the tension in his jaw. It could make him relax a little, maybe even make him smile.

 

Dean chews his thumbnail. It could also get him a Section 8 and a dishonourable discharge. It could get him court martialled and sent home in disgrace. It could get him killed, even.

 

Then again—a lot of things could get him killed, out here. At least this might feel good first.

 

***

 

July 14th, 1944

 

On the eleventh, shrapnel from a tank shell tears through Ronnie’s bicep, leaves his arm useless and hanging; Scott takes his helmet off and near immediately draws the attention of a German sniper; his foxhole buddy, Lloyd, has to then be dragged to the back of the line because he got a faceful of wet brain matter and can’t stop screaming. Frampton and Willard and Douglas stumble upon a minefield; Campbell is leading his section through the back alleys of La Roque when a mortar shell hits him, and Dean can’t even find his dog tags.

 

On the twelfth, Alan takes a round cleanly through the forehead, his helmet punctured like drawing paper, and Norman’s ankle is shattered by machine gun fire, leaving him slumped and screaming in the middle of the road where no-one can get to him, forcing Dean to watch as he is hit again, and again, until he stops moving.

 

On the thirteenth, Dennis cries for his mother as he shivers and bleeds out, fumbling with shaky hands to clutch at the front of Dean’s jacket; Kris takes three bullets to the belly and lives long enough to reach the back of the line but stops breathing while Dean is finding a vein for the plasma. 

 

On the fourteenth, Roy is shot through the lung, seizes and vomits and drowns in his own blood; Harrison gets ripped open by a chunk of shrapnel the width of a fist, and Dean works until he is stained dark up to elbows with gore, trying to pinch the artery; Pamuk steps on a mine and by the time Dean reaches him, he is crawling on his hands trying to gather up the raw, white scraps of his kneecap, apparently so the surgeons can put his leg back together. 

 

They pull back to the high ground at La Madeleine and they fortify their position, and Dean does his best to scrub the blood and bile off his hands. His knuckles are scraped raw by the time he gets his fingers clean, and his nail beds are still stained ugly rust-brown.

 

It doesn’t get easier with time, but usually he does get used to it. He can pick himself back up afterwards. He needs to—that’s his job. So Dean shakes away the image of his friends seizing in the bloody dirt, and he makes himself cheerful.

 

He checks on a couple of people as he moves through the harbour area, telling stupid jokes, making fun of some of the privates, asking after the ones who took more minor injuries in the last few days. He tells Don about the time Sammy turned his ankle playing baseball and was back out there for the fifth inning, says the swelling will be down in no time. He tells Alfred that girls like scars, that he should be grateful for a near-miss to make him look interesting, and it’s not like he could’ve got any uglier. There’s good humour, for the most part, although many of them are quiet, facing down the near-certainty of death tomorrow. Dean doesn’t spend too long dwelling on it. He needs to find Novak to hand in his casualty report.

 

The lieutenant is hard to track down, though. He asks Joe if he has seen the six recently, who points him to Virgil, who points him to company CP, which is empty, and then he finds Mark, who points him to Wallace, and there, finally, to a cluster of trees off the Bayeux Highway, where Novak stares out at the distant ruin of Saint Lo.

 

The late afternoon sky is smoke-dark and ugly, the flickering lights of distant fires flashing between the jagged concrete skeletons of half-destroyed buildings. Every few seconds, there are new explosions, the white flash of shells sporadically illuminating the city. For a moment, Dean pauses at the treeline, watching him. Novak’s back is turned and he stands motionless, but for the slow, idle movement of his fingers as he turns a metal cigarette tin over and over in his hand.

 

Dean steps out from the trees. “There he is!” he calls as he approaches through the tangled undergrowth. “And how’s my favourite officer?”

 

Novak turns his head to look at him. He ignores this, and says instead, “Are those the casualty reports?”

 

“You betcha.”

 

“Thank you.” Novak takes them from him without enthusiasm and tips his head over as he scans through the list. Dean watches him, and he can’t help but take him in: the curve of his lip, the mud flaking along his jaw, the pale shadows under his eyes. Then Novak says, “Wait. What does this say?”

 

Dean steps closer and peers at the creased sheet as Novak holds it out. “Uhhh. Sorry, lousy handwriting. Gimme a sec, that’s—Private Pamuk, left leg traumatic amputation, and…” He pauses, scrutinising his untidy scrawl. “Oh, yeah. McKinney, GSW grazed right flank.”

 

“Your notes are of no use to me if I can’t read them,” Novak points out, squinting at the page.

 

“Message received and understood, sir. I’ll practice my best calligraphy for you.”

 

Novak gives him a flat look. “Just legible will suffice.” As he reads through the rest of the notes, he tips the rim of his helmet up with one knuckle and scratches idly at his brow. He has a faint pink rash across his forehead where the headband has rubbed in the summer heat; a few feathers of his dark hair are haphazardly plastered to his temple. He is overdue for a shave, and he looks tired. His eyes flick up to Dean’s, then, and Dean realises he is staring. “Something else I can help you with?”

 

Dean clears his throat. “Actually—I know I’m not on the rota, but I was wondering if I could work the aid station tonight.”

 

Novak doesn’t even think about the request. “Denied.” He turns the sheet over to study the back.

 

“I want to check on our men,” Dean explains, even though Novak didn’t ask. “We’ve lost a lot this week. It’ll do ‘em good—and they’ve got friends who’re worried about them, so.”

 

“We can’t spare you,” Novak says. “Not after losing Rowan.”

 

Dean grimaces. There’s sense in it, he can acknowledge. There are only three medics now for Baker Company, and if anything happens tonight, they’ll be stretched thin as it is. He hesitates. “But—if I was fast. Just an hour, maybe, or thirty minutes. I could—”

 

“Winchester—”

 

“Hell, I could even grab some supplies while I was there, if—”

 

Novak’s voice turns sharp. “I said no.”

 

Goddamnit. Dean gets it, but still. He kicks at loose bark and tree-burst underfoot. “Yeah.”

 

There is a pause between them. Novak inhales like he is about to speak, then doesn’t. His grubby fingers pick at the edge of the paper in his hands. There is a flash of something across his face, his throat working. Dean waits.

 

In the distance, there is the low double-thud of 88s firing, and then Saint Lo lights up with a new barrage, followed by the chatter of machine gun fire. It catches Novak’s attention, his eyes fixed on the city ahead. In the uneven light of the bombardments, he looks pinched and tense and sleepless. 

 

Dean hesitates. “You okay, sir?”

 

Novak lowers his eyes. He folds the casualty report and stuffs it inelegantly into a breast pocket of his combat jacket. “Fine.”

 

It’s unconvincing, as far as performances go. Then again, Dean gets the sense that if he pushes it, he’ll get snapped at, and after nursing the sting of getting rebuffed in front of everybody yesterday, he’s not overly eager to relive the experience.

 

Instead, he tilts his head towards Saint Lo, burning against the horizon. “It’s not going anywhere,” he says pointedly. “Get some rest, sir.”

 

Novak doesn’t answer him, and Dean heads back to Baker alone.

 

***

 

July 16th, 1944

 

The first Panzer fires, then another. Some screams, “Take cover!” and the Bayeux highway is smashed into a column of metal and fire.

 

Dean hits the dirt, his helmet peppered by clods of soil and grass as the earth bucks up to meet him, impact shuddering through his spine. Then it starts. Medic! Medic, I need a fucking medic! He hauls himself unsteadily up and takes off running. 

 

Everything is chaos around him, the low thud of mortars, the slam of shells that vomit acrid black smoke, yelling and gunfire and frenzy, and Dean tunes it all out. He runs hard, head ducked low, and then comes crashing to his knees besides his first casualty. Beside the thrashing ammunition belt of three-platoon’s support gunners, Westall is curled in on himself and moaning as he clutches at his thigh. Dean slaps his hands out of the way and gets to work.

 

Not an arterial bleed but he packs the wound fast, wrenches the tourniquet tight enough that Westall gasps and calls him a son of a bitch, and then he twists it tighter still. I need a medic, get a medic, someone is shouting, wild and high with panic. Dean slings Westall’s arm around his neck, grabs a fistful of his pants to haul him up, and he gets the mouthy fucker out of there. Dumps him at the treeline and runs back out.

 

Slivers of tree-burst carve a hole in Wade’s temple and shrapnel smashes Sikorska’s left elbow into ragged pulp and George is shot through the shoulder and belly, and Dean’s fingers are slippery with blood. His breath is coming short and shaky. There’s no time to slow down and think.

 

Rounds crack past Dean’s head as he tries to stop the bleeding. Two P-47s scream overhead with a noise like thunder, and then somewhere in the near distance is the explosion, the sky flashing hot, searing white as the phosphorus ignites. Someone is yelling orders, their voice drowned out by the low, echoing thud of the Panzers firing again, again, and the air is black with churning smoke.

 

Dean is working as fast as he can, but he can hear it across the company. Medic! Someone get me a medic! The screaming pitches up in desperation and intensity—from one-platoon, he realises, and with Teddy dispatched over to Fox Company for the day, that’s his cue. Fuck.

 

He scrambles to his feet, musette bag hauled up in his fist as he goes, and he runs. Fear like a fist around his throat, he sprints hard for the tree line, the hedgerow and the clutter of collapsing farm buildings, for one-platoon beyond it. Across the field pitted with shell craters, behind three-platoon’s line of fire, while the light mortar shells of 88s explode near enough that his feet are jarred beneath him and he nearly falls, while the tanks fire again and again, and the deafening chatter of machine gun rings in his ear and rounds hiss by his feet.

 

Dean pushes himself to run as fast as he can, pushing himself until his calves burn and his throat aches, and he can see two-platoon scattering as he rounds the corner, past the sheds, and then he slams into someone at full speed. The impact jars his body so hard that he almost goes over on his ass, almost knocks the other guy flat, and he staggers, reeling, disoriented.

 

He throws his hands up, grabbing blindly at whatever he can to steady himself, and then he blinks as he discovers Novak swaying in his grip.

 

At first, it’s hard to understand. His head is swimming, his chest still squeezing tight with adrenalin, and so the realisation comes to him in dizzy fragments—Novak’s hands planted on his chest. A smear of loose soil across his cheek and nose. His mouth, open and gasping. His arms under Dean’s hands, where Dean can feel that he is shaking. The heat of his body. The shine of sweat along his throat. The startling blue of his eyes. 

 

Novak blinks fast, taking him in. His mouth falls open and he says, “Dean,” as though by accident. It is only the second time he’s heard his name in Novak’s mouth. His voice is softer than it has any right to be, a little hoarse, breathless. It’s a sigh which is all wrong for right now, and it makes the skin at the nape of Dean’s neck prickle, and Dean wants to hear it against the shell of his ear, against his mouth, against his throat. 

 

Distantly, there is the rattle of gunfire. Dean’s chest is heaving under Novak’s hands, his pulse drumming hard. His blood-smeared fingers are jittering on Novak’s sleeves. He can’t think what he is meant to be doing, where he is meant to be. It feels as though something is unfolding behind his ribs, curling in his throat. “Sir,” he manages, “I—”

 

He doesn’t know what he is trying to say. He takes a deep, slow breath, steadying himself. On his chest, Novak’s fingers splay as Dean’s ribs spread.

 

Dean’s head is whirling, and he is struggling enormously to think of anything other than kissing him.

 

Novak’s gaze falls to his hands. Then lower. His lips part. He draws in a breath and Dean feels like the air is being pulled from his own lungs. His nose bumps Novak’s, and Novak is looking at his mouth. He wants to kiss Dean, and it would be so fucking easy to let him. He wants him to. He wants it more badly than he thinks he has wanted anything.

 

Dean says, “Are you hit?” His voice comes out as a murmur, rough and unsteady, heard as though from miles away. His heart is thunderous in his ears and his mouth is dry and it would be so easy to close that distance. 

 

He is watching Novak’s lips when the lieutenant says, “No.”

 

Dean doesn’t understand what Novak is saying—and then he does, and then he remembers. 

 

He jerks back, yanking his hands away from Novak, his CO, his fucking boss , and he stumbles to put space between them. Jesus Christ, what the fuck is he doing? People are dying, there are fucking Panzers out there, and he has a job to do. He feels untethered and out of control, and there is no time for that when his friends are being shot at.

 

“I have to go,” he blurts out, his words shaky, and backs away by a few steps. He doesn’t look right at Novak; he doesn’t trust himself. He takes another step away, and then remembers belatedly— “Sir.”

 

Novak can’t meet his eyes. Dean can’t tell if it’s fear or shame or something else scrawled across Novak’s face, but there is no time to think about it. He stumbles away and he gets back to work. He runs for one-platoon, towards screaming and the roar of tank shells overhead, and he doesn’t think about it.

 

He holds together Emerson’s guts in his hands and he tries to relieve the pressure in Vasek’s chest cavity as he vomits a red smear down the front of his jacket and he cinches the tourniquet tight around Dougall’s bicep and he keeps moving. He packs bullet wound after bullet wound with sulfa and gauze, and he decides who to drag to safety and who to leave for dead, and he stuffs his pockets with dog tags until he rattles as he runs, and he keeps moving.

 

They aren’t relieved until nearly fifteen-hundred-hours, when the rest of the 3rd Battalion finally materialise from the Martinville ridge to save their asses, and Baker Company is pulled to the back of the line.

 

Obviously, they can’t go far, with Germans on all sides, but it is enough just to sit down for twenty minutes out of firing range.

 

Dean gets approximately eleven minutes before he is called back out there again. One of Able Company’s medics took a bullet through the nose on the way over, and Major Isaacs heard someone say Winchester was good. Dean hands Joe his coffee and goes.

 

Shrapnel injury to the lumbar spine, wound packed and casualty carried to the back of the line. Broken arm, walking wounded. Gunshot to the belly, large cavitation wound by the kidneys, faint radial pulse. The guy is barely breathing. Expectant, painted on the forehead in blood. Second-degree phosphorus burns to the face. Shrapnel to the throat. Junctional bleed at armpit. 

 

Dean can’t work fast enough. He packs the wound as hard and as quick as he can, but the guy is going grey. Saying something about Maggie. Dean doesn’t know who the guy is, let alone who to speak to about passing on his goodbyes. With dread unspooling cold in his gut, Dean thinks for a split-second of Sam, imagines not being able to say goodbye. Then he doesn’t think about it. The guy goes still and blank, shortly after Dean gets the bleeding under control. He swears and he leaves him there and he keeps moving.

 

He has no idea of the time when Able Company gets pulled off the line. He goes to find Able’s senior medic—T3, one Staff Sergeant Crawford that Dean has only met a handful of times—and spends some time untangling his pocketful of dog tags. He keeps the names he recognises from Baker and tips the rest apologetically into Crawford’s hand.

 

He starts making his way back towards Baker when someone starts yelling for help from a nearby deuce-and-a-half, and Dean makes himself useful.

 

Some Private from Charlie Company that had been declared stable enough to be evac’d back to the aid station, now lies seizing violently in the truck bed. Dean does what he can, crouched alongside an unfamiliar NCO, but he can’t see anything wrong with him externally, and he’s not a real doctor. He doesn’t know what to do. They can’t get him to a surgeon fast enough, and the kid is dead before they can round up someone to drive the transport back to battalion.

 

Dean looks at the Lance Corporal, slumped on the bench on the other side of the truck bed. He doesn’t know what to say. “He one of yours?” he asks, at last.

 

The Lance Corporal shakes his head. 

 

Succinctly, Dean says, “Fuck.”

 

By the time he makes it back to Baker, it’s nearly eighteen-thirty, and he is exhausted, and he hasn’t eaten anything in hours. He gets chastised by Lieutenant Hester for vanishing without explanation, and he is too tired to argue. He hits him with the yes, sir, sorry, sir, won’t happen again, sir, and he goes to find his friends in one-platoon.

 

Benny lets Dean have his rations; Kevin makes him a coffee. As Dean sits there to drink it, he realises his hands are still stained darkly with blood, and when he rubs a hand over his face, he can feel it crusted there, too. Fuck it. He’ll clean up later.

 

He shovels the last forkful of cold, shapeless meat chunks into his mouth, and then—

 

There is Novak’s voice from somewhere nearby, loud and echoing and cutting through everything: “Stand to!”

 

Around them, their temporary position erupts into an organised, well-practised frenzy of movement. Rifles loaded, cocked, gunner tripods unfolding, bandoliers unravelling, soldiers throwing themselves down prone out of the line of fire, platoon leaders hurrying past and barking orders. 

 

Dean, in the meantime, nearly chokes on his rations. Around a half-chewed mouthful, he bursts out, “Are you shitting me?” 

 

Before he can move, that voice comes again, closer this time and pissed off—”Lose the fucking attitude, Winchester, the Germans are here,” Novak snaps as he comes past, and Dean flushes angrily hot, stung by it. He wants to tell Novak where exactly he can shove his attitude, but there’s no time.

 

Instead, he does as he’s told. He abandons his meal and his coffee, ignoring Benny’s laughter nearby at Dean’s shit luck. He snatches at his kit, scattered haphazardly across the green, and he scrambles up into position. Equipment at the ready, waiting for bloodshed.

 

***

 

July 17th, 1944

 

For nearly two months, Dean has been trying hard not to think about it. Now, it is increasingly impossible to think of anything else.

 

He keeps moving. He stays busy. He retrieves wounded soldiers from the field and he puts them back together when he can and he rushes them into the care of battalion surgeons when he can’t. There is no time for turning every interaction with his lieutenant over his head like a puzzle piece to feel the shape of it. 

 

If Novak wanted him—

 

Which he doesn’t.

 

But if he did—

 

Dean scrubs both hands down over his face.

 

One way or another, Dean just needs to know for certain. He needs to stop feeling as though he’s going nuts.

 

***

 

July 18th, 1944

 

Steadying himself, Dean takes a deep breath. “Sir... can I ask you a question?”

 

From his place at the desk with his maps and his reports and his typewriter, Novak looks back at him. For a moment, and then longer. He takes him in properly, and his stance shifts, becoming more alert.

 

Recently, with so much on his plate and so much vying for his attention, the lieutenant has been distracted, closed off, turning in on himself—to the extent that Dean forgets sometimes what it’s like. The unflinching intensity of his stare, the piercing scrutiny. He looks Dean over, assessing, and then he comes back to meet Dean’s eyes, and that gaze has softened somehow at the edges. It doesn’t reassure Dean in the slightest. Novak looks genuinely concerned, almost protective, and Dean feels like his throat is closing off.

 

He trusts Novak, is the thing. Trusts him with his life, obviously—that’s what a commanding officer is for—but trusts him with a lot more besides. Trusts him with what he really thinks, trusts him with the things he doesn’t tell the guys: his mom, his worries about Sammy, his need to feel like he’s doing a good job. He wonders if he is insane to put that blind faith in a man he barely knows. He wonders if he is throwing his entire life away for a delusion. He wonders what his dad would say.

 

“Of course,” Novak says. “What’s wrong?”

 

Dean doesn’t want to think about his father. Or about Sam. He doesn’t want to think of home at all. He misses it so fiercely it hurts, but sometimes Kansas feels like a rifle aimed at the base of his skull.

 

He moves closer. His mouth feels dry, his throat too small and his tongue too big and his breath coming short. He can’t stop moving; he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.  “But—you have to promise to answer like a person,” he says, almost without thinking, “... instead of like an officer.”

 

The lieutenant’s frown deepens. He sets down his maps and he turns, giving Dean his full and uncompromising attention. The focus makes Dean’s skin feel hot. In the low light of the hurricane lantern on the desk, Novak’s eyes are the dark blue of a burgeoning thunderstorm. “Okay,” he says simply. “What is it?”

 

Dean says nothing. There is a cold prickle of nervous sweat between his shoulder blades. His heart is drumming in his ears.

 

Novak waits.

 

Dean swallows. He steps forwards.

 

He asks, “Are you – sexually attracted to me?” and he watches his commanding officer go entirely, unnaturally still.

 

Novak stares, mouth slack, eyes wide, and the expression unfolding slowly across his face is horror. Sickening, awful, abject horror. Without moving, without breathing. Dean’s stomach drops with the terrible realisation that somehow, in spite of all the signs, he was wrong.

 

It takes Novak a long time to find his voice. When he does, it is simply, “Excuse me?” There should be outrage in it, disgust, even fury, but instead his voice is scraped thin and raw.

 

Dean doesn’t know what he’s doing—he should be grovelling on his knees, clarifying that he’s not queer and he’s not bad and he didn’t mean it, he wasn’t fishing for anything, he was just being the same old meathead trying to get the lieutenant riled up for a laugh—but instead he is stepping closer, frantic. “No, no,” he insists, his voice coming out high and half-hysterical. “No, you’re not allowed to pull that disapproving-officer shit on me—” He comes closer, unrelenting, and he watches Novak flinch. “You promised—you don’t get to do that to me, okay, you gotta—”

 

“I think you should leave,” Novak says, his words a harsh rasp of sound in his throat. His breath is unsteady, shallow, and he backs away as Dean presses forwards, and his eyes don’t leave Dean’s face, and in that moment, Dean thinks he understands.

 

Novak isn’t angry. He’s scared.

 

Dean’s pulse is thunderous, his heart squeezing in his throat. He is barely aware of what he is doing, only that he doesn’t know how to stop.

 

He steps towards him. Novak steps back. He says it again, “I think you should leave,” like he’s forgotten that he’s read that line already. His voice is threadbare, shaky. He takes another step, and Dean’s head is spinning with it—his fearless commander, reduced to a retreat. No, not a retreat. A rout, panicked and desperate, all blind animal instinct to escape.

 

Novak takes another step back, and his back hits the wall, knocking the air from his chest. He has nowhere to go. Trapped between Dean and the wall, he makes no move to get away, staring and wild-eyed and breathing ragged. His lips part as though he is going to say it a third time, and nothing comes out.

 

Dean says, “Tell me the truth.”

 

Without meaning to, Novak does. He looks at Dean’s mouth.

 

Fuck. Fuck. Dean gets Novak by the front of his jacket, drags him in, and he kisses him—and Novak kisses him back.

 

It is instant, the way Novak is undone by it, no resistance, his body curving into him and his mouth opening with a breathless shudder of sound that spikes a lance of heat through Dean’s gut. Dean crowds him hard against the bricks so that Novak’s every gasp has his chest heaving against Dean’s, every hitch of his breath between clumsy, urgent kisses, his mouth slick and open and greedy. Dean wants—fuck—he wants. Novak’s mouth and his fingers, his big, beautiful hands and narrow forearms, his thick waist and sturdy thighs, the instinctual rock of his hips and the desperate noise that he makes with Dean’s tongue in his mouth, the subtle way his legs part to let Dean grind forwards into him. There is the helpless indecision of his hands finding Dean’s hips, the moan in the back of his throat at the scrape of Dean’s teeth, the hot curl of his tongue, and Dean feels feverish, on fire with it. He can’t get close enough. Hands fisted in Novak’s clothing, Dean pushes him flat against the wall, and Novak’s hips tilt—oh shit, that’s his dick half-hard against Dean’s thigh—and he wants so bad that he can think of nothing else. Novak grabs him, hands curling into Dean’s jacket and hauling him closer—

 

And then Novak shoves him hard.

 

Dean nearly goes down, staggering to catch his balance before he goes belly up and makes an even bigger idiot of himself.

 

He straightens, still reeling, and he looks back at Novak. Still pressed to the wall, still breathing hard. Combats in disarray. His face is flushed hot, his mouth red. He looks like someone just fucked him stupid, and the idea is not helping Dean’s already flimsy self-restraint. It is hard to think, what the fuck did you just do? when his brain is already an endless echo of the ragged sound your CO makes when he wants you.

 

Because he does. Dean is certain, beyond a doubt now. Novak wants him.

 

In a voice that is little more than a croak, Novak says, “Get out.”

 

Dean just looks at him. Somewhere, despite the tangle of his fear and confusion and desire, his skin still searing hot and his blood still beating fast, Dean thinks—that is not the right response. He doesn’t move, waiting for it. The real anger, the disgust, the way an officer should rip to him shreds for this. He keeps waiting. It doesn’t come.

 

Dean was right.

 

Fuck if he knows what to do about it, though. He wipes his mouth. He can still taste the lieutenant on his tongue. Tobacco and coffee and that desperate hitch of a moan. Dean’s skin still feels alive with it.

 

Novak snaps, “That’s an order, sergeant,” and it still isn’t, you’re fired, you’ll be reporting to the Battalion S-1 and facing court martial, but Novak is warming up to finding it.

 

Dean lets out his breath, slow and unsteady, and he goes.

 

***

 

July 29th, 1944

 

France may be coming down around them, the sky heavy and wet, the acrid smell of distant buildings burning always hot at the back of the nostrils—but Dean has three aces and is riding high.

 

He, Joe, and Andy crouch close together, a small-hexi fire smouldering low between their bodies, throwing just enough light to see the cards by. Andy wanted to kill some time before his sentry at oh-one-hundred; Joe wanted to cheat Andy out of his cigarettes; Dean wanted to stop thinking for a second.

 

Shouldn’t be too hard. Christ only knows he hasn’t been using his brain lately.

 

“Got any aces?” he asks.

 

“Eat shit,” Joe says, and Dean swears, retrieving another card from the pile carefully stacked inside his upturned helmet. Meanwhile, Joe flips through his hand. “Any sevens?”

 

Then, from somewhere in the dark nearby, there are footsteps, crunching quietly over twigs. Andy glances up and then jerks, panicked. “Shit—look alive.”

 

“Fuck—” They fumble quickly to stash the cards, knock the hexi-cooker over and stamp out the embers, kicking wet leaves over any traces to hide the smoke. Andy is an idiot, obviously, and drops half of his cards on the ground.

 

Dean sighs. So much for being discreet.

 

The approaching figure of authority clears his throat pointedly. “You three clowns ever heard of light discipline?”

 

The three clowns in question relax at the voice of Second Lieutenant Wallace. It could be a lot worse. Virgil would’ve chewed them out; Hester would’ve dreamed up some humiliating punishment to enact in the morning, in front of everyone. Novak—

 

Dean bends to retrieve his helmet. He is getting good at not thinking.

 

“Sorry, sir,” Joe says.

 

“You’re lucky you’re not in my platoon,” Wallace says, and he puts his fists up, mimics a shitty boxing stance, throws a fake punch at Dean, who obediently reels, staggered by it. Wallace laughs, the sound low and reassuring, and he helps to kick leaves over the embers. “You dropped your winning hand, there, Gallagher.”

 

“Nah, I was getting my ass kicked,” Andy says, bending to retrieve his cards. He swears under his breath as he discovers them muddy, but he knows better than to complain.

 

Wallace pushes his hands into the pockets of his combats. “Where are you guys bivouacked?”

 

Joe tips his head in the direction of a cluster of thin trees just beyond Andy.

 

“You should start getting yourselves squared away,” Wallace says. “Long day tomorrow.”

 

Dean grins. “What—you think we’re gonna get shot at?”

 

Wallace sucks at his teeth. “Just a hunch. Call it crazy.” He claps Andy hard on the shoulder, once. “And keep your goddamn lights off.”

 

They obediently chorus, “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

 

Just as Wallace is about to head off, Dean can’t stop himself. He asks, “Is he coming round later?”

 

Wallace lifts his head. “The CO? He’s pretty busy.”

 

“Yeah,” Dean says, because of course he is. He knows that. He should’ve—he shouldn’t—it doesn’t matter. His voice stays light, cheery. Not disappointed. “I figured.”

 

Wallace pauses a second. It’s too dark to see his face. “You need me to pass him something?”

 

It’s been ten days and Dean hasn’t lost his job yet. Dean’s not smart, but he is putting together the shape of things. For a ridiculous moment, he thinks about Wallace, not as an officer, but as Novak’s friend. Someone he trusts, even if he trusts no-one else.  Does he ever mention me? Did he tell you— Dean gathers himself. “Nah, you’re okay. Thanks, sir.”

 

There is a beat of silence. They look at each other through the dark.

 

Wallace says, “Get out of here, Winchester. Get some sleep.”

 

They go their separate ways in search of their foxholes; Andy veers off-course partway through the harbour area, and Dean can faintly hear the complaints of other men getting leaves kicked into their sleeping bags by his blind stumbling.

 

Dean is sharing his foxhole with Charlie at the moment, who is curled up tight and snoring; he had been bitching about his oh-four-hundred sentry duty, so Dean tries to climb in beside him without disturbing him too much. Charlie snorts a little, rolls over, kicks him in the knee. Easiest, then, to haul his own sleeping bag up to the edge of the foxhole, to lean back against the dirt wall like he’s stood to. It’s not raining, at least, so he doesn’t mind.

 

He strips out of his combat jacket, bullies it into a vaguely pillowy shape, and bundles it under his head. As he gets comfortable, he glances up and catches sight of a familiar silhouette across the harbour area, faintly lit in profile by the glow of a cigarette. Tall, sturdy. Sharp nose. Shoulders sloped with exhaustion. 

 

Dean watches him, head pillowed on his arm. The indistinct movement of his body in the dark as he shifts his weight; the shadow of his fingers as he pulls on his cigarette. Left awake and alone. 

 

In hindsight, Dean doesn’t know what he expected. Not to be swept off his feet, exactly, but—something. Not to be invisible again. Dean has tried to speak to the guy maybe six times in the last few days, but he is closed off and cold and intractable, an asshole who won’t give Dean the time of day, never quite meeting Dean’s eyes. And then Dean catches glimpses of moments like this, where he thinks, maybe—

 

The wind moves through the trees, stirring rainwater from the leaves to skitter against their shelter-half. The lieutenant turns his head, looks through the dark towards the sound.

 

Dean pulls up his sleeping bag and rolls over to face Charlie, who mumbles and kicks him again. He presses his face into his jacket. He wonders.

 

***

Notes:

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! I’ve been recently encouraged to resurface over at @komodotits.

Please support Palestine in any way you can. It’s one thing to read about the horrors of war; it’s another thing to live through it. If you want to help, please consider looking into the UNRWA or Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, as well as speaking to your local representatives to continue pushing for a ceasefire.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 4 of Ninety One Whiskey