#overload 2018

War smells like copper and mud.

It clings to everything—your skin, your hair, the inside of your mouth when you breathe too deeply. A year at the front has taught you that the world can shrink to four things: blood, screams, gunpowder, and the sickening quiet after a man’s last breath. You’ve learned to fight against that quiet; you bully it, challenge it, snarl at it like a furious animal refusing to let go of another life.

You are a nurse—sharp tongued, hands steady as stone, stubborn enough to refuse death when it comes crawling under the canvas flaps of your medic tent. Men joke that you’re more terrifying than the bombs, which is fine by you. Let them laugh; let them believe you’re unbreakable. Fear is a luxury long buried in the blood-stained soil here.

It’s late. The sun set hours ago, bleeding into the horizon like another wounded soldier, leaving the camp shivering under the weight of darkness. The gramophone in the corner crackles softly, some old record playing a piano melody that would be lovely anywhere but here. It tries to pretend you’re in a ballroom instead of wiping blood off a cot.

At your feet, the stray dog—thin, pale fur smudged with dirt—sleeps curled like a question mark. He appeared months ago and simply stayed. You named him Ghost because he slips through the camp like one, silent and loyal to anyone who smells of gun oil and despair.

You scrub your hands in a basin. The water turns pink, then red, then almost black. Another soldier will come soon. They always do.

And then, there’s shouting. Boots pounding. A voice raw with panic.

“Medic! We need a medic in here now!”

You’re already moving, pushing through the tent flap, your coat half buttoned, hair tied back in a messy knot. The night lays heavy outside, thick with smoke from distant artillery fire. You see two men stumbling toward you—one barely conscious, arm draped limply around the shoulders of the man carrying him.

The injured soldier is gasping—wet, hitching breaths—and crying out hoarsely for his mother. Blood darkens the entire side of his uniform.

But it’s the man carrying him that stops you.

Broad shoulders. Dirt smudged face. Jaw clenched so tightly you worry he might shatter his own teeth. He moves with the tense control of someone holding every emotion inside like a live grenade. And his eyes—sharp, weary, blazing with the refusal to lose even one more man today.

Corporal Lewis Ford.

You don’t know his name yet, but you’ll never forget this moment.

“Put him here,” you order, snapping back into motion as you gesture to the nearest cot.

Ford follows without hesitation, except he doesn’t move away once he lays the soldier down. He stays in your space—too close—shadowing your shoulder as you rip open the wounded man’s jacket.

“He took a hit when—” Ford starts, voice gravel rough.

“I don’t need a play-by-play,” you cut in, already reaching for gauze. “I need space.”

“He’s my man.”

“And he’ll die if you keep hovering over me.”

He bristles. You hear the breath he sucks in—a storm about to break.

There’s no room for storms in your tent.

You press down hard to slow the bleeding; the soldier screams. Ford flinches—not away, but forward—like he wants to help, protect, do something.

You shove him. Hard.

“Either get out of the fucking way or start praying, because if you keep blocking my hands, I’ll lose him, and that’ll be on you. Understand?”

For a heartbeat, the entire camp seems to pause. Even the bombs hold their breath.

Ford’s jaw ticks.

Then, finally, he nods. One sharp jerk.

He backs up, retreating to the corner where Ghost, awakened by the shouting, stands staring up at him with dark, accusing eyes. Ford doesn’t even notice the dog—his gaze stays pinned on you.

You work—methodical, ruthless—stitching torn flesh, injecting morphine to calm the shuddering breaths, packing gauze until your fingers ache. The piano from the gramophone falters through static, but you ride the rhythm like a heartbeat. This is what you know. This is where you survive.

Minutes pass, maybe hours—it’s hard to tell time when death hovers over your shoulder.

Finally, the bleeding slows. The soldier’s breathing evens out into something fragile but alive.

You tie the final knot in the sutures and sit back, rolling your shoulders as tension unwinds from your spine.

“He’ll make it,” you say. Not softly—just fact.

Ford exhales. It’s the first real breath you’ve seen him take.

You stand and walk to the basin, washing blood from your hands again. You feel Ford’s eyes burning into your back like another wound.

“Thank you,” he says.

The words fall clumsy, like he’s not used to saying them.

You don’t look at him. “Next time you barge into my tent and get in my way, I’ll kick you right back out of it.”

A long silence. You wonder if he’s going to argue. Many men would.

Instead:

“Yes, ma’am.”

You glance over. His posture remains rigid—military straight—but there’s something softer in his expression. Not vulnerability exactly. More like respect carved out of steel.

Still, he holds himself like a man ready to jump back into fire the moment he’s permitted.

“You look like you haven’t slept in a week,” you say before you can stop yourself.

He doesn’t deny it.

The dog inches closer to him, sniffing. Ford finally notices and crouches down, offering Ghost his hand.

“He yours?”

“He belongs to the camp,” you reply. “Shows up when men are hurt. Leaves when they’re gone.”

Ford’s mouth pulls into something near a smile—barely there, a ghost of warmth cutting through the grime.

He stands again, straightening. “What’s your name?”

You tie your apron tighter. “Nurse. That’s all you need right now.”

He nods as if accepting a battle order. “Corporal Ford.”

As if you hadn’t already noticed everything about his rank, his bearing, the way command settles heavy on his shoulders.

He takes one more look at the soldier you saved—at Ghost—at you.

“I’ll see you again,” he says with quiet certainty.

“Only if your men keep getting shot,” you snap back.

He actually huffs—a breath that might, in a kinder world, qualify as a laugh.

Ford steps out into the night, disappearing into gun smoke and shadows.

Ghost nudges your ankle. You let yourself breathe.

You’ll see him again.

You’re sure of it long before you should be.

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Days blur into each other. Nights stretch too long and too dark. You tend to bullet wounds, shrapnel, broken bones, fevered nightmares. Men call for mothers who will never hear them. You stop trying to count the dead—numbers don't sit right in your chest anymore.

You catch yourself thinking of Ford.

Not often; it’s just that whenever the tent flap opens, you expect to see those storm blue eyes again.

You pretend it means nothing.

Ghost isn’t convinced. The dog watches you with unnervingly human judgment each time you glance toward the entrance.

One night, distant artillery shakes the ground so violently that the gramophone needle skitters across the record, emitting a shriek like metal tearing. You hurry to adjust it, hating the sudden silence more than the flawed music.

That’s when the flap is thrown open again.

Not Ford’s silhouette this time—a kid barely old enough to shave, clutching his arm to his chest and biting back a sob. You rush forward, hands already moving.

But you still look past him, still wait for the man who hasn’t returned.

You tell yourself it’s only because he brings trouble, and trouble keeps your hands busy. That’s the logical explanation.

You’re a liar, but you’re efficient.

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Another week crawls by.

Then, shells fall closer than ever. The world trembles under your boots. The medic tent fills faster than you can think, let alone treat. You bark orders, shove morphine into shaking hands, tear uniforms open with scissors dulled by overuse. You are relentless, a force of necessity.

Through the chaos, someone stumbles in carrying another man—same posture, same furious determination.

Ford.

His face is streaked with dirt and sweat and what you know instantly is not his blood.

You don’t have time to react. You move, grab the injured soldier, and pull him onto the cot.

Ford doesn’t move back this time. He doesn’t speak. His eyes are glassy with exhaustion and something feral—rage coiled too tight.

“Out,” you snap, voice nearly lost beneath the constant explosions.

He doesn’t respond.

“Corporal.” You meet his stare, unyielding. “Out.”

His jaw ticks again, muscles leaping in his cheek. For a moment, he looks like a man on the verge of refusing the universe itself.

But then he drops his eyes—just a fraction—and backs away.

You save another life.

And when the last cot is full, every wound bound and every scream a little quieter, you finally look for him.

He’s gone.

Ghost curls beside one of the cots, whimpering softly. The gramophone plays a lullaby that sounds like it’s tired of trying.

You press your palm to your sternum as if you can hold your ribs together.

You tell yourself the war is the reason everything hurts.

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A month passes before he shows again.

Long enough for you to think too much. Long enough for Ghost to start sleeping near the entrance, as if waiting.

It’s late afternoon, weak sunlight filtering through holes in the canvas roof. You’re cleaning instruments when a shadow interrupts the light.

You turn.

And there he is.

Not carrying anyone this time, though he looks like he should be the one being carried. Cuts line his cheek; his lip is split. His shirt clings to his ribs, stained with fresh blood where the world has tried to break him.

“Before you say anything,” he says, voice low, “I’m fine.”

“You look like shit,” you reply automatically.

That almost smile again. “I’ve been worse.”

You gesture to the cot. “Sit down before you fall down.”

He obeys slowly, like every movement is a negotiation with pain.

You step close—too close—and lift his shirt. He hisses as you examine his ribs. Two are definitely broken, maybe three. At this distance you can hear his breath hitch as your fingertips graze across the expanse of mottled and bruised skin. You’re not pressing, just trailing. The noise that escapes him burrows its way into your brain.

“You’re not going on the next mission,” you state.

His head snaps up. “I have to. My men need me.”

“They need you alive.”

He looks away—jaw tight, eyes hardened by too many battlefield funerals.

“I can fight,” he insists.

“No. You can die.”

You didn’t mean for it to come out that raw.

He leans forward, hands braced against the cot, breathing through the pain.

“Please,” he murmurs.

That word doesn’t belong in his mouth. Not a soldier like him; not a man carved from discipline and fire. He gives it to you like a secret.

You exhale hard, angry that he’s forcing the choice into your hands.

Your eyes linger—on the bruises blooming like dark roses across his ribs, on the muscles carved beneath dirt and grit, on the scar tracing the edge of his jaw like a whispered story, up to the joined scars connecting in a V shaped criss-cross that frames his steel-like eye.

Then, finally, your gaze climbs to his.

He watches you like he’s memorizing the shape of your hesitation.

You cave.

“Fine,” you bite out. “But you come straight back to me after so I can make sure you haven’t made yourself even more useless than you already are.”

He laughs—quiet, disbelieving—a soft break in the hardness.

“Deal.”

The grin that follows is crooked, charming only because it’s so rarely free. He leans further in, close enough that you can see his pupils dilated infinitesimally—whether it be from pain or something else is entirely unclear.

You look away because if you don’t, you’ll stare too long. You think you already have.

He leaves before you can ask him not to.

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The next time you see him, it isn’t with another soldier.

It’s just him.

The world is quiet tonight—too quiet. The gramophone plays a slow song that aches. Ghost sleeps with his head on his paws, tail flicking as if chasing something better in his dreams.

You’re finishing notes on supplies when you feel the air shift, like someone has stepped into the same breath as you.

You look up.

Ford stands there—jaw bruised, ribs taped, eyes locked on you with a focus that steals the ground from beneath your feet.

He sits on the cot without a word, and you move automatically—hands checking his ribs, ensuring nothing has worsened. Your fingertips skim across warm skin and you feel it: the faint tremor beneath his breathing.

Then his hand closes around your wrist.

You freeze.

His calloused fingers rest gently over your pulse, right where the blood rushes wild. You know he can feel the sudden fluttering, like a bird desperate to escape.

His voice is low, rough with something not quite spoken.

“I’ve been thinking about you out there. Did you know that?”

Your throat tightens. “Corporal Ford…”

“Lewis,” he corrects—soft, almost pleading.

Your head tilts—his name on the edge of your tongue, unsaid.

“Call me Lewis,” he murmurs.

Your breath stumbles.

“Lewis.” The word sounds warbled, hesitant, and feels entirely foreign on your tongue.

He speaks your like a prayer or a rite.

He leans in in the same half a second that you do, like two magnets discovering gravity. His lips brush yours first—barely there, a question.

You answer with a kiss that steals both your composure and your fear. His hand slides to the back of your neck, steady, reverent; your fingers curl against the hard muscle of his shoulder.

When his tongue traces your lower lip, you gasp, and he takes the invitation, deepening the kiss, swallowing the soft sound you didn’t mean to make. The gramophone crackles, and Ghost shifts in his sleep, unaware that the world just shifted on its axis.

Lewis kisses like a man who doesn’t know if tomorrow exists.

You kiss like someone who’s tired of waiting for a reason to feel alive.

When you break apart, breathless, foreheads pressed together, he whispers:

“See? I came back.”

Your chest aches—not from fear this time, but something far more dangerous.

Hope.

You don’t let yourself smile.

But you do stay close enough that he can feel it anyway.

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You find short stints of time together—hushed whispers, spit-slick kisses, roaming hands, quiet confessions in-between the sounds of artillery and men screaming.

The looming threat of court martial if caught cannot stop either of you.

“Be quiet, or someone will hear.”

Your palm slaps over his mouth, muffling the low groan that vibrates against your skin. His lips are hot, parted, moving against your hand as if trying to taste you through it. Under the narrow canvas cot, the world has collapsed to the two of you—the frantic pounding of your hearts, the dusty wool blanket laid out beneath you scratching exposed skin.

Lewis’s eyes are wide, locked on yours, the storm blue darkened to near black with a need so deep it feels like looking into the heart of the war itself. You can feel the shape of his groan, the surrender in it, and you press your hand harder, a silent command.

He kisses you again.

His mouth claims yours with a frantic, hungry pressure, his tongue sweeping past your lips to tangle with yours. The taste of him—stale coffee, gunpowder, and something uniquely, desperately Lewis—floods your senses. You kiss him back just as fiercely, your free hand tangling in the short, rough hair at the nape of his neck, holding him to you.

He pulls you forward, one strong arm wrapping around your waist until you’re crushed against his chest, your torso flush against his. The rough wool of his uniform scrapes your thin shirt, but you barely feel it. All you feel is the frantic, heavy drumming of his heart against your own; a syncopated rhythm that seems to shout alive, alive, alive.

You shift against him—an instinctual roll of your hips—and your lower stomach grazes the hard, thick length of him straining against his trousers. The contact is electric. He flinches, a full body spasm of pleasure-pain, and a ragged, choked sound escapes into your palm.

“Shhh,” you whisper against his lips, your own breath coming in short, sharp gasps. So close. Someone could walk in. They could hear. The terrifying, thrilling possibility coils in your stomach—a live wire of adrenaline that makes every touch feel magnified, every sound apocalyptic.

His hands move from your back, fumbling between your pressed bodies. You hear the rasp of his belt buckle, the drag of his zipper. He breaks the kiss, his forehead dropping to your shoulder as he struggles with the fastenings, his breathing a harsh, ragged thing.

“Need to feel you,” he grunts, the words a hot, broken plea against your collarbone.

You help him, your fingers joining his, clumsy and urgent. You push his trousers and underwear down just past his hips, enough to free him. The air under the cot shifts, cool against your heated skin. You don’t look down; you feel him, the heat radiating from his bare skin, the hard, smooth weight of his cock against your clothed stomach.

Your own trousers and underwear are a tangled heap on the floor by the cot legs, discarded in that first, frantic scramble for cover.

His hand slides down your side, over the curve of your hip, his calloused fingers leaving trails of fire on your skin. He cups you between your legs, and you jerk, a sharp, silent intake of breath. You are drenched, soaked through with a wanting so intense it’s embarrassing. His fingers slide through your slickness—a slow, deliberate exploration that makes your toes curl into the dirt.

“So wet for me,” he murmurs, his voice thick with awe. He doesn’t say you’re so tight; he shows you. One finger, then a second, enters you, and you arch off the blanket, your head pressing back against the cot frame above you. The stretch is perfect; a filling, aching pressure that has you biting your own lip to stay silent. His fingers curl, stroking that deep, sensitive place inside you that makes stars burst behind your eyelids.

“Lewis—” You hiss, head thrown back into the flimsy pillow, your eyes snapping open wide.

He watches your face, his eyes missing nothing—the flutter of your eyelids, the part of your lips, the way your breath catches and holds. He kisses you again, swallowing the tiny, helpless sounds you can’t quite suppress. His tongue mimics the rhythm of his fingers and the dual sensations push you higher, tighter, a coil wound to its breaking point.

The pleasure builds, a relentless wave fed by the forbidden thrill of your location, by the raw need in his touch. You can feel yourself twitching under Lewis’ ministrations, wholly aware that you cannot keep still. It’s too much and not enough.

You can hear the faint, tinny melody of the gramophone, the soft whine of Ghost shifting outside your hiding spot. The world is still there, but it’s blurred, unimportant.

Your hips begin to move against his hand, meeting his thrusts. You are lost in it—in the building pressure, in the feel of his rough skin against your most sensitive places. Your fingers find his free hand resting beside you and you lace yours through them, gripping so tightly your knuckles ache. It feels like an anchor, like the only solid thing in a spinning world.

Your orgasm, when it rips through you, is silent and devastating. Your entire body seizes, back bowing, your choked cry swallowed by his mouth. Pleasure—sharp and absolute—radiates from your core in deep, pulsing waves, washing away the smell of copper and mud, replacing it with something purely, utterly yours. You clench rhythmically around his fingers, milking the sensation for every last, shuddering drop.

Slowly, so slowly, you come back to yourself—to the rough blanket, the dusty air, the weight of his body half over yours. His fingers are still inside you, gentler now, stroking softly as the last quivers of your supernova subsides. He pulls them free and you shiver at the loss.

He brings his wet fingers to his own mouth, his eyes holding yours, and slowly sucks them clean. The sight is so brutally intimate, so raw, that a fresh surge of heat flushes through your spent body.

You take hold of Lewis’ jaw, pulling him down to you, pressing wet kisses to the apples of his cheeks, his jaw, his chin, his eyelids, before finally his mouth.

He moans lowly, panting into your mouth, the taste far tangier than he’s ever been before. You realise that you are tasting yourself on his tongue.

He leans down, his lips brushing your ear. “My turn,” he whispers, his voice gritty with unchecked desire.

There’s a slight question in the way he speaks. You nod, your words caught in your chest.

He shifts above you, positioning himself. You feel the broad, slick head of his cock press against your soaked entrance, nudging through your slick folds, spreading you open just a fraction. The promise of him, the sheer size of him, is immense. You gasp, your hands flying to his hips—not to push him away, but to hold on.

“I’ll pull out,” he promises again, his voice strained, each word a effort of will. “I swear it.”

He begins to push forward—a slow, inexorable pressure that steals the air from your lungs. You feel yourself stretching, accommodating him, the tip sliding in with ease; your sensitive, swollen nerves alight with a new, deeper fire. You are poised on the very edge, desperate to feel him in your marrow.

“Nurse?”

The voice from outside the tent flap is young, uncertain. It cuts through the thick, heated air like a shard of ice.

You both freeze.

Lewis goes utterly still above you, his body rigid. His face is a mask of agonised frustration, his eyes screwed shut. You can feel the violent tremor in his thighs where they press against yours. The moment stretches, thin and sharp as a wire.

Footsteps approach, just outside the canvas wall. Ghost lets out a low, curious whine.

Lewis’s eyes snap open. They find yours, wide and dark.

The canvas wall near your head rustles. A shadow passes, blocking the weak lamplight filtering through the fabric. Ghost whines again; a soft, questioning sound from just beyond your hiding place.

“Hello?” The voice calls again, closer now. It’s young—one of the new runners, maybe. “I was… I thought I heard something.”

Lewis’s jaw clenches so hard you hear the faint grind of his teeth. His nostrils flare with each ragged, silent breath. The need radiating from him is a physical heat, a palpable force pressing down on you. You can feel the urgent, frantic pounding of his heart through where your bodies are joined.

Slowly—so slowly that it’s agony—you raise a finger to your own lips. “Shhh.”

His gaze drops to your mouth, then flicks back to your eyes. The storm in his blue irises is raging, a war between duty and desire. He gives the tiniest, almost imperceptible nod.

The footsteps shuffle, lingering just a few feet away. You can picture him: a boy, thrown fresh in this part of the world, confused and alone in the dark, drawn by a sound he can’t quite place. The gramophone in the corner crackles, the piano melody now a distorted, haunting echo.

Seconds stretch into a small eternity. The pressure of Lewis inside you is a constant, maddening ache. You are stretched so perfectly around him, so full, yet utterly still. A single thrust, one uncontrolled gasp, and it would all be over.

Then, a sigh. The shadow moves away. The footsteps retreat, fading into the distant rumble of artillery.

The tension doesn’t break; it simply shifts, condensing into something hotter, more urgent. The moment the sound of the runner disappears completely, Lewis’s eyes slam shut. A low, guttural sound tears from his throat, a mixture of relief and pure, unadulterated frustration.

He doesn’t pull away.

He pushes forward.

It’s not a savage thrust, not a frantic claim—it’s slow, a complete surrender. He sinks into you in one smooth, devastating motion, filling you so entirely the air rushes from your lungs in a silent, shocked oh.

For a heartbeat, there is only the feeling of him. The breathtaking stretch, the heat, the way your body yields and accepts every inch of him. His forehead drops to yours, his breath hot and ragged against your mouth. His entire body is shaking with the effort of holding still.

“Fuck,” he breathes, the word both a prayer and a curse.

Your hands slide from his hips up the sweat damp fabric of his shirt, mapping the rigid terrain of his back. You can feel every corded muscle, every scar, every tremble. You pull him down, crushing your mouth to his, swallowing the raw sounds he makes.

His tongue moves against yours with a deep, claiming rhythm that echoes the deeper, more intimate joining below.

When he finally moves, it’s with a controlled, rolling cadence that steals your thoughts. He withdraws almost completely until only the slick, swollen head of him remains at your entrance, then drives back in with a smooth, powerful stroke that makes you see stars. His cock is a thick, perfect pressure, dragging against every sensitive part of you with each slow, measured pump.

Your legs wrap around his waist, locking him to you, pulling him deeper. The rough wool of his uniform trousers scrapes against the bare skin of your inner thighs—a rough counterpoint to the silk and heat between them. You can feel the heavy, taut weight of his balls pressing against you with every deep, penetrating glide.

His rhythm begins to fracture, the careful control splintering under the weight of his need. His thrusts become harder, faster, his hips driving into you with a force that rocks your body against the hard ground. The cot above creaks in protest as Lewis’ shoulders brush against it with each thrust. Your own breathing is a ragged, broken thing; matching the slap of skin against skin, the wet, rhythmic sound of him moving within you.

You are lost in it. The world has narrowed to the feel of him, the smell of his skin—sweat and earth and man—the sight of his face, etched with a pleasure so intense it borders on pain. His eyes are squeezed shut, his lips parted, his brow furrowed in concentration.

One of your hands finds his where it’s braced beside your head. Your fingers slide between his, lacing tightly together, palm to sweaty palm. You hold on as if he is the only solid thing in a universe that is spinning apart. He grips your hand just as fiercely, his callouses rough against your skin, an anchor in the storm.

You feel an orgasm building again, a different kind this time—deeper, slower, a wave gathering force from the very core of you. It’s not the sharp, frantic peak from before—this is a tidal wave, born from the relentless, perfect friction of him inside you, from the way his body covers yours, from the intertwined hands that speak of a connection far beyond the physical.

You can feel his own end approaching. His movements become erratic, his breathing a harsh, broken rasp. The muscles in his arms and back are rigid, coiled.

“I promised,” he grits out, the words strained, torn from somewhere deep within his chest. “I have to… pull…”

He tries to withdraw, his body trembling with the monumental effort of stopping.

Your other hand flies to his hip, nails digging into the fabric of his shirt. You hold him there, locked inside you.

His eyes fly open, surprised, questioning, blazing with a fire you feel in your very soul.

“Don’t you dare,” you whisper, the words a raw command.

His jaw drops and a low, panting groan tearing from his throat. His eyes, dark and glassy with lust, drop to where your bodies are fused together, to the base of his cock where a ring of your combined slickness glistens in the dim light. A short, sharp, guttural sound escapes him—part snarl, part prayer—and he drives into you one last time; a deep, claiming thrust that presses the thick root of him firmly against your oversensitive clit.

The sensation is a lightning strike—a bright, searing flash of pure, undiluted pleasure that arcs through your entire body. Your back arches off the rough blanket, a silent scream caught in your throat as your climax detonates. It’s deeper than the first; a rolling, consuming wave that pulls you under, milking his length with a series of intense, rhythmic clenches you cannot control.

Above you, Lewis shatters. His own release is a violent, tremorous surrender. His entire body locks up, every muscle straining as he pours himself into you in hot, pulsing waves. You can feel each distinct spurt, a deep, internal flood of heat that seems to go on and on. His face is a mask of agonised ecstasy, his lips pulled back from his teeth, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. A single, sweat soaked tear tracks through the grime on his cheekbone.

He collapses forward, his full weight settling onto you, his face buried in the crook of your neck. His breath is a ragged, hot torrent against your skin. You can feel the frantic, rabbit quick hammering of his heart against your chest, a wild drum solo slowly settling into a heavy, exhausted rhythm. Your own heartbeat thunders in your ears, a deafening rush slowly receding.

The air under the cot is thick, heavy with the musky, intimate scent of sex and sweat. Your intertwined hands, still locked together beside your head, are slick. You can feel the faint, aftershock tremors still coursing through him, a series of small, involuntary shudders that ripple from his core into yours.

You hold him, one hand still gripping his, the other coming up to slide into the damp hair at the nape of his neck. Your thighs, still wrapped around his waist, begin to ache from the strain, but you don’t let go.

For a long time, there is only the sound of your breathing slowly returning to normal, the distant, ever-present rumble of artillery, and the tinny, stubborn melody from the gramophone.

His voice, when it finally comes, is a raw, broken whisper muffled against your skin. “I’m sorry. I—I didn’t pull out.”

You turn your head, your lips brushing the shell of his ear. ”I told you not to.”

He lifts his head just enough to look at you. His eyes are soft now, the fierce intensity replaced by a dazed, sated wonder. He looks younger. The hard lines of worry and command have temporarily smoothed away. He searches your face, looking for any hint of regret, of anger.

He finds none.

A slow, genuine smile—the first you’ve ever truly seen—spreads across his face. It transforms him entirely, erasing the soldier and leaving just the man. It’s a little crooked, utterly charming, and it makes something warm and dangerous unfold in your chest.

He shifts his weight, wincing slightly as he begins to soften inside you. The sensation is a slow, slippery separation that makes you both gasp softly. He pulls back, his expression turning wry as he looks down at the mess between you, at the evidence of his broken promise glistening on your inner thighs and his own spent cock.

“Christ. Look at that.”

You follow his gaze. Your skin is flushed, the thatch of hair at your junction dark and matted with moisture. His release, pearlescent and thick, is already beginning to seep out of you; a stark, intimate contrast against your skin. The sight shouldn’t be beautiful, but it is. It’s raw and real and yours alone.

He moves with a quiet tenderness, reaching for a discarded, relatively clean scrap of gauze from a nearby kit. He dampens it with water from his canteen, his movements careful, almost reverent. He doesn’t just clean himself; he turns his attention to you.

His touch is impossibly gentle as he swipes the cloth over your sensitive flesh, cleaning away the evidence of your joining. Each slow, careful pass of the cloth makes you shiver. He takes his time, his eyes following his own movements with a focused intensity, as if memorizing the landscape of you. He pauses, his thumb brushing lightly over your swollen, sensitive outer lips, a touch that is not sexual but somehow more intimate.

“Alright?” He murmurs, his voice low.

You can only nod, your throat too tight for words. This careful, practical act of aftercare, in the middle of a war, under a cot, feels more vulnerable than the sex itself.

Once finished, he tosses the cloth aside and begins to right his own clothes with a soldier’s efficiency. You do the same, pulling your discarded trousers and panties back on, the fabric feeling strange and rough against your sensitized skin.

The world, with all its rules and dangers, begins to seep back in.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

War doesn’t pause for love—it barely pauses for breath.

Sleep is a rumour in camp tonight. A lie the night tells to keep men sane. You’ve never trusted it. Whenever your eyes finally surrender to the heavy dark, the world punishes you with boots pounding like artillery across the ground outside.

Boots first. Always boots first.

You’re adrift between dreaming and drowning when the sound crashes back into your skull. Someone running. Hard. Urgent. You lurch upright and your elbow clips the battered gramophone table. The needle scratches a sharp scream through the quiet. Ghost, the old shepherd mix who’s become more mascot than mutt, jolts awake beside your cot and barks once, low and warning.

The tent flap bursts open.

Lewis stands there.

Gear strapped on tight, rifle slung, helmet under his arm. The lamplight flickers and wavers, like even the flame can’t bear to look at him directly. Shadows cling to him as though they know he’s leaving soon and want one last touch before he slips away.

You think maybe your heart has finally broken, because for one horrifying second he doesn’t look real. He looks like the memory grief will carve out of you later.

You push out of your cot, disoriented from the briefest sleep, and the gramophone needle scratches harshly as your elbow knocks the table.

“Lewis…” The word splits on your tongue, heavy iron settling on the back of your tongue.

He closes the distance in three long strides, like every inch between you has always been unacceptable.

His hand finds your jaw, his thumb brushing the ridge of your cheek. His skin is warm—too warm—trembling like the bones beneath can’t handle what they’re about to do. His breath stutters, catching in his throat like he’s just been told no one gets a second chance.

“They’re sending us in,” he says. “Far behind the lines. Tonight.”

The world drops out from under your feet.

“You shouldn’t be here,” you answer. Your voice is too tight. Too terrified.

He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t pretend. He just lays his palm against the side of your neck, right over the frantic drum of your pulse.

“I needed to see you,” he breathes. His fingers slide back, tracing the line of your cheek to your ear; his palm presses gently against the side of your neck, right over your pulse. “God—I thought I’d have more time.”

There’s terror in him. Not the kind born of bullets and monsters—the kind born of wanting.

He leans his forehead against yours, eyes squeezed shut like it’s the only way he can hold himself together.

“Tell me I’m coming back.”

Your silence speaks louder than any promise could.

He swallows hard, jaw clenching, eyes opening again and burning into yours with a wild, pleading intensity.

His breath brushes your lips.

“I don’t want to die without knowing how this ends,” he murmurs.

You manage his name again. “Lewis—”

He kisses you.

Not the hesitant touch from before, but a real kiss, fierce and claiming and terrified. His lips crush against yours like he’s fighting the world for this single moment. His hands grip your waist, fingers digging through fabric, anchoring himself to the only safe thing he has left.

His lips crush against yours with a hungry, frantic devotion that tastes like everything war tries to steal. His hands fist at your hips, fingers digging like he’s anchoring himself to the last safe harbour in a world made of gunfire and evil experiments no one is supposed to know about. You clutch his jacket, pulling him closer because letting go feels like letting him fall off the edge of the earth. His kiss is desperate, messy, salt from tears you refuse to acknowledge slipping between your mouths.

He breaks only to breathe, ragged gasps against your lips. His hands shake.

“Please—remember me. Just don’t let me disappear.” His voice splinters before his final word.

You want to say it; you want to beg him to stay, to refuse the mission, to run and choose life, choose you. But you know the truth—you’ve always known.

Some men are built for sacrifice.

Lewis cups your face with both hands now, fingers catching in your hair. His eyes are wild, frantic storms.

“I’ll come back,” he breathes, even though you can both taste the lie in those words. “I did it before. I’ll do it again.”

He kisses you again, one last time, firm as a vow and soft as heartbreak, seared into your bones. When he pulls away, it’s like ripping a vein out of your chest. It feels like someone has just opened your ribs and hollowed you out.

“Goodbye,” he whispers.

“No.” Your voice cracks, grip tightening on his sleeve. “Not goodbye.”

A tiny, heartbreaking smile flickers onto his mouth. “Then... until I see you again.”

He goes.

You stumble forward a step, reaching, but the flap swings shut, and he’s swallowed by night and gunfire and destiny.

Ghost presses his nose to your knee; you bury a fist in his fur to keep from collapsing.

The gramophone plays—

I’ll see you in my dreams…

The war keeps marching.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You don’t see him again.

Not in a day. Not in a week. Not in the restless months that follow.

You ask around—quietly at first, then fiercely—but the only answers are smoke and ash.

“He made landing.”

“He never reported back.”

“There was a church—some kinda explosion—no records left standing.”

Men whisper like he turned into legend, like he stopped being flesh at all.

You stitch wounds by lantern light and you try to pretend your hands aren’t shaking.

Ghost grows old in front of your eyes, grey fur creeping along his muzzle, always waiting for a footstep that never returns.

You dream of how he looked leaning against the tent post, teasing Ghost with a piece of ration biscuit. How his laughter sounded like something that didn’t belong in a war. How he always smelled faintly of gun oil and pine needles, like his body remembered better places than this mud-soaked hell.

You dream of his hands—how gentle he could be, how tightly he could hold.

When you wake, your mouth still tingles where he kissed you.

Sometimes, when another soldier calls for his mother in his fever dreams, your throat burns and you have to step away. The sound reminds you of how Lewis said your name when he kissed you goodbye.

Sometimes you hear footsteps in the night and your body moves before your brain does (turning toward the entrance, a soft hope rising), but it’s never him.

They tell stories about a hero, about a man who helped ensure the success of D-Day by blowing up a radio tower, taking monsters and nightmares down with it. A man who didn’t leave until every other soldier was clear.

A man who never came back.

No body recovered. No confirmed death. Just a life shaped like sacrifice.

His name drifts through the camp in reverent whispers. Corporal Lewis Ford—too stubborn to die quietly.

You hear those whispers and your heart refuses to believe them.

He promised he’d come back.

And you—stubborn nurse with bloodstained hands—you cling to promises like lifelines.

So you keep the gramophone playing.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

There’s a new kind of fear crawling through the ranks.

Rumours of the experiments spread like a second plague. Men talk about soldiers who don’t stay dead. Creatures stitched together wrong. Bodies that bend in ways bone shouldn’t. Pain has become a science, and cruelty an industry.

You try not to listen, but horror is loud.

Sometimes a soldier arrives at your cot with wounds you don’t have names for. Bite marks too wide. Blood that smells wrong. A blank stare like his soul didn’t make it back with the rest of him.

Lewis fought that.

He went into the night to stop that.

You decide to start writing to him, the pages filled with ink and desperation.

No declarations of love—you aren’t that brave. Instead, you write things like:

Had to dig shrapnel out of Lt. Harris again. He screamed this time.

Ghost caught a rabbit today. Brought it to the tent like a trophy.

I fixed the gramophone needle so it doesn’t scratch when I bump the table. You can kiss me against it without the worry of someone walking by to hear it.

Paper and pen become your confession booth.

You fold each letter neatly and tuck it beneath your pillow. You tell yourself you’ll give them to him when he returns. Even if he laughs at your rambling, at least he’ll be laughing.

You never seal the envelopes.

Sealing things makes them final.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

One year.

An entire year of mending everyone but yourself.

Summer leans hot against the medic tent; the air tastes like dust and exhaustion. You’re changing bandages on a concussion case when a soldier stumbles in, supported by another, fever burning bright in his eyes.

He’s young—too young. You direct him to a cot and gather supplies without thought. Fever is one of the few enemies here you can actually fight.

Ghost circles near the cot, tail low, nose twitching like he senses something off.

You dip a cloth into cool water and press it gently to the soldier’s forehead.

His eyes open and he stares directly at you.

Recognition, sharp and raw, flashes through him. Behind that glint, there’s something reminiscent of a shared mourning.

Your brows furrow. “Easy. You’ve got a fever. Let me—”

He says your name.

Your real name, not Nurse; not the curt title men call when they’re desperate. Your actual name, spoken like he’s practised it.

You freeze.

“I—sorry,” you manage, voice thin. “We’ve met?”

He swallows, throat working hard. “No. Not really. But I—” His hand trembles as he reaches into his uniform, pulling out a folded envelope—edges worn soft, corners dirt smudged. “He asked me to… to give you this.”

He sets it in your hands.

Black ink. Your name. Lewis’ handwriting.

The world tilts. Your knees nearly give.

You tear the envelope with trembling fingers.

Inside is just a few lines, written with urgency that bleeds between the letters, as if each word cost him something he couldn’t spare.

You read. You break.

Your pulse roars, drowning out everything—fire, fear, war, time. You press the paper to your chest, breathing like you’re drowning.

He didn’t forget you.

He never stopped thinking of you.

The soldier—Private Boyce—watches you with eyes full of something like shared grief.

“He… talked about you,” Boyce says softly, voice hoarse with memory. “He said your name right before he—”

He stops himself. Closes his eyes, breath shuddering.

You hold up a hand.

You can’t—not yet.

Instead, you ask the only question your heart can form:

“Is he alive?”

Boyce’s jaw works.

“I don’t know,” he whispers. “But he saved us all.”

The gramophone crackles, the needle finding the start of a new song.

Ghost lays his head on your foot, warmth grounding you as the letter shakes in your grip.

Lewis promised he’d come back.

And though the world believes otherwise, though war has taken so much, it cannot take this: hope. Because there is no body, no grave, no ending.