#babejulian

tw: Magical Realism, Horror, Religion as Justification for Unhinged Behavior, Catholicism, Catholic Imagery, Bastogne, Canon Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Blood & Gore, Depictions of a Corpse, Cannibalism

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“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned,” says the boy with hair like copper and a face white as a sheet, kneeling before me. He breathes deep, breathes slow, then looks to his companion who guards the door of this little hide-away. A boy of even paler complexion, who nods in encouragement. A small, minute movement that somehow takes from him a great toll. His dark head bows with the weight of it.

Disturbed by this image, the boy quickly continues: “I haven’t confessed since I was fifteen. I’m twenty-two now. It’s been seven years.”

“That’s alright.” Silence. Nervous, jittery silence. “Go on.”

More silence. Long and dark and cold and damp, the cavernousness of this large and leaky house of God echoing each drip and drop of water across empty space. Empty. Like nobody’s home.

“I’ve done so many things,” the boy says, tipping his face into his hands in despair. “So many, Father.”

“Don’t name them all. We’ll be here all night.” An attempt at good humor. “Just the ones that have brought you before me.”

“Oh, Father,” says the boy, in a whisper that sounds like a wail. “Father. I kept my promise.”

“That doesn’t sound like a sin.”

No, says a voice from the depths of the boy’s eyes. A wailing, lamenting voice, a darkness that threatens to crawl forth from the open wound of his face, and reach out to me with cold, blood-damp hands. No, Father, you don’t understand.

“Make me,” I say, taking his face in my hands and holding it steady. “Babe, tell me what you did.”

His watcher has closed the door on us now. All of us. He stands before it, weight against the wood, hands behind his back. His head is still bowed, upper body almost perpendicular to the stone floor, but his eyes meet mine. Deep blue so dark it’s almost black, staring out from behind a dark brow. Piercing. Waiting. “Go on, Heffron,” he says, voice a deep, unwavering thing. The voice of an Angel. “Don’t be afraid.”

“Don’t be afraid,” I echo. But not for him.

Sprawled against the walls, our shadows continue to flicker.

Babe tries again. “Forgive me, Father. For I have sinned. It’s been seven years since my last confession. My sins—”

Are many. Too many.

“But this one—”

The night he’d gone back for him was clear and bright, the clouds of Bastogne disappearing, momentarily, laying the already barren world of snow white and cold even more bare, absent of the broken shadows of looming trees and the shape of men beyond the mist. Even the looming cold that had settled into their bones seems to have alleviated, somewhat. Still there, but suspended, momentarily, as the fog lifted and Bastogne became just another forest.

But the dread remained. So deep in the marrow of them all that it pulled him out of dreamless sleep; roused suddenly in his shallow grave-bed and forced into the nightmare of this tangible unreality, an endless waking, by the familiar urge to rungotta go get him sir rundangerrun take him with us runrunrunRUN—

And a voice, beyond the light of the moon.

“I felt it, Father. Like… Like I was on one end of the rope, and he was on the other. Pulling me toward him. He showed me where to go, Father, you gotta believe me. I was being led—”

Like a lamb to the slaughter.

No.

Like a pilgrim to his god.

Through snow drifts and trees, down familiar paths made unfamiliar through the sudden clarity of pale moonlight. He found the broken body soon enough. Just where they had left it, earlier that day, but this time devoid of all material things.

The Germans had stripped him, just as he had feared. Taken with them trophies of olive-green pelt, rifle antlers, and silver dog tag bones. What lay in their wake was the naked body of a slaughtered child, lying in the snow, a crater of bone and flesh where his neck should be. Blue eyes upturned to Babe’s face.

Hand outstretched.

Beckoning.

“I touched him, Father. I touched him. And he was warm.”

Not breathing. Warm. Soft. Pliant. Despite hours laying in the snow.

He couldn’t explain it.

But then again, what pilgrim questions a miracle?

“I… I tried to pick him up. I tried.”

Yes. Yes, he had tried. I could see him try. Struggling and panting and finding himself crying, the grief and the desperation manifesting themselves in frustrated tears. They freeze on his cheeks, a record of his suffering. Julian, buddy, c’mon. I gotta get you up. Please. I can’t, I can’t—

But the god is in an immovable shrine. Trapped within and rooted into the snow on the ground.

“All I could lift was his head, Father Maloney. And I held him in my lap, like I used to back when the world made sense.”

Yes. Yes, I could see them there, too. Two boys in basic training, surrounded by pleasant summer heat. Golden light. One with his head in the lap of the other.

Dark hair against pale thighs.

Blue eyes meeting blue.

A smile meeting another smile in a thrilling brush of skin.

God was with them, then.

And it is with the turning of my stomach that I realize, God was with them, here, too.

“What… did you do, Babe?” I ask. I already know the answer. But I must ask.

And the boy looks up at me, open wound for a face, and says with two voices; “I couldn’t leave him there, Father Maloney.”

No. He couldn’t.

He’d brought those unsmiling lips to his mouth, and he’d kissed them one last time. As any pilgrim should.

And then he’d dug his fingers into bone and flesh, and freed his god from his earthly prison.

“I couldn’t—I promised. I said I would. And he told me that I should. He was so warm, Father. And it was so cold. And I was hungry, and Julian always—from the beginning he’d always—when I closed my eyes, I was back there, with him, and he was—”

“Oh, Babe,” I say, opening my arms. Allowing him to fall into them. “Oh, Babe.”

I have long ago accepted that to seek joy in the form of relief of any kind is not a sin. Or at least, should not be. Jesus Christ, Son of God and Man, who enjoyed the taste of wine and bread and the company of prostitutes and degenerates would not consider it a sin. It’s no exception here, where it is common for men to share many things in basic training and in trenches and in Foxholes. Food. Water. Coffee. Things to keep warm. Things to make you feel just a little bit more human. Things to sustain you.

And there are so few things to sustain you, in the frozen hell of Bastogne. In this stomach disguised as a dark forest, a belly to get lost in.

I look toward the door, where the guardian boy stands, still bowed forward (even more so, it seems) and bent at the knees, unable to meet my eyes. Atlas holding up the sky and full of regret. Frozen in commencement of penance, the weight of the world bearing down upon his shoulders.

“There is more to this,” I realize. He does not startle at the sound of my voice, eerily still. “What is it that you aren’t telling me, Eugene?”

In my arms, Babe is quiet. Hitching breaths quick and warm against my throat. Mouth against my rapid beating pulse. Teeth—

“I saw it, Father,” says Eugene, voice ringing clear and deep despite its whispered quality. “I saw them.”

He’d felt Babe stumble out of their foxhole—Spina fast asleep and oblivious to the sudden preternatural quiet and stillness of the world—and followed behind him at a distance, mindful of their vulnerable position but not enough to stop.

“Then there was a moment where I—I couldn’t see ‘im. It got all dark all o’ a sudden, like the moon blinked outta sight. Just for a minute. A kinda dark you can feel.”

Crawling up your skin, looming over you, making all the hairs of your body stand up in response. Like two, large and heavy hands clasping around you. Holding you caged between its palms. An unfortunate butterfly, caught unawares.

Wait, it seemed to say. This is not for you.

“When the dark left and the moon came back, I couldn’t see ‘im.”

But he could hear it.

The wet, moist sound of hands tearing into flesh.

The guttural snarls of an animal tearing into its latest meal.

The crunch of cartilage.

The weeping. The moaning in despair.

In relief.

“I followed it. And I. I saw.”

He pauses. Then looks up at me with pleading eyes, asking for words. Asking for understanding. He does not know, I realize, what to call it. What greeted him in the snow on that fateful night was not any creature he has ever seen or heard of before.

Part-human, part-animal, part-divine. A wretched, blessed chimera. On its hands and knees, hunched over its carrion and feasting, with great relish, upon its steaming insides. The rapidly cooling warmth of fresh death, curling up, up, and away into the frigid, Bastogne night.

“I saw, Father,” Eugene says again. “And I…”

He did nothing.

No, that’s not true.

“I waited. For it to be over.”

And it was soon over.

The chimera could only eat so much, and what he has come to set free has left the altar as soon as the steam had lifted, and once again, the fog had returned, between one blink to the next. A twin to the darkness felt earlier, heavy hands once again clasped about him, but this time, enveloping all of them—voyeur, scavenger, and carrion—all at once.

Eugene took a step forward, afraid to lose sight of him again, and the chimera, startled, lifted its head toward the crunch of snow.

“And that’s when you led him away?” I ask.

Eugene nods. He’d done it when they’d entered here, too. Appearing to me like a grotesque Angel of God in my doorway, two bodies pressed so close together, leaning upon each other for strength, that they became one entity with two heads and eight appendages, illuminated by a column of warm, orange light cutting into the gloom of my assigned billet.

Do not be afraid, one voice had said to its companion, achingly kind. An echo from that night, I imagine, when he’d taken Babe’s hand and brought him back from the brink. Took him away and deposited him into his empty foxhole, melting snow to wipe away the memory of what he had done from his face. Fed him more chocolate, offered him a cup of coffee, to wash the taste from his mouth. Father Maloney, Heffron is here to confess.

“You were right to come to me,” I say to them, easing Babe out of my arms to once again, sit by my feet as I reach out to Eugene, offering my hand. He takes it without much hesitance, lurching forward as if afraid I might recoil from his touch. Gently, I allow him to sink to his knees, and together, both of them look up to me as I stand and dig through my bag for the needed elements. “What a heavy burden you both have shared. What a weight—” I produce what I need, and I turn to them with a smile I hope is kind and reassuring. “It’s alright, now. You may put it down.”

“Father,” says Babe, eyeing the ciborium and chalice in my hands. “Father, what—”

“Let me give you a place to rest,” I tell him, getting on my knees with them, perching the precious relics upon my billet bed so that they may not touch the floor. Crossing myself, I open them, ignoring how both boys scuttle away from me, like rats, who have spent all their lives in the dark, upon the sudden, violent arrival of light. It breaks my heart, how fearful they look upon me, and it strengthens my resolve, once again. Carefully, as I may be during weekly service, I pray over and take into my hands the bread and wine; mere pemmican biscuits from previous rations, and wine I had been given from bombed out churches, mixed with a little water. But in their golden receptacles, they glow with an otherworldly power. True pieces of the Heavenly Host.

I take two of the Flesh into my unworthy hands.

“John Julian was a martyr,” I say, presenting the host to them both and watching as they, cautiously, move toward me, still on their knees, but with their faces tipped toward the light. “A man who had been living, but who’d given his life for the love of you, Babe. His death was swift and quick, there was little pain and little else we could do to keep him with us. It’s those he’s left behind that he ached to comfort—such pain it must have been, for him, to know that you mourned him so deeply.

“And so, he’d asked God and His Angels to hold Death’s hand for far longer, and he called out to you. He was yet Living when you came upon him—how else could he have enticed him to come? How else would he have stayed that warm, that fresh, in order for his body to provide the nourishment that you needed? Therefore, do not be ashamed, Babe. To cannibalize is to feed upon the dead. John Julian was not dead, not while his soul sang to you its precious entreaty.”

Now, he rests, cradled in the soft, warm alcove of Babe’s body.

“He gave his life to you, that you may yet live. Just like our Lord Jesus Christ gave the first Eucharist to His disciples, the night He was to be arrested and taken away from them. He fed them His Living Flesh, so that they may find strength for the coming days. Sustain themselves upon Him.”

Babe comes closer, the tip of his nose lightly brushing the Flesh held in my fingers.

“John Julian was a martyr who has found his final resting place within you,” I press the Sacrament to his mouth, watching it open in anticipation. A gaping maw not unlike a bleeding wound. “Let these Holy Flesh intermingle within you. Let John Julian meet God in your stomach. Turn him into a Saint.”

Babe closes his eyes and his lips close over the Holy communion, his tongue lapping at my fingers.

I let him eat from my unworthy hand.

I watch him swallow. “Your turn, Eugene.”

Eugene looks at me, unblinking. Unfazed. He does not eat from my hand, but instead cups his own to receive it. I place it between his palms and watch him bow his head over it and take it between his teeth. The hard bread makes a loud crunching sound as he crushes it with his molars. He closes his eyes to the symphony of it, and his shoulders fall for the first time since I’ve known him.

“What a weight you have been forced to carry,” I coo, reaching out to cup his face in one of my hands, the other doing the same to Babe. Both boys tip their heads into my hold, and I find myself weeping at how starved they seem to be, for a simple touch that is gentle. Babe, seeing my tears, starts to sniffle with some of his own. “Come, drink the Blood. Let it wash away the taste.”

I tip the wine, carefully, into their open mouths. They drink every last drop.

“There,” I say once they are finished, drawing Babe, who has begun to weep in earnest, to my breast. Against the hollow of my throat, he hiccups, the grief and the relief pouring out of him now that he knows he is allowed. “Oh, Babe.”

“I left him there, Father,” he sobs. “I left him—”

“You did not,” I soothe. “No, Babe, you did not. You came back for him, and now he rests in you—lives in you. This way, he will see home, again. You can bring him home, my boy. He is a part of you now. So long as you are alive, Julian is, also.”

It takes a while, but Babe soon quiets, and hiccupping, sobbing breaths turn even and steady, a sign that he has fallen asleep against me. Peaceful and dreamless, I hope.

Eugene helps me tuck him into my bed, moving the Holy vessels aside to make room for him.

“Thank you, Father,” he says to me, as I replace the sacred items in my pack. I smile at him and he smiles at me from his position on the floor, kneeling by Babe’s head, his hand held tight in the other boy’s grasp, even in deep sleep. “Thank you.”

“Judas ate of the Eucharist.”

This time, Eugene does blink, startled. “… Father?”

“Our Lord Jesus had Judas eat of His Flesh before He revealed him to be the traitor,” I repeat, once again sitting on the floor so that he and I can talk to each other at level. Not once does he tear his eyes away from mine. Brave boy. “He made sure Judas ate so that even when he was apart from Him, betraying Him to the Romans, orchestrating His death, He was always with Judas. Inside him. He loved him very well—perhaps too well. Enough to smother him.” I reach over to tap their clasped hands, gently, with a finger. “There is no position more intimate.”

Eugene’s ears color pink, as if still cold, and I resist the urge to cup my hands around them, so that they may be warm. They’re warm plenty already, I know, and that, at least, makes me smile.

“You are a tenacious one, Eugene Roe,” I tell him, getting up with a groan. He watches me, curious, confused, and I smile at him, amused.

Nobody leaves Bastogne unchanged—undigested, staggering out of that beast’s belly masquerading for a forest. But when one is stubborn, when he is cunning and astute, sure in his footing and determined in his mission, a body trapped could be sustained for long enough that escape is made possible.

“There are many ways a person could be sustained,” I say, running my fingers through his blue-black hair. And, like a cat, he pushes his head into the meat of my palm, affectionate. “You found him, fed him, and you watered him. You made sure to wash it all away, the taste. But shame is a powerful thing, and it almost took him. That would not do.”

Eugene stares up at me. Unflinching.

“And so, you brought him here, to me.”

Because he knew I would nourish him and he would nourish me, gorge ourselves on this story we spin together until hope and faith solidify into truth. He has bargained with Death well; has done so enough times to know how to win. John Julian may have been lost to the violence of Bastogne, but Babe Heffron remains, and Eugene Roe would rather see his own soul rot before he loses him, too.

“The Ignatian way of life dictates that we must strive to see God in all things,” I say, smiling down at him. “Today, you have shown me a Face of God I have not seen before. It brings me comfort, in this world steeped in decay. Thank you.”

Eugene smiles back, a tiny little thing that rapidly disappears when he finally takes his eyes away from me and turns them to Babe, silently contemplating his pale face, deep in sleep.

They’re good boys. I leave them both to each other as I venture back into the bowels of God’s House to search for a quiet place to pray.

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tagging those who have either helped conceptualize this or who have expressed interest along the way: @bringmefoxgloves @hellofanidea @liebgottsjumpwings @pastexistence

This was supposed to go up on Halloween. But I was on a family trip so I fell behind on editing and putting the final touches in. It's here now, though, and I'm so so proud of it-- something which I could almost never claim about things I've written. I'm very happy it's done, and I hope people enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

WEBGOTT

David is roused from his sleep by a hand locking around his chest and squeezing tightly.

“Hmm... Joe,” he mutters, trying to squirm out of his boyfriend’s grasp. Usually he adores the rare occasions when Joe gets cuddly, but he also needs to breathe. Joe’s grip doesn’t loosen, however. David feels a head of feathery hair come to rest on top of him as his boyfriend pushes his face into his stomach.

He tries to sit up, but Joe isn’t allowing it. When he gives him a nudge, Joe only sighs and hugs his waist a little tighter.

“Soft...”

David goes still, eyebrows creeping up. He’s not sure if that’s a compliment or not. He runs his hand through Joe’s hair, wondering whether he’s really asleep or just tired. “Joe. Wake up, liebling.”

Joe lets out another sigh, huffing against David’s stomach. This is a little amusing -- it would be moreso were it not three in the morning. Joe isn’t a sleeptalker by habit, and David’s never seen him do this before.

“Hey... hey. Web. Y’-- y’gotta...”

“I’m here,” soothes David, baffled and a little amused. “What is it?”

“... marry me...”

David goes still.

“Yeah? You... marry me?”

Oh god. He didn’t hear that. He did not just hear that. Suddenly David’s heart is racing; his brain has launched into overdrive; sirens are wailing in his ears; his world is spinning. Joe did not just ask him that. There’s no way he just asked him that while he’s asleep.

“Mmm... love you,” Joe whispers, and sighs against David’s stomach again. David’s heart is beating like a jackhammer again.

When he shakes Joe, he doesn’t stir. His breathing is deep and even. After a few seconds, a low snore slips past his lips.

David leans back against the headboard, but he doubts he’ll be getting any more sleep tonight.

BABEJULIAN

If he’s being honest, Babe doesn’t know what he’s hearing.

“Julian,” he hisses, shaking his friend by the bicep one more time. “Hey, Julian, wake the hell up. C’mon, what’s wrong with you?”

In response, Julian just lets out another drawn out moan.

Babe can’t take it. It’s awful -- he’s like a goddamn banshee. He’s never heard anything so nightmarish before in his life. Julian’s groaning like he’s getting the life sucked out of him, hands scrabbling at the bedsheets like he’s trying to fight off an invisible attacker, and Babe has no clue what’s wrong. Even worse, he doesn’t know what he can do to help.

“C’mon,” he urges, jarring his friend a little more forcefully. “What’s the matter? Jules!”

In response, Julian lets out a sharp scream. “Flying!” he hollers into the night. “Flying -- fuck! Ahh, no, no...”

“Flying what?” Babe’s starting to get a little hysterical himself now. He grabs Julian by the shirt, pulling him up, and shakes him. “Flying what, Julian?”

“Flying monkeys!” Julian wails, and his head drops back in another groan. “Stealin’ my freaking sandwiches!”

Babe goes very, very still. Slowly, he drops Julian back onto the bed and pulls the covers back up over him.

His demand only gets a giggle out of his friend as Julian leans a bit closer. “Because I wanna.”

This is insane. This is ridiculous. This isn’t happening. “You’re drunk.”

“I’m not,” replies Julian, and it’s true. He’s only had a few beers tonight – less than Babe. For such a skinny guy, Julian’s got a heavy-hitting tolerance. He’s only tipsy right now, but the alcohol seems to have endowed him with the courage he needs.

The courage… to do what? To brazenly ask if he can, of all things –

“Can I kiss you?” Julian says again, and Babe feels his cheeks flare with heat.

“Stop saying that!”

“That ain’t an answer.” There’s a pout in Julian’s voice. Babe is pretty sure he’s lost his mind – or Julian’s lost his mind, or they both have. This can’t be happening. Julian can’t be serious -- because they’re friends, they’ve been friends since the second grade, and friends don’t just kiss each other like it’s nothing.

Babe fumbles for an answer and finds himself lost. What’s the problem? Does he... not want to kiss Julian?

No, that’s not it. Actually, he wouldn’t be adverse to kissing Julian at all. The realization hits him like a punch, and he goes still, brows furrowed. He wouldn’t mind kissing Julian. In fact, the idea gives him a rush of something that almost feels like excitement. That really doesn’t make sense. Should he be thrilled by the idea of kissing his best friend? What does that mean? Could it mean that Babe is really --

A sudden grip on the front of his shirt startles him out of his shock. “Babe,” Julian says, and when Babe looks up he finds the other boy close enough to take his breath away. “Stop thinking so much -- and kiss me.”

So, that’s what Babe does.

Julian tastes electric against his lips -- some weird blend of mountain dew and Budweiser, cherries and something he can’t even try to place. His lips are chapped, but they move against Babe’s own with such enthusiasm that he hardly notices. When Julian’s hand comes up to cup the back of his neck, Babe leans into the touch.

His heart is racing, and each second causes it to pound harder and harder. He feels Julian’s tongue skirt across his lips, just enough to electrify him, and Babe’s eyes shoot open. Julian’s looking at him too, gaze dark and wicked in a way that sends a shiver of excitement up Babe’s spine.

What are they doing? He has no clue, and he’s probably going to regret this tomorrow. (He’s definitely going to regret this, there’s no question there.)

To his credit, he manages not to wake Babe until he’s already curled up beneath the covers -- and even then, it’s the iciness of his feet which actually disturbs him. A small shift alerts Julian to the fact that Babe is no longer asleep; and, two seconds later, his bedmate jolts in surprise.

Babe’s eyes -- suddenly very wide, and very confused -- blink owlishly at him in the darkness. Julian offers a close-lipped smile.

“Julian?” slurs Babe, voice still thick with drowsiness. “What’re you doin’ here?”

“I wanna sleep with you,” Julian replies, the words leaving his mouth before he can even think of how they might sound. It hits them both at the same time; Babe springs up, bug-eyed, while Julian buries his face in his pillow and groans.

“Uhh... I’m, I’m flattered?” Babe’s voice comes out as no more than a squeak. “But I really think we should set the boundaries of our friendship before we think of taking it to that level --”

“Not like that. I mean. No. No thanks.” It’s too late for Julian to bother being coherent. He’s sleep deprived, a little on edge, and Babe sitting up has pulled most of the blankets off him again. (He’s starting to wonder if he wouldn’t have been better of sleeping with Bill; then he remembers that Bill’s a light sleeper, and wakes up punching.) “‘M just tired. I heard a weird noise.”

Babe’s half-asleep brain sturggles to make sense of this. “So... you came to me?”

“For protection.” Julian wraps his arms around Babe, forcing him to lie back down; then, for good measure, he presses up against his body. Babe feels like a human radiator, and Julian is perfectly fine with being a leech for warmth if that’s how it has to be. “Your face’ll scare off any monster who tries to start anything. Now go back to sleep, huh?”

It doesn’t take much to convince Babe to relax again, melting back against the bed with drowsy ease. His arms loop around Julian’s torso, hugging him like a teddy bear; he allows the smaller man to press his face against his collar, and doesn’t even whine when Julian’s hair tickles his chin. This isn’t the first time they’ve slept together (memories of that awful week in February when their heat gave out and Babe, Julian, Bill, and Spina all had to dogpile for warmth come to mind), so they’ve got a routine down by now. Babe knows that Julian needs to sleep on his stomach, so he shifts so Julian can splay across him. Julian knows Babe needs to hug something while he sleeps, and this works in his favor.

“You came into my room,” Babe eventually mutters, voice syrupy with sleep, “at four AM... to cuddle?”

It wasn’t that simple -- Julian actually did hear a really weird noise -- but now that Babe puts it like that, the idea sounds as silly as it does inspired. “Yeah,” he huffs. “Guess I did.”

Julian is peering across the foxhole at Babe's sudden reaction; he hasn't gone quiet. Soft humming still echoes through the still night air, and it takes Babe's face a second to settle into a scowl. "Dammit, Julian, what are you doing?" "What's it look like I'm doing?" Julian shoots back, huffing. The humming noise cuts itself off when he speaks, so there's no doubt where it came from. "I'm watching the line while you nap. What's got you jumping up like someone lit a firecracker under your ass?" Babe looks down at himself self-consciously -- he definitely hadn't jumped, and he hadn't been scared by Julian's humming, of all things. That would be stupid. It's not like he's some green replacement anymore, afraid of his own shadow -- now he's one of the ones considered a veteran of Easy, looked up to by the newer guys. It's something Babe's conscious of, and his new battle-worn reputation leaves no room for jumpiness. He draws himself up with all the self-respect he can muster, pulling his knees closer into his chest. "Just knock it off," he mutters. "Someone's liable to hear ya." "I'm not being that loud," retorts Julian defensively. "It's too quiet out here. What else am I supposed to do, listen to the wind?" "Listen for shells. Watch the line, huh?" Julian rolls his eyes before fixing them forward again. "I was," he mutters. "Ain't my fault you're so jumpy." There's a hint of a pout on Julian's lips, red and flushed from the cold. It makes him look even younger than he actually is. Babe is reminded once again that Julian is really just a kid. He talks a lot about the last birthday spent with his family back home, just before he enlisted. Christ, he's not even twenty yet, and he's still stuck in this hellhole like all the rest of them.

A tiny jolt hits Babe, something he's not quite willing to call guilt. Poking his foot from the minimal sanctuary of his blanket, he nudges his friend’s thigh.

“Hey, sing if you want. Just not too loud.”

Julian doesn't glance at him. “I was humming, not singing.”

“And it still sounded that bad?” Babe raises his eyebrows. “That's a talent.”

The bait is there and Julian takes it, just like Babe knew he would. “The hell are you talkin’ about? I'm a great singer.”

“Oh, so you were trying to be off key?”

Julian aims a swat at him. There's no room to dodge, so Babe lets his hand deflect harmlessly off his shoulder before smirking. “Come on then. Sing something.”

For a moment, there is silence. Julian’s brow furrows as he glances between Babe and the line, apparently deep in thought. He opens his mouth, closes it again, and then grinds his teeth. Babe snorts.

“I can think of something, gimme a minute.”

“What were you humming before?”

Julian doesn't answer. It's hard to see in the dark, added to Bastogne’s uncanny ability to siphon every drop of color from their bodies, but when Babe leans closer he's almost sure that Julian is blushing. He elbows his friend for a reply, and the other boy turns his head away.

“Somewhere Over The Rainbow.”

Babe tosses back his head with a raspy laugh. “You're kidding me!”

“It's a great movie,” Julian shoots back. Babe isn't about to argue, but that doesn't keep him from giggling into his fist.

Julian remains stubbornly quiet for a few moments more, allowing Babe to have a laugh at his expense, before his lips start moving again. His voice is quiet enough that Babe he's to go dead silent to hear what his friend sings.

“Comin' in on a wing and a prayer. Comin' in on a wing and a prayer. With our one motor gone, we can still carry on --”

“Comin’ in on a wing and a prayer…”  Babe chimes in on the last verse. His singing voice isn't much to brag about to begin with, but it's worse here -- roughened by the wind and cold, it sound almost eerie in the silence around them. Still, as it meshes with Julian’s lighter voice the other boy shoots him a smile, and Babe feels a little bit lighter.

“Okay, then. What else you got?”

Julian thinks for a moment before starting to sing again.

“Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me -- anyone else but me, anyone else but me…”

“No, don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me, till I come marching home!”

Babe grins now, open and unselfconscious. Julian mirrors it with a smile of his own, looking more carefree than Babe has seen him since before they rode into the Ardennes. There's something about seeing genuine happiness on his friend’s face that makes the bite of Cold a bit more tolerable, the darkness less uncertain.

(For one second, Babe wishes he had a camera; to snap a picture of Julian, of this genuine happiness where it seems so out of place, to keep with him forever.)

“You got it,” he says instead. “I mean, you sound like a dyin’ cat, but you got it!”

Julian raises his eyebrows. “The hell d’you think you sound like?”

"I'm a fantastic singer!" Julian lets out an ugly snort. "What're you laughing at?" "You calling yourself a singer." In response, Babe aims another kick at his shoulder. Julian, the ball of winter clothing and thin blankets that he is, nearly toppled over. He only catches himself at the last moment, and shoots Babe a glower before planting his hand on the top of Babe’s head and shoving him right back. Babe is too comfortable against the wall of the foxhole to be moved, but even Julian’s brief touch is warm.

“How are your hands warm? It's freezing!”

Julian shrugs, but without Babe saying anything he shuffles closer. Babe hadn't realized how cold he was until he feels Julian’s arms wrap around him. Gloved hands press to his cheeks, and he nestles against Julian’s body to conserve what little heat there is between them. It's not the first time they've huddled together for warmth; things like this have become the normal in these woods, where the cold brings numbness and another body holds warmth much better than a blanket. Babe curls up against Julian’s side, leaning his head against his chest as the other boy rests his chin in the crown of his hair.

Babe can feel Julian’s breath, not-quite-warm against his bare face; he can see it in the air, crystallized clouds hanging for just a second before vanishing. Breath is good -- breath means that, in this moment, they're both alive.

“I used to sing,” Julian says, voice taking on that thoughtful, melancholic tone that Babe has come to know well. It's the way a soldier’s voice goes whenever he speaks of home. A life before, of a childhood he used to have; people and places and memories that are no longer real, only ghosts that persist in haunting the lonelier corners of his mind. Babe has his own phantoms; he doesn't talk about them. Julian is more open, as much as he tries to pretend he's as tough as any of them.

“In church,” he continues. “I was a choir boy. My Ma -- she used to tell me I had the voice of an angel. She sings like a screeching duck, so I don't know what she's talking about. I guess it's just that parent thing, ya know? When you have a kid, everything they do’s a miracle. Everything they touch turns to gold.”

Babe chuckles at this. His mom used to smack him and his brothers upside the head anytime they were being too loud. If his parents were ever head-over-heels for their kids’ dumb antics, it was before his time. “Lemme guess, you're the baby of the family?”

“Only child,” Julian replies, a grin in his voice that tells Babe he knows just how sweet he's had it.

“Lucky son-of-a-gun.”

“They just called you Babe for no reason? Or did you cry a lot as a kid?”

“Actually, its for my stunning good looks,” Babe retorts, and tries not to react when Julian snorts into his hair. It sends chills down his spine; Babe tries to convince himself it's just from the heat, and not the proximity of the other man next to him.

After that, Julian goes quiet, so Babe does too. He isn't sure what time it is (time in Bastogne doesn't have a lot of meaning) but the sky isn't light and no one else is running around, so he suspects it's either late at night or early in the morning. Whichever it is, he finds that he isn't tired anymore. By now his body is trained to go off of as little sleep as possible; with the threat of closing your eyes and never getting to open them again, Babe tries to keep awake as much as possible. His last memory is of it being a bit after dinner, though, so he suspects Julian has been up through most of the night watching the line while he rests.

He opens his mouth, about to tell Julian to get some sleep, when he hears that same soft voice pick up once more.

“I'll be seeing you… in all the old familiar places… that this heart of mine embraces, all day and through…”

Babe knows this song. One of those ghosts drifts through his mind: his mother stirring a pot in the kitchen, sunlight glinting off the copper of her hair as her hips swayed to the gentle melody. His mother’s low voice, filling the house with music; Babe, at the kitchen table, closing his eyes and allowing the song to wash over him. He does the same thing now, both desperate to escape the memory and unwilling to let it go. Julian’s voice is soothing in its cadence, soft as a lullaby. For a few moments, Babe allows it to wrap him up and seep warmth into his chilled body.

“I'll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new…”

Julian’s body is pressed close, voice holding him fast; and for just a moment Babe remembers what it feels like to be warm.

What really gets Babe after they leave Julian out there isn't the fact that he's dead (people die everyday, even people who were just right next to him, breathing and whole and so alive) but that he's gone.

There's nothing left of him. They don't get his body; Babe can't collect his things and fulfill the one promise they made to each other. Babe doesn't have anything of Julian’s to hold on to. There is no photograph, no rosary, not even the memory of a last exchange of words. Babe has no clue what the last thing Julian said to him was; all he remembers is the way Julian tried to speak while lying in that snow, choking on blood but still trying to make it. Julian was a fighter. Julian wanted to live.

In the end, it didn't matter. He's just gone.

Babe gets back to his foxhole and sees Julian’s blanket, tucked up in the corner to keep it safe. He remembers Julian folding it that morning, and something in him crumpled. Nothing else is left behind, but Babe can't stay there. He leaves the foxhole without looking back.

Somehow he finds himself in the medic’s foxhole. Memories are hazy, disjointed and twisted by grief. He doesn't know how he winds up with Spina’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, Roe tucked up against his side. He doesn't know whether they speak, or if he replies. He doesn't remember much at all, except quiet.

There is no humming, no melody, no whisper of a song. There is nothing left of Julian, and Babe has nothing of him to hold on to except memories.

He imagined it's Julian’s voice lulling him to sleep, instead of just another ghost whispering out of the darkness of his mind.

He can sort of see why Bill loves this movie so much, but it’s pretty much the opposite of anything Julian is into. Twisty thrillers just confuse him.

If he gets his phone out people will complain about the light from the screen but he lost the thread of the plot within the first ten minutes and he’s feeling fidgety now.

It’s a shame Babe isn’t wearing shoes because then Julian could tie his laces together, not that entertaining in itself but at least he could amuse himself with thoughts of what would happen when Babe stood.

There’s a loose thread on the seam of Babe’s jeans, just by the knee, and Julian tries to pluck it away, but that just seems to make another stray thread pull loose further up so Julian plucks at that too and then runs his hands over the seam to see if he can feel any more lose threads. He finds two more and honestly Babe should really just buy some new jeans and stop wearing hand-me-downs and thrift shop finds that are coming apart at the seams.

There’s probably more lose threads and the way Babe is sitting makes getting to his other leg tricky bug it’s easy to get at his inseam.

He tugs another thread free and trails his fingers up the seam, has just located another target when Babe stands abruptly and Julian loses his grip.

Babe steps right over him and out of the room and Julian follows him, because, well, the movie is really boring.

*

Ducking out was really the best thing Babe could do. Bill would whine but he’d get over it and it’s not like Babe’s missing much by retreating to the kitchen. It’s an okay movie but being Bill’s favourite means that he’s watched it a hundred thousand times and he could probably quote the lines along with the actors if he wasn’t being distracted by Julian’s hands all over his thighs.

Unfortunately it’s not much of an escape because Julian follows right behind him.

Like, he’s not so affected that his dick is in the picture yet, but he knows his ears have gone bright red which is just as big an indicator of that fact he’s flustered even if it does leave some room for doubt as to the cause.

“Are you okay?” Julian says, all bambi eyes and apparent utter obliviousness as to why groping Babe’s thigh might not have been bros. “Sorry, I was just picking at some lose threads on your jeans, I didn’t think it would bother you.”

“Yeah, just,” no, Babe realises, no he can’t brush this off otherwise they’ll sit back down and Julian will start right back up again being handsy and Babe will expire right there in the lounge - or worse. “Maybe keep your hands a little lower next time cause, uh…”

And Julian, oh champion of straightforwardness that he is, doesn’t even bother to try and hide the fact his eyes immediately drop to Babe’s crotch. He’s so bad at boundaries, Babe knows more about Julian’s non-existant sex life than anybody else he knows (and he shares a bedroom wall with Bill), of course Julian wouldn’t think it weird to look, after all he wouldn’t be embarrassed.

“Huh…” Julian says, and Babe desperately wants to cover himself even though he knows that the fit of his jeans should be doing most of the work there. “You responded to that?”

“Um, yeah?” Who wouldn’t react to having hands that close to their dick?

Julian frowns. “I guess I figured for somebody so experienced a little bit of touching wouldn’t mean anything.”

So experienced? “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” And even if he was some sort of casanova he’s not sure that would actually make him immune to reacting to getting basically felt up in the dark.

“Really?”

Julian’s tone of surprise was sort of embarrassing, like there was something odd about Babe still be a virgin. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I mean, I’ve fooled around a bit but…”

“Bill said–”

Ah. That explained it. “Don’t listen to Bill,” Babe interjected, this was advice Julian clearly urgently needed. “Bill is full of so much shit. He shares ‘knowledge’ for his own amusement.” He might even have thought he was being helpful, spreading stories of Babe’s ‘prowess’ but that was because Bill had an odd perspective on things.