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Like all vessels, this one serves a purpose.
It is one such purpose that made him refuse the safety of the press bureau.
It is one such purpose that he enters no-mans-land willingly, where even the bravest soldier dared not go unless ordered to, carrying the bodies of young soldiers back to the relative safety of the trenches. A cart, and his horse, helps him with the proper burial of these soldiers; lives sacrificed for a square foot of land.
It is one such purpose that gives Charon a compulsion to collect the dulled silver tags of dead men, and to commemorate their loss in a war that has ravaged the lands that were once peaceful, once verdant, once lush with life.
Now the landscape is wasted; barren, dry and rotting. The only one that grows are grass and the bright red petals of poppies growing past the earth, puncturing the half-wilted area like a wound of their own. It stretches past the lands that Charon chose to be a resting ground for the dead, and they continue to bloom on the wide expanse of it.
This body, too, is one such cemetery, for how else would that explain the growth on his own chest?
...no, not his chest.
This body does not belong to him; rather it is one that belongs to a dead man. A man named Paul Haumann. The coat that he died with proved functional in covering the living grass and flowers up, and with it, the assumption that he is merely one soldier amongst many, sentenced to die by the most cruel of ways. Perhaps it hides what he is, but this vessel never had any preferences for that.
But it is not only a blue coat that keeps himself hidden; the veil he found draped on his face with, tattered and torn, functions in the same as the ones serving as a shroud for the dead. A face that tells nothing but terror and fear; and it is one that piques the curiosity of the new recruits every time they see him. He successfully dissuades them from it, and so do the other veterans inside the trench walls.
It is not only a veil that hides his identity; it is a veil that serves a role. The role of the obedient sergeant; the role of a gravekeeper, and the only remaining source of a mutual memory.
A memory that belongs with another; his own superior, Major Braun.
But now he’s found himself being summoned to his office- if a hole in the ground can even be called an office. Perhaps a private room, and one that the lower ranks cannot barge into unless they would prefer more punishment than they can already endure. But Charon has permission, and now he is inside this reinforced dugout.
This vessel never speaks; it only stares at his commanding officer, watching him spend a cigarette for the tenth time.
Major Braun never left his reclining pose, sizing him up for something Charon doesn’t really see the purpose of. What else would he be looking at, aside from the body that made up a dead man? The veil provides nothing, the hand over Paul’s journal is right, and his other hand is slack, holding no weapons. For this vessel, what his commander is doing is ultimately fruitless and, therefore, purposeless.
Within the cloud of smoky grey that wraps this room, there’s a faint white one streaming up, coming from the neglected lamp that lit up such a dark area. It is unlike the meticulous major to forget refilling the oil up.
A halting cascade of thoughts, Charon’s own observations, starts to form in a slow manner.
It is interrupted by someone with a smoker’s baritone.
“Do you know why I called you here, sergeant?”
An unusual question. Charon shakes his head; the voice that replies is devoid of color.
“No, Herr Major.”
Major Braun stares at him, taking in his stiff answer.
The chair makes indents on the ground as the commander of this battalion stands up, flicking the spent cigarette on the ground; it crushes with the harsh thud of his footsteps This vessel stays where he is, idly holding the notebook that tells little about Paul’s object of affection.
…no, that’s not right. Major Braun isn’t an object, Charon thinks. Perhaps a ‘focus’ could describe him best; it is one characteristic that this major has led a thousand men with, and with great detriment to himself. But what kind of affection it is, Charon can never tell. The book tells little, and what Paul has left this body with might be nothing but a sliver of it.
There is a seal- a wall would be a more apt term- that separates even the lingering memories of this body’s former soul, and it is one that this vessel can never cross the line. But sometimes, that something from this seal escapes, like smoke from a covered candle; it punctures his mind with recollections of a foreign time.
The times of blue skies, afternoon sun and the soft ticking of a bike’s chain; then there’s laughter, paired with the thunderous footsteps of schoolboys rushing to class-
”-did you hear what I just said?”
His veil shifts; Charon hadn’t realized that Eberhard’s standing right in front of him.
“No, Herr Major.”
His superior’s lips purse; it thins, like the fine line that Charon is hastily dancing in front of this soldier, and this soldier alone.
…but a stiff body is hardly someone as lively and joyful as the soul that once lived in his body, and more often than not, it missteps and stumbles. Maybe one such event is the reason. Maybe it isn’t. Already does this body fail to take a hold of this unknown interaction; it has now slipped from Charon’s mind.
“Listen well, sergeant,” Major Braun sighs, his face impassive. How unsuited for him. “I know what you’re trying to do. You don’t have the right to say it.”
Charon takes that in. Recent memories try to recall what it is exactly that drove the major to interrupt his duties for the dead. He comes up with nothing. This summons is only recent- this afternoon- and this NCO would like to waste his superior’s time for as little as possible.
So he admits the truth.
“Say what, Major?”
“...verdammt, are you even listening to yourself?”
Even with this dim light, Charon can see that his brows are furrowed. This vessel is left confused. By what right would he not be allowed to respect his own superior? He stays still as the major leans near him, hovering near his left shoulder. A gloved hand settles on his right; it grips firmly, as if not letting him leave.
As he speaks, his warm breath curls up; it stirs the veil on his neck.
“How many times have I told you to call me by my name, Paul?”
His… name?
It is now that Charon recalls his supposed mistake.
Even when recalling reminisces with Eberhard, when he talks to him within sanctioned time, and even when greeting each other when passing each other by, Charon refers to him with respect. Would Paul not do that as well? Respect is something that the memories all but exuded, something that a corporal can do easily as one of the many NCOs of this trench, and even more so to their shared memories of the time before puddle water and stale food.
In all of those times, Charon mimicked a dead man the only way he knew how; by acting similar to everyone else, talking like how Paul did- with a casual air about him- and being a bit less open. Perhaps it worked too well, and now Eberhard is referring to him as someone else, while the rest of the company used the name that they gave him.
But why is it that only after months did the major notice this detail? Surely it would not be because he has a sluggish mind; no, this body is aware of the intellect hiding behind the rank of a senior officer and a desensitized man. For that, this vessel accepts that he can never know the answer.
Charon says something in his languid, slow manner. Somehow he can tell that the major hangs on to every word he says.
“It is only right-”
“Wrong.”
...wrong? What else would be the correct answer-
“You should have known that ever since I got promoted.”
Eberhard’s hands shake as he grasps Charon tightly; now there’s a vice grip on both of his shoulders, disguised under the harsh texture of leather. His voice never left his left ear; it drops low, barely a whisper, yet it hisses like a snake.
“You really don’t know anything about him, do you?”
This body- this body that is supposed to be decaying under six feet- freezes at that criticism. But would it be a fair accusation when the one accused can only figure out his defense from burnt memories and torn paper?
No, that reproach from the focus of Paul’s mind lands wrongly, and in a rare reflex, Charon’s voice speaks for his thoughts.
“I… know him better than you ever will, Eberhard.”
A silence lands through them, heavy and stifling. Charon recalls too late of Eberhard’s brashness.
“Gott, you don’t know anything!”
This sergeant finds himself slammed to the eastern wall of the room. The aftershocks left him dazed, but he’s harshly pinned to it by a major that knows better than to abuse his rank to justify a meeting, but does anyway.
His face is shadowed; even Charon would be able to tell that Eberhard is livid even with this little of a light. His eyes are barely visible, but with the flurry of the curtain, it flashed with something that would not count as misery: there is no smoke clouding Charon’s vision.
Was it the words he just said?
His superior laughs; it’s thin, breathless. He sees Eberhard rake through his hair and mess it up; his head is bowed down. But with a snap, he looks up at him again; he never loses that tone only reserved for this body, and not to every soldier in this trench.
“You don’t know anything about him. Your posture is horrendous- no, don’t you dare correct it now! Hah, don’t you dare, Charon.” Eberhard’s voice flares dangerously as this vessel struggles under him.
He continues; his voice turns into a frenzied gash of criticism; one that moves too fast for Charon to understand. It seems like he has been keeping this in for weeks, for days, for hours- cataloguing every mistake Charon has made. Has he been watching ever since he decided to do this, looking upon this aberration with nothing but disdain?
This vessel cannot understand; why didn’t Eberhard say so earlier? A major’s energy, ever a precious resource in this war, should have never been wasted on such a pointless mistake. Even now, Charon would have accepted it, and both of them should have carried on with acting their parts: one as a loyal officer, the other as a faithful friend.
As quick as it came, the torrent of vitriol stops. Charon can hear someone breathing heavily- is it him or Eberhard?- but this vessel is not focused on that at the moment.
No, what he’s listening to is a voice.
A voice that sounds like himself.
Perhaps it is that criticism that did it; it made a crack in the seal, and now there’s something snaking its way from Paul’s mind to his. A carrier of memories should know better than to entertain this idea, but this thought shows him, it goads him to drag Eberhard into more of this, into something else other than the taste of sweetness- that sickening trust that he’s been swallowing since they were classmates.
That meant nothing, but this! This means something, and it proves to Paul’s memories that his friend is capable of being driven into anger. Now it whispers again- it tells Charon to look to Eberhard.
Look.
See his face: that furrowed brow, the way his left eye twitched. Even his throat is strained.
He does see it, this vessel thinks, but what use is there to observe it, to catalog it? Other soldiers may have similar ways to show their frustration- his commander isn’t any different from the men patrolling around this part of the trenches.
It speaks in his head again, intrusive and unwanted; it says something odd.
Can’t you see?
He’s panicking.
Charon finds himself tilting his head to face him, observing how this thought, this strangely unfamiliar thought… is right.
With every second he doesn’t speak, the grip clutching the boards besides his head shakes; it makes the soaked wood clatter. Charon can see Eberhard’s posture stiffen, his eyes darting all over, trying to find a tell that he can use against him; the veil never gives him that satisfaction. The dirt below them stirs with the formation of soldiers marching, walking to some place and not in the major’s office.
Is this how Paul wanted it? To be trapped, to be at the mercy of someone who can equally ruin a soldier’s life with a well placed rumor as it is with the threat of a mutiny, but trusting not to? Charon can only ask and never know, and this vessel of memories can never tell; it is only a conduit to express a dead man’s latent desire.
And this desire speaks- it whispers with a similar voice to his own, one laced with the life of the living and not of the dead. This sensation tries to talk to his lover, to force its way through this body’s lips; Charon attempts to resist the allure of speaking for Paul, but something echoes in his mind again.
Something that speaks of remembrance, and this body’s purpose.
After all, isn’t this vessel a way to honor the dead?
The seal crumbles, and it slumps; it shatters into a thousand glittering pieces. Now Paul’s thoughts pierce through his mind, one puncturing thing after another, faster than he can handle. His hands tremble to this deluge; the tags rattle with his uptight fists. The mind of this vessel is being swept away, dragged full with ideas, with methods, with ways Paul wanted to express to the very same major that Charon just angered, but never can.
But this body could; it is not inhibited by the learned sacrosanct in Paul’s mind and actions. It is not prevented by the learned inhibitions of every soldier in this trench. In a way, can this be a method of respecting a dead man’s soul?
With that thought, Charon finds his bearings and speaks.
“Your words insult this-”
A gloved hand finds itself on his cowl, circling his throat through the veil. This body refuses to not breathe, but his feet find themselves not meeting the ground.
“Paul doesn’t talk like that,” Eberhard hisses. His voice never echoes anywhere but Charon’s mind. “Use your damn name.”
“I-“
That pervasive thought now lodges in his voice; it makes his words come out different.
Familiar.
„Ich- agh, ich kriege keine Luft-“
"Liar.”
The grip tightens. The veil goes taut with Eberhard’s grip; it imprints on this vessel’s face. His superior smirks at a visible sign of Charon’s struggle. Is he savoring the ‘pain’ Charon’s allowing Eberhard to show?
“Even with that voice, you’re a terrible liar. Tell me you hate me. That’s easy enough.”
The voice that orders hundreds to rush to their deaths turns despicable as it focuses on him; the eyes freeze him in place like scopes on a rifle. A steel-blue color in these eyes, barely visible with the darkened room, blazes with hate that befits what he asks of him.
But those very same eyes keep Charon rooted to the present, not of fear, but of something else that this vessel can’t name; he can only recognize it as the same emotion that kept Paul willingly captive to Eberhard.
Even now that color sees through him, in him, and behind him- it sees through this body’s feeble guise and watches at something else; something that writhes inside him, something that makes the growth on his chest press up. That gaze makes him slacken his grip on the red journal and grab his arm instead, trying and failing to fight against a hardened soldier’s attempt to choke him.
It never affects his voice.
“I… hate you.”
Eberhard leans closer; his warm breathing stirs up the veil. He sounds pleased.
“Very good, sergeant.”
Charon can see the glint of Eberhard’s tag slip past the tight buttons of his green coat. On impulse, he catches it and drags it closer in an attempt to collect it, like he does with the countless other bodies of the front lines.
But all it does is make Eberhard lurch forward; something’s in Charon’s lips.
The grip on his neck slackens at first, but then it tightens, it threatens to choke him with the tremors, the intensity, the harsh force making him stick to the wall. Charon feels warm; it feels too much.
This vessel attempts to get away; in his panic, he lets go of the necklace and tries to push him back, but it’s met by a mouth starved for contact with another’s lips. That kind of thought that dragged him into this situation is gone; he doesn’t have the nerve to continue, to lead Eberhard on with the voice of a dead man, so he tries to bite his lip.
There’s a strangled gasp from either of them- Charon can’t tell from who- and the incessant pressure on his mouth ceases. Eberhard pulls away, wiping his lips with his left hand; can he see the beads of blood on the dark leather?
“How dare you,” he growls, facing Charon again. He’s grasping his jaw this time. “Paul was never that good of a kisser.”
As if this action can seal that declaration, Eberhard’s furious lips meet him again, biting on the linen veil; his fangs snag on it, as if trying to tear it with his own teeth. He can hear him curse as Charon tilts his head, trying to get away from this overwhelming intensity, from this unknown rush of something that makes him hook this body’s useless legs to his superior’s waist. It didn’t work- it never works, but Charon tries; he struggles with the suffocating warmth that he keeps breathing into him, and it moves.
It moves away.
The pressure falters, breaking to catch its breathing before Charon can lose control. Eberhard can breathe through his nose, there’s no need to heave his lungs, but why can’t he do that here?
“Correct me, then,” Charon dares him. He dares him with that voice, that tone, that lilt; one that he only uses to Eberhard and nobody else. “You’re not a major for nothing-“
“Gott, shut up,” Eberhard mutters, wetting his lips. “Don’t speak unless I tell you to.”
“No.“
That earns him a surging pressure in his mouth again- unsteady kisses that belong to a man trying to feel warmth. It breaks, it gasps; the cloth sticks before it drops on the already shrinking gap between them, prevented from going further by the curve of a gloved thumb, hooking on the imprints of a bottom lip. Charon’s lips tremble with the chill of his breathing, and the ever-cold linen on his face moves with it and touches the major’s own pair- a pair that tastes of cigarettes and blood.
What would Paul’s lips taste like, if Eberhard keeps trying to find it in a vessel that serves nothing but remembrance? Charon can only be sure of one thing: it would feel warm, alive, and utterly unlike him. Yet that thought is snuffed quick, blown away by the strike of pressure on his face; he feels nothing but those aching, bruising lips again, and its hold on this vessel persists despite the linen veil.
It makes him taste those now-familiar notes on the mouth of Paul’s lover; the pangs that echoed past their shrouded mouths will never make it out.
Now the dark room is filled with nothing but the sounds of rustling, and tinged with heavy breathing- it breaks with the thud of an unbuckled waistbag hitting the floor. Despite this vessel’s difficulty with his own coat, Eberhard unfastens it easily, and the greenery on his chest blooms against his will. Charon retracts his hands to cover it up again, but Eberhard’s faster; he finds his wrists pinned up against the wall by a rough, gloved hand.
The flowers seem to cower under Eberhard’s gaze; they try to move away when he swipes at them. Acting quicker, he grabs a couple of them by the stem and drags it closer to his face, making Charon flinch at the sudden pain and curse; it’s something Paul would do. That makes the major smirk again, and he peers closer at the midnight-blue center of these flowers.
They shiver- and Charon shivers, not from fear, but from the harsh warmth of his gloved hands.
Eberhard’s voice speaks of nothing but contempt.
“I’m not done with you.”
Does he know what he’s doing? Making this vessel gasp with every breath curling up on the poppy’s stamens? Surely he does not, but the way his right hand begins to wrap the trembling stems around his palm makes the slipping legs on Eberhard’s waist falter; his buckling knees are quickly caught, and their bodies press closer against the walls of the dugout.
“Speak. Paul isn’t this quiet.”
An order, paired with a flare of pain as Eberhard pulls on it- something Charon isn’t used to yet. But he can’t speak.
Once again that question drifts in his mind: does Eberhard know what he’s doing? To him, it seems like he does- somehow Eberhard knows the exact angle that roots the poppies to this body’s center, and he reaches to pull the shaking grass that frames the flowers in his chest. A gloved hand drifts on a shaking petal, pulling on it; is he trying to pick it clean?
He realizes too late that he forgot to say something; Eberhard’s voice is harsh in his ear.
“I said speak, verdammt!”
The vines strain under the grip more suited for a gun. Charon flinches again; his words come out breathless.
“Agh- Eberhard-“
“Hah, good. That’s it,” he cuts him off. “Now look at me, Paul.”
Charon tilts his head up to look; he didn’t even realize he’s bowed down. Those eyes make him freeze again; the struggling hands turn stiff. It’s as if his body is caught in the headlights of this gaze, and it tells him that there’s nothing neither he nor Paul can do to prevent what Eberhard will want from them.
Eberhard moves to speak again, adjusting his position; Charon can feel his hips pressing up on him. This vessel feels nothing, but somehow his legs lock themselves at the incessant, grinding motion. Charon struggles with the hands that keeps him upright and trapped.
“That veil of yours is infuriating. I can’t see his face- everything I worked hard to see, and you just cover it up like it’s nothing! Are you taunting me?”
Charon’s veil shift, as if shaking his head; he tries to explain his view.
“No, I-“
A harsh tug on the stems make him shut up again; the grip on his wrists shake like the tags on Charon’s arms. It shudders, and the tinny sound of it disguises the heavy breathing of two soldiers.
“I said no talking, sergeant. Gott, you take orders worse than him,” Eberhard grunts. “He won’t even come near me even if I tell him to. But you knew, didn't you? So damn obedient, even with others. That’s why you’re terrible at being him.”
Somehow Charon’s mind focuses on the last sentence; it echoes in his mind, it repeats the words like a badly manufactured record, skipping on the bad things and focusing on the worse ones.
He’s terrible at being Paul.
Has his earnest attempts been all for nothing?
That thought is never comforting. He doesn’t want to fail at it; he wants Eberhard to believe that he’s Paul. Charon wants to believe that he’s Paul- for only a single fleeting moment. Just so the voice laced with contempt in his head- the same one that told him to taunt a senior officer- can stop taunting him, reminding him that what he has in this army is owed to a man whose body should have been buried six feet under.
A thought that belongs to a dead man lodges in his head again; Charon’s view drifts to Eberhard’s neck, lightly shining with sweat. It beads, it drips on his damp undershirt, colored by the quick wisps of orange lamplight slipping past a black curtain.
Even now, Charon can’t help but stare at it, at the harsh contours the water flows slowly towards, and the way the bump on it quivers with this vessel’s cold breathing. Paul always liked that area, didn’t he? Charon finds himself thinking of something, and this thought encourages him; it tells him to stain it, to dot it with something else other than dirt, blood, and metal.
Once he entertains that, another forces itself on his voice again; it speaks for him.
“Only to you, Herr Major. Aren’t you itching to get closer?”
That provocation closed what little gap they have; Charon can feel something poke his thigh. Is that his gun?
“Use my name, Paul. I don’t like it when you say that.”
“No.”
“‘No’?” Eberhard scoffs again, his voice sharpening with his eyes. “Insubordinate-“
Charon takes the chance to lean in and bite at his skin; at that space where his neck meets the shoulder. For the first time, he heard Eberhard’s voice break and stutter, but soon it disappeared, and the major’s harsh voice returned.
This vessel’s head hit the wall again, but this time, the voice that comes out of him resembles one with a smirk.
“Caught off guard, hm?”
“Are you trying to get me shot, Paul?” Eberhard spits out. “Don’t you dare-”
“Don’t tell me what to do, mein Freund.”
“Ah, so now you’re calling me that?”
The major’s smile is lopsided; it’s one that barely matches his words.
“Not only are you insubordinate, you’re also overreaching,” Eberhard scoffs, reaching to feel the bruise Charon just made. “Don’t touch me.”
There’s another harsh tug from his chest; Charon can faintly hear some of the roots snap, but the force is enough for his head to reach to his skin again and bite it repeatedly. Eberhard presses him against the wall again, but he doesn’t let go; the more Eberhard pulled against the stems, the more the bites grew, and Charon struggled against the grip that held his wrists above his head.
A certain spot on his skin made Eberhard stifle a gasp; Charon notices, and his voice- once again- comes out strange. It has a lilt, a certain cadence; Paul once used it to tease him, all those days ago.
“You don’t want me to touch you, Eberhard?”
Once again a hand finds itself on Charon’s neck; both of them are closer than ever, and Eberhard’s eyes are focused on the imprints of a mouth within the veil- a mouth that gasps with the lack of air, yes, but ones that somehow relished the crazed look of his own superior.
Eberhard’s voice never lost that sharpness, but the knife wavers.
“Fix your tone. Paul isn’t that-“
“Answer the question, mein Freund.”
That term only serves to make both of their breathing heavier, as if both of them hated it.
There’s something pressing up on Charon; something hard between his legs. He has no idea what it is, but the vines that are located there are undeniably curious, and they feel it around the taut cloth in the major’s uniform. At this point, Charon is starting to understand what he thinks Eberhard wants, and it could not be further from the truth of the memories forced in his head.
This must be a sort of release that Eberhard wants. It’s only Paul that can provide it to him. But now Paul is dead; now only Charon has the memories. He has the hidden, perverse thoughts of the man that Eberhard longs for, and it is one of the uses of a vessel to be that someone- if only for a moment. Surely this is what this body’s purpose is for; to be someone for other people, to be that someone that Eberhard wants.
The uptight hands that Eberhard held with a hand seems to twitch for a moment.
Paul speaks.
“You want to touch me.”
His own superior doesn’t reply at first; instead he breathes at the rapidly shrinking gap between them. Eberhard’s voice comes out as barely distinct between their heavy breaths.
“No. I want to ruin you.”
Before Charon knew it, something muffled his mouth, and the teeth behind hateful lips tried to tear off his veil again. The flowers shiver under Eberhard’s grip, but soon the petals begin to bow down, dripping with something clear on the dirt floor.
The grip on his wrists finally relent; they catch his twitching thighs and latch them to his own waist. One of his hands finds a grip on the major’s collar; the other settles on his messy, straw-blonde hair. With a fistful, he pulls at it, making Eberhard gasp and the relentless pour of misplaced affection to stop.
That grip quickly loosens, as if Charon had second thoughts, but it tilts the major’s head back with a renewed force; exposing that part that he always wanted. He dives in, biting harshly on it and making new marks, all to make Eberhard never forget what he made him do.
“I said stop that, Charon!”
His world lurches; now there’s a gloved hand on his face, covering up the mouth that threatens to unveil what both of them are doing. The focus on the wrong name fixates in Charon’s mind.
Paul speaks with contempt because of it.
“Verdammt, mixing me up with-“
“Enough with this. Stop using that voice.”
“You wanted to hear me, Eberhard.”
Is this provocation necessary? Charon can only wonder; it’s what the voice is instructing him to do, and he’s been following it perfectly so far. If it can help Eberhard release this unknown stressor on his body, then Charon finds himself not minding it.
With that, his actions grew to be a bit more assertive, and his hands feign ignorance as they dart down past the belt in Eberhard’s pants and feel it.
“What is-“
“Hah, scared? Don’t be,” the major whispers, the grip on his jaw drifting to his face, tracing the quivering lips behind it. “I’m only doing what I should have done to this body weeks ago.”
Weeks ago? This vessel did nothing. This body did nothing but exist and to function as a reliquary for the dead, until the living coveted it- and to that part, it was successful. To this carrier of memories, the living was triumphant in stealing the dead’s rightful slumber. But how long will it last?
How long will it last until the charade breaks?
Paul’s voice shakes with an unrequited disdain; the veil echoes the effort it takes to speak it.
“I… hate you.”
Eberhard scoffs, dragging the hand wrapped with stems to his own face, watching the poppies bead up with something that resembles dew.
“Hah, that’s it. Very good. You know why I hate you, right?”
The answer comes easily.
“I didn’t want you enough.”
“Now you will,” he hums. “And I’ll hate you even more. I’ll despise you for it, and I won’t have it any other way. Now make yourself useful and keep quiet.”
Charon can hardly move his hands when Eberhard dragged his teeth on a shaking poppy’s center, sucking and licking on the stamens. He can barely think at the slick and saliva combining inside it; the more his flowers jolted and made that dew, Eberhard grows more demanding, and his breathing gets heavier.
Some vines, tipped with buds, are starting to weave up his hand in an attempt to relieve this flower of its duty, but that attempt of trying to spare a moment to satisfy him easily derails as Eberhard takes that in his mouth instead; he pries the immature buds open with his teeth and his tongue. He tastes the dew from that as well.
Somehow the greenery that lives inside Charon flows towards that straining stems instead of anywhere else, trying to support it with healthier stems. Yet the buds that tip these stems burst into bloom the moment Eberhard’s breath lingers on them for even a minute.
It’s one that he uses to his advantage; soon the buds that is connected to the stems are all blooming, and he’s feasting on the dew like a butterfly on honeyed flowers. Charon can feel the smirk from his lips brushing on the stamens as he trembles over his harsh actions.
“You’re not trying hard enough. Paul isn’t this weak,” Eberhard scoffs. “Move your hips- ah, damn, like that-“
Try as Eberhard might, the suffering that he inflicts on the shaking flowers is interrupting the flow of his actions. Charon needs something that can effectively provide friction while keeping his hands free; that voice is still telling him to scatter more hickeys on Paul’s lover.
Yet there’s the rustling of silver buttons scraping against dog tags as his hands travel down; there’s the sound of a button loosening and the faint travel of a downed zipper.
The next thing Charon heard is pain. And it didn’t come from the outside world, where soldiers suddenly die from a bombardment, no. It’s from the two of them as they adjusted with the utterly foreign sensation of being inside one another.
“What the hell are you- ah, verdammt! Dir so heiß-“
Eberhard’s remarks die with his throat, and whines come out instead. Charon lodges him deeper inside himself, and his legs tighten on his waist, pulling both of them together inch by inch. Charon’s veil reveals nothing but his stifled breathing, trying to make the vines inside his hips relax to accommodate such a foreign object intruding on his body.
He can feel his back hit the wall fully as Eberhard suddenly moves himself, hiking his trench coat up and sheathing inside him fully. The vines bruise against such a compulsive action, and a strangled gasp escapes Charon’s throat.
“Eberhard-“
“You’re tight,” he interrupts him. “So damn tight- verdammt, stop moving!”
His legs are beginning to slack again; Eberhard lets go of the flower on his left hand and grasps his hips instead, pressing himself deeper inside him. That action makes Charon’s hands dart to his back, clawing at it. It makes them both keen, trying to muffle the sound on their weakness to the other.
What Charon can feel is an overwhelming sense of fullness, and the vines inside him can only shift, and not fully move while Eberhard’s close. But his legs feel strained; they’re tired after such a long while of holding himself together, but the man pinning him to the wall doesn’t seem like he’s spent.
As Eberhard shivers, a sudden warmth surges inside Charon, one that the vines equally shiver to. He flinches as every poppy bud in his body drags itself into bloom as they’re touched and bathed by this substance. The greenery inside him is soaked in white, and Charon trembles at the way the flowers on his chest bloomed wider because of it. Somehow it never drips on the floor, and the trench ground remains unsullied to anything other than dew, sweat and blood.
Charon tries to speak; it comes out wrong. Pleading.
“Eberhard, I-“
“Quiet.”
Something muffles his lips; a mouth that wants nothing more than to devour and take. But Charon’s given everything that Paul has to offer to Eberhard, so what else does Eberhard want from him.
A harsh thrust forced something instinctive out of Charon’s mouth. He finds his head being bowed down, and the grip on the back of Eberhard’s neck slowly turns slack as Charon finds himself within a slow rhythm.
“Hah, so you can say anything else other than words, huh? Keep going,” Eberhard orders him, leaning even closer, as if he wants to see him say it.
Charon mumbles it, but a particularly harsh thrust makes his world jolt and shiver; Eberhard’s words are less focused, and more tinged with something else other than anger.
“Louder.“
More of these sounds escape him; they threaten to break the secrecy of a major’s office.
But his mouth slips.
“Ah- Gott, Eberhard…”
That voice sounds different.
Before he knew it, his mouth is attacked with a flood of kisses and whines as Eberhard moves faster, breathing heavily with him as he adjusts his body’s position to suit his needs.
“Paul- ah, Charon- damn it, I can’t think-,” he can feel Eberhard speak from his cowl; his voice ripples the veil. “Damn you- damn both of you. Ihr zwei gehört zu mir. Ich kann ohne keinen von euch leben-“
“This body is mine. Got that?” A harsh kiss from Eberhard is the next thing Charon feels; it bites and it tears at the linen on his face. “If you’re insistent on being Paul, then get dragged with him. He belongs to me before he was yours.”
This body’s hands move on their own; they yank Eberhard’s hair and pull him closer.
„Die Toten gehören niemandem.“
He can hear him laugh; mocking, breathless, quiet.
„Er gehörte mir. Du hast ihn mir jetzt gestohlen, und ich will zurück, was meins ist.”
„Das kann ich… dir nicht geben.”
He cannot give what he doesn’t have; somehow Charon instinctively knows that Paul was never this intimate with Eberhard before.
Yet now his reply confused him.
“Ich weiß. Deshalb nehme ich es von euch. Von euch beiden-“
Whatever Eberhard’s saying gets cut off by an inexperienced mouth, trying to do what he did to Charon.
The hands that grasped blonde hair tightened again as the rocking went faster, and the veil on his back made new creases as it is pressed harder on the wall. The body pressing on him falters for a moment, but the grip on Charon’s hip darts to his waist instead. Both of them break away for air; the unblemished side of Eberhard’s neck is now being attended to, as if in this way, Paul can take what is his as well.
But Charon knows- and he knows terribly- that Paul would never dare blemish Eberhard’s skin, so which want is he acting on? Whose need is leaking, dripping like the unrelenting dew on his flowers, staining a major’s uniform with dark splotches? Within this frenzy, Charon can’t distinguish from either.
If it want is his own, would Eberhard stop? If this want is his own, would the breathing, the gasping, the proximity stop, and they would return to being nothing but fellow comrades, to being a major and his subordinate?
Charon finds himself thinking- no, hoping- that it would return back to that, to that time where he’s nothing but a puppet for the lingering thoughts of someone who wanted to be Eberhard’s lover. Yet within the bites and the bruises came a litany, a whispered, halting and uncertain litany, entirely Charon’s own- only meant for another man’s ears: I want you, I want you, I want you.
The hands holding him up shakes; the body pressing against him trembles with those words. It did the opposite effect that Charon intended; he can barely think as this incessant motion went faster. He heard himself yelp. Eberhard whispers in his ear.
“Paul- no, Charon- shhh, just take it, take it. Take all of me.”
Eberhard’s words get interrupted by a whine as he thrusts again; his breath is pressing on Charon’s shoulder as his lips quiver. His hands are shaking- one darts to the other side of his waist, and it holds tight, like a weapon he can’t let go of.
A pressure builds up, one he hadn’t noticed before, and Charon’s hands desperately try to hold on to Eberhard’s back; they claw on it, trying to do anything to make the pressure stop. It won’t stop. With every thrust and every warm breath Charon feels, it presses on his chest more and more as if wanting to break out of this body and erupt.
He needs to tell him to stop, but his voice isn’t cooperating- it stutters Eberhard’s name, it cries out for him, and the rhythm goes faster because of it.
“I want him back,” he can hear Eberhard rasp. “But I want you with me. Both of you-”
A sudden warmth flows again inside Charon’s body; he can faintly hear Eberhard muffle his groaning on his cowl, and a hand hastily smothers the whine that escaped Charon’s mouth.
“Be quiet, be quiet. Don’t want you to get caught with me-”
Eberhard can’t finish his sentence as he groans again, sliding deeper into him; that warm sensation spreads more like a tide, a flood that both of them can’t escape.
The grass on his chest grows higher, the vines use it to wrap themselves around Eberhard’s neck, trailing flowers; it, too, gets bathed in musk and sweat. The ravaging heat everywhere, inside and out, feels too much for him. Everything feels overwhelming.
The knot in his chest tightens, it wants to break- it wants to break so badly, but why can’t it tear itself apart? It pulls and pulls, straining his body and making Charon jolt; his hands shake, they splay across Eberhard’s back with their taut fingers. They can’t let go of him-
“Gott, Charon...”
His name.
He said his name.
The knot snaps.
Charon goes slack; he did not expect Eberhard to catch him, pressing on him further and keeping himself inside. The dew on his chest overflows as he trembles, as he tries to muffle the sounds spilling out of his mouth onto a bruised and flushed neck, as his boots make creases on the tips from this rush. The vines inside Charon’s body tightens as another wave hits, making his view blur and fade as his body begins to tremor again; the dew never falls to the floor, and now it stains a green coat as well with a blue one.
Now there’s words he can’t understand; a whispering, trembling shower of it, and Eberhard’s desperate voice makes Charon’s thoughts haze and his sight unfocus. He’s never heard him this halting, this soft; even with his strength fading, he knows that Eberhard has never done this with Paul before. He has never felt his warmth so close, so close that it warms up an eternally cold body. He has never felt his touch on his waist, a vice grip that leaves both of them with imprints that tremble and falter.
He has never felt his voice, snaking up on his mind and settling in its rightful den.
Charon tries to fight against losing his consciousness; a terrible, pointless fight. He wants to hear more, to understand what Eberhard’s trying to say, but instead a thought lodges itself on his head.
This is what surrender feels like.
This is what dying feels like.
...right?
With that, the last of his strength sputters.
Charon passes out, never hearing Eberhard’s confession.