one the other never leaving

Blake makes a sound, a faint cry of pain, and Schofield’s hand flutters up to his chin to muffle him; Tom presses his face into it, like a mute whimper. He is sweating beneath his clothes, hot with want and anxiety, and Schofield wants to press in against him as he has so many times before — on a muddy trench-side or a blanket on the barren ground, two boys cleaving together for safety and comfort.

They are pressed together chest to spine, stripped down to their shirts and drawers with Scho’s long arm cinching Tom in place and his hips pressed flush against his backside — the blankets are tugged up between their bodies by the gripping of their hands and the friction of their limbs. It isn’t the Ritz, but it’s better than rolling around in the mud and blood of the trench — this isn’t how it should happen for a boy like Blake, he ought to be in the arms of some kindly English girl with a taste for khaki and not here now with a friend. The muscles in his thighs are flinching together with every guilty press — he’s only a boy, and he’s not made for this kind of pleasure.

This kind of leave is easier than going home — for Blake it must be a terrible disappointment but for Schofield it is the purest relief. Better here and now, together, than drinking themselves stupid or getting involved with desperate women in some room of a French whorehouse or going home to families they scarcely recognize. He’s never been with a woman who didn’t take pleasure in his kisses and embraces, who hadn’t opened up against him like a flower. But Blake had been so eager, so sweetly game. Schofield should have felt ashamed, responding so viscerally to such open eagerness that can only come from inexperience, from not knowing better. Blake hasn’t seen enough, he hasn’t done enough in life to know that there are men who would hurt him for his sweetness — he doesn’t know that in the span of a few years Schofield has seen too much to trust so readily, and yet he wants relief more badly than ever.

Tom had responded, neither nervous nor furtive, only careful — he’d brightened under his touch and shifted the contours of his body to let Schofield in. You could hardly ask for more encouragement from a fellow who couldn’t dare speak it out loud, only now he’s all flinches and groans, the small variations in his breathing and the twisting angle of his hips betraying his pain.

“Tom,” Schofield says. “Am I hurting you?”

“No,” Blake gasps, “no, I want it.”

“Then I need you to relax.”

He withdraws himself, fumbling for the tin of Vaseline he’s been carrying all the way from the trenches — his slick fingers circle Blake’s arsehole, as though he can worry past the discomfort and smooth away the difficulty of two men coming together. Blake presses himself back against Schofield’s hand, breathing rough and heavy, and Schofield rubs into him with his greased fingertips.

It’d be just his luck to be caught like this with his prick in his hand and his comrade beneath him. The two of them cleave together, nervous and eager — Blake sighing and balling his hands into fists against the thin mattress, Schofield slipping two long fingers into him until the tightness of his arsehole yields trembling.

Will kisses the nape of his neck, and presses his mouth to the back of Tom’s shorn head — his smell has an animal sweetness to it beneath the grease and sweat. He should be out in the fields somewhere, leaning against a hayrick or climbing over a gate. He should be anywhere but here.

Slipping into him this time is like fitting sleekly into a garment — he brings in his hips with short quick strokes, and feels Tom press back into his gripping hands, pressing back against his prick to drive him deeper. The heat of him is terribly close, blood-hot and unspeakably intimate, and his soft backside fits well against the plane of Will’s hip.

There is some place in a man that undoes him, if he isn’t undone already from being fingered and wanked off and ground against the nearest flat surface — Will presses for it with his Vaselined fingers and with his prick and he feels Blake’s grateful little shudders under him, the way he twists to align their bodies closer. The ache of wanting is too much to stand. His hips buck up convulsively with every short quick thrust, and Blake’s soft groans as he presses back are bringing him too close to the edge.

Blake grabs for his hand and squeezes, as if that will carry him through — Schofield buries his face against Blake’s neck and breathes his quick shuddering breaths, mouthing in a kiss. He wants to flood into him, to be completely given away. The urgent sound of Blake’s breath and the desperate tight closeness of him are spurring him onward — he wants to grip him tighter, to hold him closer, and the two of them rock together in a fierce embrace. But all the sweet softness of Tom’s body is on fire with responsiveness, his heavy tight balls hitching and his prick running with hot spunk.

“Please,” Blake says, “oh, please, Will—”

His friend is close to his finish — he can feel it in the small spasms of his muscles, against the slippery friction of his own prick pushing. Blake gives a mute cry, silenced against their joined hands, and his whole body arches in one shiver — Schofield arches against him and bites, at the last sucking a hard kiss he knows will bruise, and Blake gasps aloud with the pleasure-pain of it as he comes.

Afterward, Tom’s cheeks are as pink as prize-winning roses, and his face is shining sweetly with exertion. When Schofield kisses him he tastes like hay and honey, with healthy sweat on his upper lip.

“Did I do well?” Tom asks.

“You did beautifully.”

Schofield breathes; Blake grins at him, sweetly bleary. In the sheets he is a blushing cherub, with his braces all tangled down and his hair mussed. There is a red welt raised against his throat, like a badge.