Wind at Dawn (Noble Things)- August 1918
Title: Wind at Dawn (Noble Things)
Artist name: tringic
Pairing: Pinto
Genre: angst, h/c, romance, AU
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~47,000
Warnings/Spoilers: Highlight to reveal. War. Death- dead bodies, shooting, etc. Blood. Religion. French. Latin. Suicide-minor character. infant death- minor character. homophobia. MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. Really, truly, I mean it, ANGST AND MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH.
Summary: In the chaos of the Great War, Zach is a medic in a camp hospital in Soissons, France. When he meets an American soldier named Chris with a gunshot wound, both their lives change.
Disclaimer: in case the fact that it's set a hundred years ago didn't tip you off, THIS IS FICTION. ENTIRELY MADE UP. NOT BASED IN REALITY AT ALL. and yeah, i'm not getting paid either.
A/N:
Part 1: to my amazing artist, tringic , OMG THANK YOU. to my fantastic betas, 1lostone and rainbowstrlght, THANK YOU SO MUCH. for all the cheerleading, correcting, suggesting, dissecting. THANK YOU. also to emmessann, who stepped in at the last minute to hold me accountable for all my loose ends, THANK YOU. to medea_fic , for being all around awesome and listening to me whine. and last but not least, to garden_hoe21 and 13empress for nobly keeping me on task when i wanted to do was read fic and pretend i'd never signed up.
Part 2: this is a historical AU. most of my historical knowledge is either much earlier or much later, so I tried to research as much as possible, but, in case you didn't know, WWI is kind of a huge topic! i'm sure that there are historical inaccuracies, so if you see them, feel free to point them out. but please know i did try to stick as close as i could to authenticity.
likewise the french. i have studied french, but not in many years, so i'm quite sure that there are errors, whether of vocab or syntax or usage. please feel free to point them out.
Part 3: the fanmix was made by rainbowstrlght , and is amazing! hooray! additionally, if you're interested, while i was writing i listened to a lot of Arvo Part (esp his Te Deum) and also to Eric Whitaker. Tallis, Britten, and Tavener were also along for the ride.
Part 4: HAPPY BIRTHDAY amerasu1013 ! here bb, i tied a ribbon on it and everything! happy reading!
Link to art: http://tringic.livejournal.com/19447.html
Link to mix: http://rainbowstrlght.livejournal.com/199245.html
August 1918
4th august, 1918
august. my favorite month back home. thunderstorms and cicadas and fireflies and apples. heat and lightning and the body-deep sense of the turning of the seasons.
i can sense it here; there are still apples and fireflies. the air is different; salty tang like sweat, like blood, but still moving, still thick with late summer.
He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.
we’re heading back inland soon. fall is coming, and we can’t stay in tents much longer. gales come up over the coast, and we’ll be blown away.
though admittedly, be blown away to spain or somesuch does have its appeal.
michelle and elisabet are planning on heading for home- rumors say that the germans have retreated enough that they should be safe. who can say whether that will last, but for the time being, it’s better for them to be with what family they have left.
we have talked it over.
it’s too soon to try and return to the states. the war is not over, even if it is starting to seem as though the tide may be turning.
i feel worse and worse about having run from the front lines. but i did not know what else to do.
at least i have been of some use out here.
more tales of the flu. alarming things we hear- it is spreading quickly, it kills swiftly. not just infants and grandmothers, like one expects, but men and women in their prime. some new strain is lending it strength, and the malnutrition and uproar of war are feeding it like paper to flame.
8th aug, 1918
on the road again. heading east instead of west.
C’s idea. to return to the farmhouse.
don’t know what to think of it. makes practical sense- has some food, will have more food as the harvest goes on. is known to be unoccupied, has a roof, etc etc etc.
seems nostalgic?
this whole… summer. i can’t begin to process it.
am starting to believe that père louis was right. this is a gift. an unsought for, undeserved gift. but a gift nonetheless, and one that i would be a fool to turn away. perhaps it is my sin convincing me, perhaps it is Satan himself, but i cannot believe that. i am too tired to engage in the theological hubris that tell me that my soul is so crucial that a divine monster will sacrifice the soul of another to win me over.
i am worth only what i am worth; as a human, as a man. no more or less than any other.
if there is a God, and if He is good, if He is love, then it is not only foolish, but sacrilegious to refuse love offered.
love is what makes us, creates us, and breaks us open. all of us are capable of it, but not all of us will receive it. and real love, true love, the love that makes us move beyond the (admittedly delightful) desires of the flesh into the realm of the bonding of spirits, that…
that is transcendence, and can only be holy.
10th august, 1918
michelle and elisabet traveling with us as far as the farmhouse to get some supplies, then heading north.
jean-luc is sickly. he has been so strong, but we stayed overnight in a town with several flu cases, and i worry. elisabet does too, but she is trying to hide it.
Saint-Gérard, qui, comme le Sauveur, aimait les enfants si tendrement et par vos prières libéré beaucoup de maladies et même la mort, de nous écouter, qui plaident pour notre enfant malade.
we should reach the house tomorrow in the late afternoon.
12th aug, 1918
jean-luc died early yesterday morning.
there was nothing i could do.
13th aug, 1918
michelle, elisabet, and the remaining children have left, continuing north. elisabet is not herself, but michelle has taken charge.
we offered for them to stay, but michelle thought it better to continue to find family. she thinks it will help elisabet to see their parents, to have more help caring for matthieu and julie. it went unsaid that the other children may yet fall ill.
i will never forget the sounds Elisabet made when she realized he was gone.
there was little mourning at l’hopital. none of us knew the patients well, and there were no family or friends near. occasionally there would be two men who knew each other, and then it was especially sad, but nothing… nothing like this.
i tried everything. it was too swift. first a cough, then a fever, then by midnight he was bleeding from his nose and limp in his mother’s arms. before dawn he was gone. i have never seen anything like it.
C was indispensable. he stayed with elisabet and the body until we reached the house, then took her away, outside, with michelle and the children while i prepared it for burial. built a tiny coffin out of spare wood in the shed.
i washed him in the stone sink. two and a half months, he made it. longer than some, i suppose. not as long as he should have. i washed his limbs and wrapped him in one of my shirts. he was so heavy and limp in my hands, his head hanging from his neck. not like a ragdoll at all, though i can understand the comparison. there is a weight to a body that a doll does not have, and the way that bones slide under skin when muscle is no longer in use, no longer contracting and extending and pulsing. his skin was pale on top, and blue on the underside where the blood had pooled as he lay in the cart.
i wish we had a priest to bless him, but we do not. i prayed while i moved him in my hands, just as i did when i first laid my hands on him, when my hands were the first thing to touch him outside the womb.
by the time i had finished, C had dug the grave with the others. just like old times; me with the bodies and him with the shovel. like a never-ending nightmare, and if it never happens again, it will be too soon.
we closed the coffin and laid it in, and michelle took elisabet away before C began to cover it up.
no mother should ever have to watch such a thing.
Oh God of us all, supposed-father of all humanity, you who are so unreachable above the clouds and yet so omnipresent. Receive this child into your arms. Receive also this righteous fury, if in fact it is truth that you have taken him like a glutton from this world too soon. Comfort his mother, who is beside herself with grief. And end this fucking war.
Amen.
Chris finds him in the dirt on his knees behind the house, staring into the space beyond the freshly turned earth.
“Hey.”
Zach doesn’t answer.
Chris settles down beside him, leaning his back against the cool stone of the house. The sun is setting earlier these days, a sure sign of the earth turning to fall.
“You did everything you could.”
“I know.”
“Why are you out here, Zach?”
“I…” His tone is calm, steady. “It just seems right.” He shifts slightly, pulling a leg out from beneath him. “He’s got no one left.”
Chris lets his skull thunk back against the stone. “Yeah.”
“Doesn’t it seem funny to you? I mean…” Zach shifts again, and pushes his glasses up his nose. “This is what we would think of as a family graveyard, yes?”
“Well, sure.” Chris hooks his hand in the back of Zach’s belt, pulling on him until he scoots back against the wall, his shoulder warm against Chris’. “Pretty common.”
“Right. But this… it’s not a family, not anymore.”
He sounds vaguely distressed at this, and Chris pulls him down, positioning Zach’s head in his lap and beginning to rub the taut lines of muscle in his neck.
“Does it matter? I mean, look at it this way.” Zach groans as Chris finds an especially stiff cord of tendon. “The family that lived here before we found this place. They had a child.” Zach nods slightly in agreement as Chris pauses. “Do you think, if they had been alive, they would have turned away a baby that had nowhere else to go?” Zach’s head shakes infinitesimally. “No, of course not. So why should it be any different now they’re dead? I mean… assuming that they care at all, which frankly, I’m not convinced is a valid assumption. I mean, shouldn’t they be in heaven? Why are they worried about where they’re buried? In any case, I can’t imagine they’d mind.”
He digs his thumbs in, and Zach groans under his breath, turning his head to allow the best access. “Besides. What is family, anyway? I mean, I love my family. Of course. But…” he lays his palm carefully on Zach’s cheek, rubbing his thumb over a dark eyebrow. “You’re just as much my family as those whose blood runs in my veins. We’re family, you and I, and if I were dead, I’d rather be buried with you, here, than with strangers in some plot in California.”
“Chris…”
He lays his finger across Zach’s lips.
“No, Zach, it’s ok. I will die. At some point, may it be far from now. So will you. It’s the second constant of life- we are born, and then, at some point we die.”
“Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell…” Zach’s whisper is faint in the cooling air.
Chris’ finger traces the lines of Zach’s face, point of eye to curve of chin, his touch lingering warm on his skin. “All we ever have is the moment we’re in. What good does it do to worry about yesterday, or tomorrow? Beyond what we need to survive, what more do we need to concern ourselves with than our own joy and the joy of others? Zach…” He leans forward, wrapping an arm around his chest and pressing his lips to Zach’s temple. “Zach, you did all you could. He died free of pain, in the arms of the one who loved him most. What more can any of us ask for?”
Zach sighs, turning his face into Chris’ chest. “Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so…One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.”
22nd august, 1918
russia has revolted. one more in a series, though granted, the largest so far. the people are running mad and the royalty are nowhere to be found.
reports of the flu’s ravages are spreading east, fearsome in their tone. it is early in the season yet; i fear greatly what this means for winter.
proud or not, death has her sickle at all our throats.
only petite mathilde is safe.
26th august, 1918
today C is 20.
i forget he is so young.
yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain…
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
next
Artist name: tringic
Pairing: Pinto
Genre: angst, h/c, romance, AU
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~47,000
Warnings/Spoilers: Highlight to reveal. War. Death- dead bodies, shooting, etc. Blood. Religion. French. Latin. Suicide-minor character. infant death- minor character. homophobia. MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. Really, truly, I mean it, ANGST AND MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH.
Summary: In the chaos of the Great War, Zach is a medic in a camp hospital in Soissons, France. When he meets an American soldier named Chris with a gunshot wound, both their lives change.
Disclaimer: in case the fact that it's set a hundred years ago didn't tip you off, THIS IS FICTION. ENTIRELY MADE UP. NOT BASED IN REALITY AT ALL. and yeah, i'm not getting paid either.
A/N:
Part 1: to my amazing artist, tringic , OMG THANK YOU. to my fantastic betas, 1lostone and rainbowstrlght, THANK YOU SO MUCH. for all the cheerleading, correcting, suggesting, dissecting. THANK YOU. also to emmessann, who stepped in at the last minute to hold me accountable for all my loose ends, THANK YOU. to medea_fic , for being all around awesome and listening to me whine. and last but not least, to garden_hoe21 and 13empress for nobly keeping me on task when i wanted to do was read fic and pretend i'd never signed up.
Part 2: this is a historical AU. most of my historical knowledge is either much earlier or much later, so I tried to research as much as possible, but, in case you didn't know, WWI is kind of a huge topic! i'm sure that there are historical inaccuracies, so if you see them, feel free to point them out. but please know i did try to stick as close as i could to authenticity.
likewise the french. i have studied french, but not in many years, so i'm quite sure that there are errors, whether of vocab or syntax or usage. please feel free to point them out.
Part 3: the fanmix was made by rainbowstrlght , and is amazing! hooray! additionally, if you're interested, while i was writing i listened to a lot of Arvo Part (esp his Te Deum) and also to Eric Whitaker. Tallis, Britten, and Tavener were also along for the ride.
Part 4: HAPPY BIRTHDAY amerasu1013 ! here bb, i tied a ribbon on it and everything! happy reading!
Link to art: http://tringic.livejournal.com/19447.html
Link to mix: http://rainbowstrlght.livejournal.com/199245.html
August 1918
4th august, 1918
august. my favorite month back home. thunderstorms and cicadas and fireflies and apples. heat and lightning and the body-deep sense of the turning of the seasons.
i can sense it here; there are still apples and fireflies. the air is different; salty tang like sweat, like blood, but still moving, still thick with late summer.
He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.
we’re heading back inland soon. fall is coming, and we can’t stay in tents much longer. gales come up over the coast, and we’ll be blown away.
though admittedly, be blown away to spain or somesuch does have its appeal.
michelle and elisabet are planning on heading for home- rumors say that the germans have retreated enough that they should be safe. who can say whether that will last, but for the time being, it’s better for them to be with what family they have left.
we have talked it over.
it’s too soon to try and return to the states. the war is not over, even if it is starting to seem as though the tide may be turning.
i feel worse and worse about having run from the front lines. but i did not know what else to do.
at least i have been of some use out here.
more tales of the flu. alarming things we hear- it is spreading quickly, it kills swiftly. not just infants and grandmothers, like one expects, but men and women in their prime. some new strain is lending it strength, and the malnutrition and uproar of war are feeding it like paper to flame.
8th aug, 1918
on the road again. heading east instead of west.
C’s idea. to return to the farmhouse.
don’t know what to think of it. makes practical sense- has some food, will have more food as the harvest goes on. is known to be unoccupied, has a roof, etc etc etc.
seems nostalgic?
this whole… summer. i can’t begin to process it.
am starting to believe that père louis was right. this is a gift. an unsought for, undeserved gift. but a gift nonetheless, and one that i would be a fool to turn away. perhaps it is my sin convincing me, perhaps it is Satan himself, but i cannot believe that. i am too tired to engage in the theological hubris that tell me that my soul is so crucial that a divine monster will sacrifice the soul of another to win me over.
i am worth only what i am worth; as a human, as a man. no more or less than any other.
if there is a God, and if He is good, if He is love, then it is not only foolish, but sacrilegious to refuse love offered.
love is what makes us, creates us, and breaks us open. all of us are capable of it, but not all of us will receive it. and real love, true love, the love that makes us move beyond the (admittedly delightful) desires of the flesh into the realm of the bonding of spirits, that…
that is transcendence, and can only be holy.
10th august, 1918
michelle and elisabet traveling with us as far as the farmhouse to get some supplies, then heading north.
jean-luc is sickly. he has been so strong, but we stayed overnight in a town with several flu cases, and i worry. elisabet does too, but she is trying to hide it.
Saint-Gérard, qui, comme le Sauveur, aimait les enfants si tendrement et par vos prières libéré beaucoup de maladies et même la mort, de nous écouter, qui plaident pour notre enfant malade.
we should reach the house tomorrow in the late afternoon.
12th aug, 1918
jean-luc died early yesterday morning.
there was nothing i could do.
13th aug, 1918
michelle, elisabet, and the remaining children have left, continuing north. elisabet is not herself, but michelle has taken charge.
we offered for them to stay, but michelle thought it better to continue to find family. she thinks it will help elisabet to see their parents, to have more help caring for matthieu and julie. it went unsaid that the other children may yet fall ill.
i will never forget the sounds Elisabet made when she realized he was gone.
there was little mourning at l’hopital. none of us knew the patients well, and there were no family or friends near. occasionally there would be two men who knew each other, and then it was especially sad, but nothing… nothing like this.
i tried everything. it was too swift. first a cough, then a fever, then by midnight he was bleeding from his nose and limp in his mother’s arms. before dawn he was gone. i have never seen anything like it.
C was indispensable. he stayed with elisabet and the body until we reached the house, then took her away, outside, with michelle and the children while i prepared it for burial. built a tiny coffin out of spare wood in the shed.
i washed him in the stone sink. two and a half months, he made it. longer than some, i suppose. not as long as he should have. i washed his limbs and wrapped him in one of my shirts. he was so heavy and limp in my hands, his head hanging from his neck. not like a ragdoll at all, though i can understand the comparison. there is a weight to a body that a doll does not have, and the way that bones slide under skin when muscle is no longer in use, no longer contracting and extending and pulsing. his skin was pale on top, and blue on the underside where the blood had pooled as he lay in the cart.
i wish we had a priest to bless him, but we do not. i prayed while i moved him in my hands, just as i did when i first laid my hands on him, when my hands were the first thing to touch him outside the womb.
by the time i had finished, C had dug the grave with the others. just like old times; me with the bodies and him with the shovel. like a never-ending nightmare, and if it never happens again, it will be too soon.
we closed the coffin and laid it in, and michelle took elisabet away before C began to cover it up.
no mother should ever have to watch such a thing.
Oh God of us all, supposed-father of all humanity, you who are so unreachable above the clouds and yet so omnipresent. Receive this child into your arms. Receive also this righteous fury, if in fact it is truth that you have taken him like a glutton from this world too soon. Comfort his mother, who is beside herself with grief. And end this fucking war.
Amen.
Chris finds him in the dirt on his knees behind the house, staring into the space beyond the freshly turned earth.
“Hey.”
Zach doesn’t answer.
Chris settles down beside him, leaning his back against the cool stone of the house. The sun is setting earlier these days, a sure sign of the earth turning to fall.
“You did everything you could.”
“I know.”
“Why are you out here, Zach?”
“I…” His tone is calm, steady. “It just seems right.” He shifts slightly, pulling a leg out from beneath him. “He’s got no one left.”
Chris lets his skull thunk back against the stone. “Yeah.”
“Doesn’t it seem funny to you? I mean…” Zach shifts again, and pushes his glasses up his nose. “This is what we would think of as a family graveyard, yes?”
“Well, sure.” Chris hooks his hand in the back of Zach’s belt, pulling on him until he scoots back against the wall, his shoulder warm against Chris’. “Pretty common.”
“Right. But this… it’s not a family, not anymore.”
He sounds vaguely distressed at this, and Chris pulls him down, positioning Zach’s head in his lap and beginning to rub the taut lines of muscle in his neck.
“Does it matter? I mean, look at it this way.” Zach groans as Chris finds an especially stiff cord of tendon. “The family that lived here before we found this place. They had a child.” Zach nods slightly in agreement as Chris pauses. “Do you think, if they had been alive, they would have turned away a baby that had nowhere else to go?” Zach’s head shakes infinitesimally. “No, of course not. So why should it be any different now they’re dead? I mean… assuming that they care at all, which frankly, I’m not convinced is a valid assumption. I mean, shouldn’t they be in heaven? Why are they worried about where they’re buried? In any case, I can’t imagine they’d mind.”
He digs his thumbs in, and Zach groans under his breath, turning his head to allow the best access. “Besides. What is family, anyway? I mean, I love my family. Of course. But…” he lays his palm carefully on Zach’s cheek, rubbing his thumb over a dark eyebrow. “You’re just as much my family as those whose blood runs in my veins. We’re family, you and I, and if I were dead, I’d rather be buried with you, here, than with strangers in some plot in California.”
“Chris…”
He lays his finger across Zach’s lips.
“No, Zach, it’s ok. I will die. At some point, may it be far from now. So will you. It’s the second constant of life- we are born, and then, at some point we die.”
“Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell…” Zach’s whisper is faint in the cooling air.
Chris’ finger traces the lines of Zach’s face, point of eye to curve of chin, his touch lingering warm on his skin. “All we ever have is the moment we’re in. What good does it do to worry about yesterday, or tomorrow? Beyond what we need to survive, what more do we need to concern ourselves with than our own joy and the joy of others? Zach…” He leans forward, wrapping an arm around his chest and pressing his lips to Zach’s temple. “Zach, you did all you could. He died free of pain, in the arms of the one who loved him most. What more can any of us ask for?”
Zach sighs, turning his face into Chris’ chest. “Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so…One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.”
22nd august, 1918
russia has revolted. one more in a series, though granted, the largest so far. the people are running mad and the royalty are nowhere to be found.
reports of the flu’s ravages are spreading east, fearsome in their tone. it is early in the season yet; i fear greatly what this means for winter.
proud or not, death has her sickle at all our throats.
only petite mathilde is safe.
26th august, 1918
today C is 20.
i forget he is so young.
yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain…
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
next