#luxover

They move forward in small, shivering increments: small because Eugene has so obviously been in over his head from the moment Babe smiled at him with just a hint of extra warmth, and shivering because even once they escape the deep freeze of Bois Jacques and start to hide in cramped, dusty basements instead of foxholes, Eugene always seems to tremble when Babe gets close.

He’s not scared. Babe knows he’s not scared, and would back off so far he’d land in the ocean if he ever thought that had changed. And it doesn’t even seem like a blushing virgin thing - at least not in the archetypal sense, though Babe wouldn’t be at all surprised if it were true in a more literal one - because there’s no shying away or coy recriminations or even nervous pleas to stop, wait, not yet.

Best as Babe can figure, Eugene just has a way of getting overwhelmed by odd things. The mannever even flinches if a mortar shell explodes a few feet from where he’s seeing to a man’s wound, but Babe shifting the grip of their intertwined hands to drag a thumb lightly across Eugene’s inner wrist is enough to make him gasp. Every time they kiss, Eugene fumbles with his hands a bit before deciding to rest one at the nape of Babe’s neck like always, as if he’s forgotten what to do with them between then and now. It’s sweet, but a little bit nerve-wracking at times, and it makes Babe move forward with much more caution and patience than he thought he could ever give anything.

Eugene is just… he’s different all the way around, and the amazing, breathtaking differences make up for the ones that cause Babe’s own confidence to stumble in its steps.

It’s the eve of the second stupid patrol over that stupid river to get more stupid prisoners and probably lose more men to stupid mistakes when Babe once again seeks out Eugene’s company. They end up in an unused upstairs bedroom this time, sitting side by side on a bed with dust-coated flounces and ruffles that make the entire scene a bit ludicrous, bodies turned inward so that they can share kiss after breathless, pulse-jolting kiss. Babe’s teeth find Eugene’s lower lip before he can think at all about what he’s doing, the morbid futility of the night’s coming events making him more urgent than usual, and Eugene gasps so loudly at the light nip that he jerks away with wide, apologetic eyes.

“Gene, I’m sorry, I didn’t - I wasn’t thinkin’,” he babbles out with what he hopes is a reassuring smile, not a panicked one. He thinks his heart might actually have stopped as he waits for Eugene to answer, but then Eugene reaches up a hand to touch the spot where Babe bit him with a deeply pensive expression, and just watching makes Babe shiver like he’s the one brushing a finger over Eugene’s mouth.

Who’s overwhelmed now? He thinks to himself. Get it together, Babe.

“S’alright,” Eugene finally says with his own quiet but rigidly firm brand of certainty. “S’alright, Babe, I -”

Babe searches Eugene’s face for some sort of answers when he falls silent again, but aside from general impressions like upset or confused or lost in thought, that face is a lock box - it’s sometimes possible to guess his emotions, but never his thoughts. “Gene,” he says hesitantly, shifting close enough that their legs press together from hip to knee, and either the sound of his name or the new point of contact snaps Eugene right out of his reverie; he looks Babe dead in the eye, expression serious as a heart attack, and says something that nearly causes Babe to pass out cold where he sits.

“Babe, can I touch you?”

For what feels like an eternity, all Babe can do is open his mouth and close it again, and he gets a very good idea of how foolish he looks from how quickly Gene’s serious expression turns amused. “C-Can you?” He finally manages to sputter out with a high-pitched, disbelieving laugh. “You’re askin’ permission? You think I’d ever say no to that?”

“I dunno,” Eugene says, right back at serious again as he considers the question. “You’re always real careful with me. Figure I oughta give you the same courtesy… right?”

This time, Babe’s laugh is warm with baffled but overwhelming affection, the sort he always feels when Eugene says things like that. “Nah, Gene, that’s just ‘cause you’re always so nervous. You don’t gotta be careful with me.”

“I ain’t nervous.”

Before Babe has a chance to respond or even react to those words, Eugene’s hands find the bottom of his coat and then the hem of his shirt, and he shudders from head to toe when he feels them press warm and soft against his bare abdomen. So soft for a soldier’s hands, but then, he’s a medic - the fruits of his labor aren’t calluses but dark red-brown lines criscrossing his palms where the blood of other men has been ground in too deep to scrub clean, and still there’s something so pure about his touch that Babe feels it right to his very soul.

Healing hands. Is this what those words mean? He closes his eyes, listens to the slow heave of his breathing until Eugene speaks again: “It ain’t a case of bein’ nervous. Everything just - feels so good. I can’t help reactin’ like I do.”

He slides his hands around to Babe’s sides, drags them partway down, then wraps his arms right around Babe’s middle to stroke the small of his back. Babe can’t catch his breath; his heart’s racing so fast he swears it’s starting to hurt. And Eugene hasn’t even really done anything that could be called suggestive.

“Was it the shakin’ made you think so?”

“Huh?” Blinking heavily, Babe drags himself out of pure sensation to focus on Eugene’s question. “Yeah, I - just that, an’ -”

A few seconds pass without Babe showing any sign that he plans to finish his thought. Eugene finally says, a smile in his voice: “You’re shakin’ right now.”

And God, he is. He hasn’t stopped since that first shudder. He pulls back just enough to capture Eugene’s lips in another kiss, one that makes his toes curl and a moan catch in the back of his throat, then shivers even harder when Eugene’s hands shift to get a solid grip on his waist and his nails bite ever so slightly into bare skin.

Eugene, of course, is the one who eventually pulls away to talk some sense: “Whatever we’re startin’ here, I don’t know that we’re gonna get the chance to finish it,” he says with genuine regret tugging at his voice. “Not how we’d like, not right now.”

“But sometime? We will?” For someone who’s always considered himself a bit of a ladykiller, Babe can’t believe how pathetically eager he sounds as he asks that question. But Eugene is different, in every single way.