He leans forward for a quick kiss, which quickly becomes a longer one. Even after two years, Jeremy can never kiss enough, never touch enough. Never get enough of him.
The beginning, when it came, was quicker than Jeremy expected. The people who had survived were eager to put things to rights, to get back to some sort of normalcy, even if it wasn’t exactly what they’d had before. Jeremy, he found, was just as eager to move on. Not to forget what had happened. That was impossible and the steady stream of patients in Daniel’s newpractice proved it, but to start a new chapter.
The scars will always be there, on Jeremy and on everybody else, but those scars don’t have to define the rest of their lives. Daniel has taught him that.Seeing a rainbow doesn’t mean the rain never happened, as Daniel says to his patients, and to Jeremy, when Jeremy feels particularly down.It means you got through it and came out the other side.
As clichéd as it is, Jeremy would call Daniel his rainbow, his good that came after the bad, but that doesn’t feel quite right. A rainbow is ephemeral, untouchable. Daniel is solid, enduring, like the Roman wall near Jeremy’s parents’ house. His presence doesn’t mean that nothing bad will ever happen again, but it means Jeremy will have a strong line of defense when it does.A safe port in a storm, Jeremy would call him, if he was a sailing type. Since he’s not, Jeremy decides that calling Danielfiancé, is great.Husbandwill be even better.
“Ready?” Daniel comes back into the office, still smiling as beautifully as that day Jeremy returned to his flat.
“Ready,” Jeremy repeats. The world will never be the way it was, but this—Daniel in his life, Daniel’s hand in his—is perfect just the same.
Out of the Trenches by Quinn T.
22 July 1918
Normally I don’t write about specific patients. There are far too many, and I cannot bear to recount all the lives lost. This man was not a special case by any means, and yet.
He came into the hospital with the influx from the battle raging at Château-Thierry. There was already enough to cope with—air raids and shell fire at all hours—all the while conducting delicate surgeries. Battered and beaten bodies, some barely recognizable as men, poured into the repurposed castle.
Even among the droves, this one stood out. He had a shell wound to the shoulder, and was losing blood fast. My focus should have been on his injury yet my eyes kept drifting to his face. I have come across my fair share of handsome soldiers, there is almost an unlimited number here, but even with the layer of grime and dirt he was perhaps the most handsome I have seen.
I forced my attention on his treatment…
…Edwin hunched over the makeshift bed Maxwell was laid over, stripped down to his waist. A gas lamp illuminated the torn up shoulder he was working on. Blood dripped onto the stone floor while Edwin dug through the wound to remove barely visible shrapnel.
The chandeliers above them jerked when another shell exploded too close to the castle for comfort. Edwin paused until the tremors subsided. Sweat dripped down his brow and he blinked the salt out of his eyes before carefully removing another shard of metal.
Maxwell groaned and Edwin looked up to see his face twisting in pain, his dirt-covered eyebrows scrunched together and his bloody lips pulled into a frown. His eyelids fluttered open to reveal deep brown eyes, rich and warm. They metEdwin’s pale blue eyes. Edwin didn’t need words to understand what Maxwell wanted to know.
“I’m almost finished. You’ve been strong, you’ll make it through.”
Maxwell responded with a weak grunt and lost his hold on consciousness once again. Edwin was glad he could focus on getting the last few pieces of the shell out without that dark, entrancing gaze on him.
It took the better part of an hour until Edwin finished stitching him up. He let a nurse bandage him to attend to another surgery. Maxwell was not the only young man in need of care here.
It was well into the night until Edwin found his way back to him. Someone had wiped the dirt and blood from his face. His shaggy hair was still wet from being washed and, although he had a change of clothes, he was still left shirtless to allow his wound to air out. In this sweltering heat, Edwin barely wanted to wear a shirt either.
Maxwell’s nose had a slight crook Edwin hadn’t noticed earlier. A childhood injury, perhaps? Edwin leaned in closer. And then he was met with a beaming smile and big brown eyes. Edwin jumped back. Maxwell’s smile only grew. It was crooked and cocky in a way that stripped Edwin to a vulnerability he didn’t know he had.
Edwin straightened up and cleared his throat. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
Maxwell tried to sit up but winced and lowered back down. “Better now.”
“Good. The surgery went well, but you’ll need to rest and let your shoulder heal for at least a few weeks,” he explained. “No sitting up for at least a week,” he added pointedly.
Maxwell chuckled from deep in his chest, and raised his hands defensively, the movement small. “You got it, Doc. GuessI should thank you for saving my life. Name’s Maxwell.”
A handsome name for a handsome man.
“You’re welcome, Maxwell. Don’t think you’re so special though, it’s what I do.”
Maxwell laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. I don’t consider myself special. I believe that’s for others to do.”
“Are you feeling hot at all?” Edwin asked, pressing his hand against Maxwell’s forehead. He was slightly warmer than Edwin would like.
“Not any more than usual.”
Edwin hummed and peeled the bandages back just enough to peek under, checking for pus. “So far so good. We’ll get those changed day after tomorrow.”
