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Chapter Text

The first band of leather is the worst.

How long has he been here? There are stars in his eyes but they feel so far away…

Ancient, corrupted magic plucks him from a street in Berlin and drops him in the darkness of a basement he has never seen before. This is nothing new, and he has extracted himself from such situations before. It will take no time at all for his summoners to make demands of him — riches, fame, eternal youth. Their dreams are petty, insubstantial things hardly worthy of his regard. He hardly hears any of it as the smell of cold iron fills his mouth. His lips when he licks them taste… human.

Interesting. It appears he underestimated these Dreamers’ greed. And their cruelty.

Before he can gather himself after the violence of the summoning spell, Dream of the Endless is stripped of his tools of office, stripped of his dignity inside this blasted circle. He hears the neophytes chant, the shimmer of power in their combined voices enough to chain him down for now. But he has been here before, he is Endless and other humans have attempted to make a pet out of him. He shan’t let them — he is the Nightmare King, and he knows their worst fears.

When he stands, however, the man who summoned him backhands him and grabs a fistful of hair like Dream is nothing but a misbehaving dog. Their eyes meet, and Dream knows who he is. Knows what this man dreams of the most, with a desperation that would undo any mortal man.

“You will give me my son back.”

Dream does not speak. His words would be wasted on an insignificant human such as this one. But Morris Burgess Brocklesby isn’t deterred.

“I have summoned you, Death, and I bind you in this circle by the old laws. You must do as I bid!”

But he is not Death, that is his sister. So Dream does not have to do anything at all. His silence is unappreciated, however, and the magus tosses him back onto the stone floor. The ritual circle traps him here, even when Morris Burgess Brocklesby — who introduced himself as the Lord Magus of the Order of Ancient Mysteries, though Dream knows from the excited daydreams of the neophytes that he goes by Roderick Burgess — and his neophytes leave. Dream is disconnected from his realm, but he can still feel it shivering underneath his skin. This is no flesh and bone body, and the dreamstuff of his makeup remembers where it belongs. It yearns to return home, to the Dreaming, but he cannot leave.

So he waits.

In the darkness of the basement, without access to anyone’s daydreams or sleeping state, time is impossible to tell. To a being such as he, time is not a concept he bothers to follow closely. There had never been the need to, before.

While he may not leave and he is weakened by the whole reason he came to the Waking world to begin with, Dream doesn’t doubt that he can leave when this farce is over. Capturing an Endless being requires more knowledge and power than he knows Roderick Burgess possesses.

In the quiet of the basement, he plans his revenge, his justice. He will craft new nightmares specifically for the self-proclaimed Lord Magus and his neophytes. They will never forget their transgressions.

Roderick Burgess returns some days later and stands over Dream.

“I know who you are,” he intones, imperious and insignificant all at once. “You are Dream of the Endless.”

A cold shiver runs down Dream’s spine, but he does not acknowledge the words nor the man’s presence.

“Now that I know you cannot bring the dead back to life, I have different demands to make of you.” Behind Burgess, neophytes filter into the basement. Their black hoods cover their faces, but their excited tittering is buzzing loudly even in their scattered daydreams. “As the Shaper of Forms, you will shape to the form I command you!”

As if a mortal Dreamer, even a charlatan magus like Burgess, could compel him to do anything. Dream cannot escape, but he shall not bow nor bend. Burgess will tire of him when he realises Dream will not give him whatever it is he seeks, and his remaining here will ensure his sister is not summoned against her will. Dream has always been a selfish being, but this — this he can do for his sister. It is of no consequence to him.

Someone, a short and stocky neophyte with greying hair poking out of their hood, drops a case. Dream does not glance directly at it, but even in his periphery he recognises the symbol. Medical equipment? His body is not a mortal vessel like they might imagine — cutting him open and desecrating his essence will do naught.

Let them try. He almost smiles at the thought.

But the neophyte opens the case, and another one joins them to assist in extracting its contents. The smell of leather polish and iron, the same kind that is welded into the ground holding the circle in power, fills the air. The neophytes begin chanting again, and a wave of dizziness hits Dream square in the chest. This spell is different from what he’d expected them to try. His grasp on reality, on everything around him, begins to unravel. Something is slipping from between his fingers, fine like sand, fine like the essence of—

“Shaper of Forms,” intones Burgess once more, the power of his neophytes’ spell bolstering his voice, “you will shape to the form I command of you.” Without stepping into the circle, Burgess reaches in and roughly pulls Dream closer to the edge until he cannot physically go any further. Dream tries to fight him off, but he can’t quite move his limbs. “Your shape, so declared, is Randall Burgess.”

Before Dream can scoff at the mere notion of such a thing, another wave of dizziness hits him. The chanting grows louder, and he shakes his head to chase the sound away. The air is so thick with their voices and the spell, and he can no longer make out their words. He is Dream of the Endless, how dare—

“Your shape, so declared, is Randall Burgess!” The Lord Magus decries, and this time his touch on Dream’s skin is infused with corrupted magic. With leather studded with iron. “Upon your form made mortal, I bestow my first commandment: your memories, so declared, are of Randall Burgess!”

The first band of leather is the worst.

It is more corset than band. It covers his entire chest, from his armpits to his waist. Burgess wraps it tightly, over his heart and lungs.

What?

Dream shakes his head again, but it only makes the dizziness worse. He does not have organs, has no need for— Wait. He inhales shakily, unable to expand his chest and diaphragm fully. Memories not his own, of a life lived in Fawney Rig and snuffed out in Gallipoli. Memories of bullet wounds, shrapnel, the scent of decay and death everywhere. A wallflower brother, a dead mother, a proud father. Dream drags in another breath. Hears the final buckle snap into place.

“Your shape, so declared, is Randall Burgess!” The buckles around the corset-band tighten, and the malevolence of the ritual washes over him with each one of Burgess’s words. “Upon your form made mortal, I bestow my second commandment: your soul, so declared, is of Randall Burgess!”

Randall Burgess. The name resonates around his mind, a pebble thrown into the vastness of his Endless being—

Endless? No, his soul. Souls are not endless. He bites down hard on his tongue and tastes nothing at all. The second commandment is rapidly followed by a second band of leather. Every rune on it burns, it etches itself into the very marrow of his mortal bones. For he is mortal — his form is mortal, as it has thus been commanded. This band has several buckles and they wrap tightly around his thigh. An iron plate rests underneath each buckle.

Rough hands toss him round and round, and the chanting fills his mind. Where earlier it had surely been the great expanse of an ocean, it is now diminished to a shallow pond. He cannot recall where he is, who he is, what he is. He grasps desperately at any threads of power he still feels running inside him like blood—

“Your shape, so declared, is Randall Burgess!” The familiar voice, which elicits a curl of warmth in his belly, holds onto his free thigh. “Upon your form made mortal, I bestow my third commandment: your body, so declared, is of Randall Burgess!”

Suddenly, he feels the cold ground more so than he had before. He hisses as the band of leather with its iron studs is wrapped around his thigh, each buckle, each iron plate making him feel. He is human, he is mortal, he is Randall’s body and soul and memories. Contained within this form and reshaped into everything Randall once was. And is once again.

His wild black hair turns blond and wavy, shorter than it was before. His limbs fill in with a soldier’s muscles and warm, red blood. His bones break where they once were broken and reshape, reshape, reshape. His fingers shorten, his chest broadens, his teeth straighten. The cloudless night sky in his eyes dims until it is the clear blue of a cloudless daytime sky. No more stars, no more vibrancy. He is snuffed out, he is reshaped, reshaped, reshaped.

“Your shape, so declared, is Randall Burgess,” his father intones in a softer voice. Gentled hands cup his face and turn him this way and that. Calloused thumbs trace his rounded cheekbones. “Upon your form made mortal, I bestow my final commandment: your existence, so declared, is of Randall Burgess.”

No, no, no—

Sand, between his fingers. Sand, pouring out of his mouth. Sand, leaving his mind. He grasps and claws and screams.

“Di—”

Randall lets out a whimper as the final bands of leather are buckled to his calves. His breath is ragged and his body feels wrong, somehow. Cold, so cold, but the braces burn. Father tenderly turns him onto his stomach, and fiddles with the brace around his torso at his back.

“Your name is Randall Burgess.” The corset loosens but only just enough for Randall to breathe more easily. Before he can fill his aching lungs with air, though, a stinging pain makes him hiss. “Your blood is Randall Burgess.” Something warm trickles down his spine. “As your master, as your father, you shall answer me always.” The corset loosens further and some parts of it come off until there are only three bands around his torso, with the thickest one constricting his ribs. Flesh burns, already scabbed over, are left behind. “Tell me your name, Randall Burgess.”

As he opens his mouth to answer, red-wet fingers push into his mouth and force their way to the back of his tongue. Randall chokes and heaves, but his father continues to paint the inside of his mouth with blood. A shiver of revulsion courses through him. He doesn’t understand why his father is doing this to him — but the pain in his broken body prevents him from fighting back.

“Tell me your name!”

“Randall Burgess,” he breathes out, too weak to speak any louder. The people in the room, his father’s friends, are still chanting. He’s never understood what it was exactly his father did with these people, but he is too knackered, in too much pain, to think too hard about it at the moment. “Father, what…”

“Son?” His father’s voice has gone heavy, and the same red-wet hands spin him around so they can face each other. “Son, it’s you.”

It isn’t a question, but Randall nods anyway. “Of course.” He frowns. “Where am I?” His own voice is very familiar to his ears — not too deep, not too musical. With the right amount of rasp and the right sort of accent his mates in his unit teased him for. Posh, they’d called it. He blinks his daytime blue eyes.

His father smiles, magnanimous and loving. “Oh son, you took a fall. Come, let me help you to your room.”

Randall tries to look around, to understand where he is and why he’s here — but he is too dizzy. He can tell this is the cellar of his childhood home, but he doesn’t remember returning from the front. Last he knows, he was in Gallipoli and—

A searing flash of pain interrupts his inner investigation. Best have some rest before he tries to figure everything out. On his way out, an arm thrown over his father’s shoulders and his father’s arm around his waist to hold him upright, Randall locks eyes with a boy — his brother. His brother Alex.

Alex stares at him with wide, frightened eyes. He is plastered against the wall, in the shadows. Randall tries to smile for his brother, forces his lips to curve in a way that feels so familiar and natural, but it’s as though his muscles aren’t used to it anymore. Alex doesn’t smile back, but he doesn’t look away either. He simply watches as Randall is half-carried out of the cellar by their father.

The trip to his bedroom is spent in a daze. His father keeps repeating his name, over and over, and Randall has rarely felt so cared for, so loved, in his life. Perhaps his fall has frightened his father. He ought to be more careful next time. It hasn’t been long since he’s been back from the front, after all.

“I had the maid ready your room for your return,” his father says conversationally. Randall recognises the tone for what it is; there are no expectations of him to contribute to this conversation. So he listens. “I do not want you leaving your room again without your crutches. The doctors were quite strict about it, and I will not have you put all their efforts to waste.”

“My crutches?” Randall doesn’t remember needing crutches, but given the fact that he had to be carried all the way here… “I’m sorry, Father. I forgot.”

His father’s eyes are bright when he tucks Randall in his bed. The sun is still high outside, but Randall is, indeed, exhausted.

“Yes, you did.” The admonishing tone is gentled by the way his father continues to fuss around his bedroom. “I’ve only just gotten you back, I will not let you trip down into the cellar again. The cellar is off-limits, Randall.”

Randall sighs and nods, settling into his bed. “I missed my bed. How long was I gone?” he mutters, already feeling the tug of slumber pulling him under.

“Too long, son, too long. But you’ll make a worthwhile recovery.” His father finally draws the curtains and stands at the door, looking like he doesn’t wish to leave. “Randall?”

“Yes, Father?” Randall shivers at the loving warmth that washes over him.

After a brief moment of silence, his father inclines his head and chuckles slowly. “You belong here, at home, with me. Do not forget it, Randall.”

“Of course not.” Randall’s eyes drift close. “Goodnight, Father.”

“Randall.” His father closes the bedroom door with a quiet click.

Sleep comes easily to his exhausted body.

Randall. Randall. Randall.

Randall. Randall. Randall.

“Randall.”

His eyes snap open, and Randall groans at the bright light in his room. Since it was light outside when he went to bed yesterday, there is no telling how long he’s been asleep. When he tries to sit up to face his father sitting next to his bed, he finds himself unable to move into position. Before he can try again though, his father’s hand pushes him back onto the bed. Randall goes willingly.

“No, son. It is the belief of our physician that you should remain in bed for some time yet.”

“Why? I feel fine, Father.” Randall rolls his eyes. “I’m fine. Yesterday was a fluke.”

His father frowns, the lines on his forehead and between his brows deeper than Randall remembers.

“It seems you forgot,” his father says, a hint of a threat in his voice. “You were grievously injured during the Gallipoli campaign, Randall.”

Randall relaxes into his bed again. How could he have forgotten? The gunshots, the explosions, the smell of blood and viscera—

“The full-body brace was crafted by the best in the field.” His father pulls the covers down and indicates the leather straps around Randall’s torso, thighs, and calves. “You must never remove them, Randall. If you do, you will crumble like a house of cards. These braces make you whole, keep you alive. Do you understand?”

Looking down at his body, both strong in musculature but made weak by what he assumes are permanently broken bones, Randall is taken with a strange feeling of dysmorphia. Is this what his body is like now? He traces the leather, polished and of the highest quality. It bites into his skin.

“What about bathing?” he hears himself ask. He cannot take his eyes away from himself. From this mortal shape of his. Randall frowns and tilts his head. What a queer thought…

“I’ve hired a nurse for you. She will help you bathe, and help you learn to walk again. Your legs do not work.”

“They don’t?” Randall looks at his legs dubiously. Hadn’t he been able to stand yesterday?

“Your legs do not work, Randall. You cannot walk without assistance.”

He shivers and nods numbly. Of course. How daft is he? Perhaps he hit his head on his way down to the cellar.

“What happened?” he asks again, needing to understand how he came to be this… this weak.

“They declared you dead prematurely due to your injuries. Your body was returned to me, and I found the best doctors in the world to heal you. I saved you, Randall.” His father’s tone brooks no argument.

Randall finds that he doesn’t want to argue. Why would his father lie to him? He blinks a few times, suddenly overcome with another queer emotion. He never cries — why are there tears in his eyes now? Perhaps it has to do with his recent brush with death. When a man is far gone enough to realise the limits of his mortality, surely this is emotional upheaval enough to warrant a few tears.

But his father hates crying, and hates crying men even more. So Randall takes a few short breath, feels the extent of the permanent pain in his ribs. It’s as his father said. How his spine has managed to remain in one piece, he’ll never know. He’s lucky to be alive, lucky to still have all his limbs.

“Thank you, Father,” he murmurs.

“Very good.” His father pats his knee gently. “Once you are better rested, you will resume your studies. There is pride in fighting for king and country, Randall, but a man must always sharpen his mind as though it too is a sword.” He stands and goes to the door, opening it to call for a servant to bring him a meal. “You’re too thin,” he adds in Randall’s direction. “You must eat to regain your appetite and strength, Randall.” There’s a strange light in his father’s eyes, but Randall nods regardless.

“Yes, Father.” Why wouldn’t he eat? He wishes to heal — rest and food are known to be the best medicine after everything else is dealt with, after all.

The meal arrives — beef broth with warm, buttered bread — and Randall eats in silence. He can’t recall the last time he ate, but he knows it wasn’t as good as this. The richness of the broth makes him hum in appreciation, and he finds that dipping his bread into it is even better. His father watches him eat, a sentinel at his side, and Randall warms at the attention. Roderick Burgess is a busy man, after all. Yet here he is — watching Randall eat as though he might disappear if he didn’t.

“How is Alex?” he asks once he’s finished his meal. He drinks the tea, strong and black, when his father hands it to him.

His father scowls but smooths his face when he notices how earnest Randall is to know. Memories of his brother flicker through his mind’s eye, and there is a gaping maw next to them. He misses Alex like he misses a limb, he realises, as though he could never have imagined living without his brother next to him. His siblings—

“Your snivelling brother is well enough.” Roderick stares at him again and tilts his head. “He was never able to measure up to you, Randall.”

Randall shivers and nods. He remembers, now. His younger brother, always small and sickly. Always lurking in the shadows. Knees scraped raw from falling as he was made to play outside. Always making friends with the servants’ children.

“He’s just a boy, he’ll learn with time,” Randall says, lips and tongue oddly tingling with the words.

They chat for a moment longer, then his father takes his leave with promises to return for dinner. Randall has nothing to do but stare at the ceiling, unable to get out of bed and with nothing to read close at hand. He wishes he’d asked his father to bring him a book or even the morning’s paper. It reminds him of the long hours of waiting he’d done in Gallipoli, of the nights spent staring at the sky and listening to the sounds of war around him.

Had he been alone, then?

A face teases the surface of his thoughts, the accompanying warmth enough to travel all the way down to his lower body. A laugh he thinks he’d recognise anywhere, something that he can’t really call love but that has all the potential of it. But he knows how those men are — mindless with loneliness in the trenches, heedless of the sin of sodomy. These are secrets they would all take to the grave or the battlefield. They are memories drenched in desperation and blood and that unique kindling one can find with a comrade-in-arms.

Randall thinks about that man for the rest of the day, unable to remember his name nor what he looked like. Only that he felt like the sun.

It takes a week before his brother visits him.

Alex comes into his room on featherlight feet, a haunted look in his eyes. Despite sharing a father, they look nothing alike: Alex is small for his age, with wide brown eyes and stringy brown hair. No matter how much their instructors run him through exercises and sports, Alex remains frail and clumsy. He never makes eye contact with anyone for any long period of time, and overall — he is meek. Randall knows that this, above all, is why his father disdains his youngest son.

“Who are you?”

Randall blinks and shifts around on his bed. It’s difficult to move with the braces and how tight they are, but he is growing used to them. They keep him alive, after all.

“Pardon?”

Alex steps further into the room, but stays a few feet away from the bed. “I thought you were…” He hesitates and glances away. “You look so much like him…”

“Like who?” Randall asks gently, as though speaking to a spooked horse or a wounded dog.

“Like Randall.”

Randall smiles and sighs fondly. “But I am Randall.”

Alex stares at him then, and Randall feels like his little brother can see right into his soul. A cold shiver runs down his spine, but the leather bands immediately warm him. Alex is probably only traumatised by his return, by the way his body is so broken now. With a hand, he beckons his brother closer. Alex comes, hesitant at first and then with a bit of defiance in his step.

“I’m sorry you have to see me like this, Alex,” Randall says once Alex is close enough for him to take his hand. “But I’m whole and alive, thanks to Father.”

Alex continues to stare at him, so Randall tries harder to comfort his brother.

“In Gallipoli, things did not turn out well for me. I was gravely hurt. Father says everyone believed I was dead. But I’m not, Alex. I promise. I’m here, your big brother is here. I’m not going anywhere. The war isn’t over, but I… I am no longer fit to be a soldier. My place is here, at Fawney Rig.”

Tears well up in his little brother’s eyes, and the boy doesn’t bother wiping them away when they fall.

“Randall,” he sniffs, “Randall, is it really you? Are you sure, cross your heart?” Alex whispers, squeezing Randall’s hand.

“Cross my heart, it’s really me.” Randall relaxes into the new wave of contentment that surges through him at the way his brother says his name. Like it means something more, something precious, something missed and found again.

“Okay, I believe you.” Alex smiles, then. A tremulous thing that breaks Randall’s heart.

“Good.” Randall squeezes his brother’s hand and gently shoves him towards the door. “I tire easily.” It’s true — his father had said so. “I need rest. Go, your tutor will be waiting for you.”

Alex nods, sheepish, and hurries out of the room with a last wave and tearful smile. The ache in Randall’s chest is soothed by this, even if he can’t quite explain why that is. He doesn’t remember ever having a close relationship with his brother — they are more than a decade apart in age. Yet, if he is to be consigned to Fawney Rig for a long period of time… He does not want to be lonely.

Not that he remembers being lonely before this. Not really. Always surrounded by his father’s acquaintances. By other boys in school. By soldiers when he enlisted. But it is deep within his bones, this ancient loneliness, and he cannot give it a beginning nor a cause. Simply that it is, and he can sustain it no longer.

Randall closes his eyes and falls into the arms of Morpheus.

Chapter Text

The weeks go by, and Randall’s recovery is a slow one. He needs help bathing, walking, dressing. His body hurts all the time. He does his best to bear it all with a smile, really — he does. Why wouldn’t he? Randall is alive, and he has his brother with him, and he doesn’t have to return to the front. The trenches.

But some days, his father isn’t happy with him. Randall doesn’t understand why —

(“Randall Burgess! You will obey me!”

The taste of blood again, covering his gums, his tongue, his throat.

“Father, please! Father!”

Lashes against his back, caning on the back of his thighs, cruel hands around his throat.

“You will be my son or I will unmake you, Shaper of Forms!”

“You dare—”

His name, over and over, until it’s tattooed into his mind. Wounds that never leave scars. Pain.)

— but his father knows best.

His body is too weak and broken for him to attend university again, but his father calls in professors of all sorts to teach him at home. A man of letters he’ll become, his father says, and Randall doesn’t have the energy to argue. It’s better than having nothing at all to do. When it’s too quiet, both around him and in his mind, it leaves him dizzy and lost. Getting lost in his thoughts has never been a problem before; Randall wasn’t much of a daydreamer, not like his little brother. Yet whenever he catches the black wing of a crow or raven out the window, he finds it nearly impossible to tear his eyes away. Amorphous shapes form in his mind, too nebulous to truly grasp into full thoughts or ideas, but it’s always the sight of those damned birds that sets him off.

He was never particularly interested in corvids before, but one of the doctors says that some such changes are normal after near-death experiences like his.

In truth, he doesn’t mind it all that much. His body hardly feels his own anymore, and despite being a young healthy man, as yet another doctor said, he hasn’t had the natural urges a young healthy man such as himself typically has. But he isn’t about to ask his father’s physicians why he no longer has any interest in wanking. What sort of lover would he be anyway — unable to move, unable to get hard, unable to give and take in equal measures?

There’s a memory teasing the edge of his mind whenever he tries to pleasure himself. A bright smile, calloused hands, skin like warm earth. He thinks maybe he had a lover in Gallipoli. Perhaps a strapping Turkish lad, if the tanned skin from his memory is anything to go by. But he can’t recall a name or face, and he doesn’t dare ask his father. He doesn’t wish for additional lashings. So he locks those bittersweet memories in the back of his mind, and doesn’t think further on them. Crippled as he is, he’ll be lucky if a woman of his age pities him enough to wed him before he’s an old man.

It takes him nearly three months to notice the parties.

Walking around the house is a chore in itself, and Randall can’t go anywhere without his crutches, without his nursemaid. And the nursemaid isn’t invited to those parties, so Randall doesn’t hear about them. His father hosts them in the garden, or in the parlour. Randall’s bedroom is on the second landing, and stairs are difficult to manoeuvre on his own.

One night, with his joints aching and the back of his thighs swollen with the evening’s caning, Randall awakens from a very strange dream. For some odd reason, he hardly dreams anymore, or if he does it’s of a deserted palace straight out of his brother’s fairytale books. No — tonight, he dreamt of a man with skin white as snow and hair black as ink. He dreamt of stars brighter than any he’s ever seen, and it left him feeling… homesick. Which makes very little sense, seeing as he’s been home for months now.

But it unsettles him enough to draw him out of bed despite his father’s implicit order to rest. Randall doesn’t remember his father’s words, exactly, or why he got caned before he was put to bed. It doesn’t matter — it is one of those inescapable things. No matter what he does, or doesn’t do, it will happen. So Randall pulls on a dressing gown over his pyjamas, slips on the stiff leather loafers that help him keep his balance, and slides his arms into the straps of his crutches.

It’s been a long time since he’s walked through his own home at night. It makes him feel like a ghost.

He passes his little brother’s room, and stops a moment to peek inside. Alex breathes deep and slow in his sleep, one arm under his pillow and one leg hanging off the bed. His brown hair, so different from Randall’s, spills over the pillow like dark ink. Unbidden, the desire to know what Alex is dreaming of fills his chest like a tidal wave. It creeps up his throat at an alarming rate, a nauseous and primal need that has him stepping further into his brother’s room. The floorboards creak under the heavy thump of his crutches. What do boys his age dream of? Somehow, he knows the dreams of children are always the purest, the most fascinating.

“Randall?” Alex mumbles, his eyes squinting in the darkness of his bedroom.

Randall stops in his tracks, suddenly out of breath. Sweat covers his forehead, and his body feels so… tight. He licks his lips and tightens his hold on the handgrips of his crutches, unsure what he’s doing here at all.

“Sorry, I thought… you were dreaming.”

Alex stares at him for a moment. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry, I must have scared you.” What is he doing here? Randall shakes himself and clears his throat. “Alright, goodnight Alex.”

“Goodnight, Randall.” Alex continues to stare at him, but he’s already drifting back to sleep when Randall turns around to close his bedroom door.

What had that been about?

Randall continues his trek down the hall, and decides he might as well spend a few hours in the library until he feels tired enough to go back to sleep. The stairs take him a while, and he’s breathless by the time he arrives on the first floor landing. The ground floor — where the kitchen, dining room, and parlour are — isn’t as silent as Randall expects for this time of night. He takes a few steps down the last set of stairs, straining his ears.

Music, laughter, cigarette smoke. His father smokes the pipe, not cigarettes. Are his father’s… acquaintances having a meeting? Randall frowns. He’s learned to stay away from the cellar, but he still knows his father holds those get-togethers during the day. A party, then?

Sticking to the shadows along the walls of the corridor, Randall makes his way towards the parlour, and opens the door just a crack.

His senses are immediately assailed by the debauchery of what lies behind the parlour door. There are men in expensive suits, with crooked bow ties and discarded jackets, and women in dresses that would make any gentleman blush. They’re drinking, dancing, smoking, grinding in obscene ways. The walls are lined with tables laden with food and drink, and the lamps are covered in brightly coloured shawls to give the whole room a false sense of intimacy.

And in the middle of it, with a fat ruby around his neck, sits his father. Roderick Burgess. Something raw and wild rises within him at the sight. His fingers tingle and his breath comes in short, heavy pants. That ruby. It’s nothing like Randall’s ever seen, but he knows that it’s his. It belongs to him. How dare his father take what belongs to him, and flaunt it here? To these undeserving mortals, these shallow dreamers, who dream of nothing more than material wealth and power over one another?

He takes a step into the room, even though it’s the last thing he wants to do. But it’s like walking on sand, like his crutches keep sinking deeper and deeper into the polished floorboards. His body is so heavy, so broken and tightened. The leather bands around his torso, his thighs, and his calves burn something fierce. Yet he continues, pushes onward until he wildly wonders if his flesh will melt under the flaming leather and iron.

He stumbles.

A woman with hair blonde like sunlight turns to him and gasps. “Oh dear!” The expensive fabric of her dress catches the light of the closest lamp when she moves. It’s midnight blue, with stars and galaxies, and it looks so much like home—

She rushes to help him, and manages to keep him upright. But she is a fragile slip of a woman, and he can’t expect her to hold his weight even if he’s nowhere near as heavy as he once was.

“I—”

“Are you alright?” she cuts in, cupping his clammy cheek with a warm hand. When their eyes meet, she recoils. “Oh dear, your eyes, they’re… Are you on some sort of medication?” There’s fear and uncertainty in her eyes.

Blue eyes. Like his. Wait…

“Medication?” he whispers, hardly recognising his voice. He shakes his head and wishes he could let go of one of his crutches to rub his face. The sudden pounding in his skull makes him nauseous.

“Let’s get you back to your room, darling,” the woman whispers, sliding an arm around his waist.

It’s the first time someone touches him outside of the purpose of cleaning him or hurting him in months. He trembles and nearly falls right on his arse, but somehow manages to nod weakly. The warm arm around his waist grounds him, reminds him that his flesh isn’t melting. It also conveniently distracts him from the ruby around Burgess’s neck. If he tries to look back, he’ll put this lady’s efforts to assist him to waste.

So, he follows her out of the parlour, and this time the ground doesn’t feel like sand underneath his feet.

“What’s your name, darling?” she asks as they reach the door, both of them out of breath.

“My name?” The voice comes from deep within his chest, like a great big beast has awakened and is trying to claw back to the surface. He swallows thickly and glances at the nice lady. His name? His name?

(“Tell me your name!”

“Randall Burgess! Please, Father—!”)

“Randall Burgess,” Randall breathes out. A soothing wave of calm washes over him, and he nearly sags onto the kind lady. He blinks a few times and straightens as much as he can, his clammy hands slipping on the handgrips of his crutches. “My name is Randall.”

“Oh!” She gasps and covers her mouth with one expensively-manicured hand. “You’re his son!”

She says it like it’s a secret, like it’s a revelation. Randall frowns at the tone but nods.

“But you’re supposed to be—”

“Dead?” he says wryly. Despite the pounding in his head and in his chest, Randall feels a lot more steady already. “As you can see, I am recovering as well as a man who nearly died can.” Randall gestures to his crutches.

Their eyes meet again, but this time the lady doesn’t recoil. Instead her head tilts and she smiles like she suddenly wants to eat him. Like she’s a predator and he just presented himself as a willing but unknowing prey.

“I apologise for my behaviour earlier. It must have been a trick of the light and smoke in here.” She pushes the door open and nudges it with her shoulder to widen the opening. “For a moment, it looked like your eyes were black!”

Randall chuckles and shakes his head. “Wouldn’t that be queer?”

The lady laughs with him and once they’re a few feet away from the parlour, Randall stops and turns to face her properly. She looks up at him and in this dimmer light, Randall can see how a pretty girl like her might have ended up at this sort of party. Nevermind that there’s still a war out there, nevermind that they shouldn’t be wasting light or food at this time of night. He clumsily reaches up and pats her hand gently, jostling his crutch at the same time.

“I’ll be alright from here. It was just a momentary slip.”

She steps away and inclines her head, though glances at the staircase. “Will you be alright going up the stairs?”

A mix of shame and fondness swells up in his belly. Randall hates having pity shoved his way, hates being so physically weak. But he can recognise the sincerity in the lady’s offer of assistance, and that soothes a small part of the sting on his pride.

“Yes, thank you.” The thrum of loneliness in his bones pulses to life when Randall forces himself to smile, and before he can stop himself the words tumble out of his mouth. “I don’t believe I caught your name?”

The lady’s cheeks flush, though it could be caused by the exertion of half-carrying him out here. “Ethel, Miss Ethel Cripps.” She extends her hand, bare of adornments unlike most of the women in the parlour.

Randall slips out of one of the straps of his crutch to take her hand and kiss the air above her knuckles. These lessons are ingrained deep into his being, and he hardly has to think about it. Surprise flickers through Miss Ethel Cripps’s eyes but it’s too quick for Randall to be sure if it was there at all.

“Well, there’s at least one gentleman who bears the name Burgess,” she purrs. “I hope I can see you again, Randall Burgess.”

Warmth suffuses his every limb and Randall feels himself nodding before he can stop the movement. Miss Ethel Cripps smiles again, though, and waves him a delicate goodbye before she disappears back into the parlour. Randall can do nothing more than watch her, watch the play of light on her midnight blue dress. Her shoes click with every step, and the air around him suddenly smells of her perfume. Something sweet and floral.

This is it, Randall thinks to himself as he marches up the stairs, one slow step at a time. This is what he’s been missing — company for the pleasure of it. Not for any sort of obligation like his tutors, or familial like with his brother. He misses… people. Normal people. People to have conversations with. To banter and flirt, to laugh and make others laugh in return. Sweet heaven, he misses it more than one might miss a limb.

Randall settles back into his bed, short of breath again and with his legs aching something fierce. The pounding in his head is gone, though. The leather bands around his body aren’t so constricting anymore, but his skin still feels too tight.

Company. Friends. Lovers. He misses it all so damned much, it’s a wonder he hasn’t gone insane with it. This aching solitude that lives inside himself would be soothed by it, he knows. Why hasn’t he thought of it before now? It seems like a terrible oversight, especially from his socialite father. Surely he’ll understand, if Randall plans this correctly. If he appeals to his sparse sentimentalities, his desire for Randall to be happy. Maybe that’s why his father beats him with his cane so much — because he, too, is desperate for Randall to go back to normal.

Tomorrow. He’ll bring it up with his father tomorrow.

This time, when Randall falls asleep, he doesn’t dream of anything at all.

“Father, may I speak with you for a moment?”

His father glances over the morning paper and grunts affirmatively. It’s late morning, and his father is having brunch alone at the long dining table. Alex is outside for riding lessons, and Randall’s nursemaid has already scrubbed him clean and watched him like a hawk as he ate his breakfast hours ago. He sets his crutches against the table, but changes his mind rapidly when his father makes a noise of annoyance. It’s more troublesome to grab them from the floor, but he doesn’t want to aggravate his father before he’s had time to make his plea.

“What is it, son?” he finally asks when Randall is settled in his seat.

It surprises him to realise he hasn’t eaten at the dinner table with the rest of his family since his return. He should remediate that as soon as possible. Despite his state, he doesn’t want his father or his brother to think him too crippled to do basic things such as attend a meal on the ground floor.

“I know this is hardly the time for merriment,” he begins, mouth a bit dry. “With the war still going on and all.”

“Indeed, it would be in poor taste,” his father cuts in, flipping a page of his papers. He takes a slow sip of his tea.

Randall thinks of the debauched party last night, which he’s sure hadn’t been the first one. He thinks of Ethel Cripps and how her arm had felt around his waist after so long without a gentle touch. He thinks of his friends who might have made it out alive from the war, but are unable to return to the front. He licks his lips and shifts on his seat, tracing one of the leather bands around his thigh.

“Well, you see, Father,” he resumes, his tone earnest, “I believe it would be a great morale boost, to hold a small fete for those like me. Those who survived the various campaigns but are burdened by their recovery and cannot return to the front.” Those who are lonely, like me, he doesn’t add.

“Hmm.” His father lowers the newspaper at last and studies Randall. “You would have others see you while you are still recovering?”

Randall isn’t the most clever man, but he can read between the lines. His jaw tenses in spite of his efforts.

“You would rather not, then?” he asks, keeping his tone light and bored. Posh, as his fellow men-in-arms would have said.

His father continues to study him, as though Randall is a puzzle for him to solve. “I am not ashamed that my son is still alive, Randall.”

Randall relaxes and tension bleeds out of his shoulders and jaw. His throat is tight with emotion, though, so he only bows his head slightly in an abashed manner.

“Times like these are hardly the proper times for parties, son. Or fetes.” He polishes his tea and leans back into his chair. “But the morale is low these days, and it would do some good to have the world know we are not submitting to the miseries wrought by war.”

Ah. Randall immediately understands his father’s angle. It should sting that his father’s reputation comes before Randall’s happiness, but isn’t it how it’s always been? Nearly dying hasn’t changed things much, it appears. He supposes the parties held by his father in the secret of the night don’t count, and don’t make the society pages of the newspapers. But a fete held in the name of the returned sons of England likely will.

“Very well.” His father picks up his papers again. “I’ll have Sykes send out invitations to the proper people.”

“Thank you, Father.” Randall knows a dismissal when he sees one, so he picks up his crutches and struggles to stand from his chair.

“I’ll have a tailor over this week to fit you a proper wardrobe. Your old clothes hardly fit you in this state.”

Shame creeps up along the nape of his neck, but Randall nods. “Of course, Father.”

“Randall,” his father calls just as he’s turned his back to leave. “Ethel Cripps is not the sort of chit I will tolerate you mingling with. Do not seek her company again.”

A swift wave of despair hits him. “Understood, Father.”

The only response that punctuates his retreat is the sound of pages being turned none-too-gently. It’s a victory for Randall — he gets what he came to ask for, after all. But it rings hollow.

Many things in his life now ring hollow, as though he’s had anything of substance carved out of him. Randall sits alone in the library, by the window, and watches his brother riding a horse too stiffly to be comfortable. Even his brother’s presence brings with it shadows unnamed, like there’s a great big secret neither of them is willing to bring to light. It’s ridiculous — Randall isn’t interesting enough to have any sort of secret like that. He recalls the lady from last night.

Miss Ethel Cripps. Beautiful as she was, she couldn’t have been at one of his father’s parties if she wasn’t one of his… followers. Roderick Burgess doesn’t allow women in his occult society, Randall knows, and the women who do find their way here tend to be those of looser morals and greedier hearts. But she had helped him out of kindness before… before she realised who he was. And now his father knows they met, and has crudely staked a claim on her.

Randall sighs heavily and runs his fingers along one of the leather bands under his trousers. He’s not daft. When he was a young lad, fresh-faced and eager to devour the world, he met his fair share of ladies who recognised his name from the society section in the papers. Who knew of his father, and thought to ingratiate themselves through him. He loathes those types of women, no matter how charming they are. And oh, how charming Miss Ethel Cripps had been last night.

A face flashes in his mind. A charming face. A laugh that sparks joy and always makes him smile. Warmth spreads through his chest, chases the chill of loneliness that permanently lives there. Randall wonders if he’s still alive, this strapping fellow. Was he Turkish, or English? Maybe French. Eyes like autumn leaves, like hot coffee and spiced rum. Strong calloused hands. What sort of manual labour causes such callouses? The thought had occurred to him many times before, but he’d never managed to figure it out. Maybe if his old friend is still alive, Sykes will send him an invitation, and Randall will see him again.

That would be…

Randall smiles. Yes. That would be a dream.

His father is true to his word and organises many daytime fetes after that. But none of them are for the returned British soldiers, and all of them are for the society pages. Randall meets more people than ever before in his life. With every successful fete, his father allows him a little bit more freedom. His nursemaid now walks him through the gardens every few days. He takes the stairs more frequently, rebuilds his atrophied muscles. He finally rejoins his family at the dining table for meals.

One day, he asks his father when he’ll be able to remove his full-body brace. His father does not like that question, and Randall spends the night in the cellar with a drug in his body that prevents him from sleeping. Forced March, his father called it. It’s a nightmare, and he learns not to ask that question again.

Months pass in this fashion. Randall loses track of it all. To his horror, none of these fetes alleviate the darkness in him. They are clouds of smoke pressing into his lungs, tightening his braces, and reminding him how alone he is. The oppressive atmosphere has him trying to find refuge outside, and it’s the only way he realises that months and whole seasons have gone by. One day there’s snow on the ground, and the next the trees are budding for spring.

Time had never been a problem for him before his injury. Yet, now? Time slips between his fingers like sand, and he is helpless before its passage.

And then, one afternoon in late 1918, the war ends.

“I don’t understand,” Randall claims with a sigh as he buttons up his crisp white shirt. “I’ve been doing all the exercises, and I never push myself too far.”

Dr Longhorn, his last remaining active physician, shakes his head. “I’m afraid, then, that there is little else we can do for your condition, Mr Burgess.”

Randall stares down at his hands, one finger tracing a leather band under his trousers. “You mean to say that I will require the crutches and braces for the rest of my life?”

“Until there are further advances in medicine, that is my prognosis. You are very fortunate that your father afforded you treatment so early in your condition.” Dr Longhorn closes his medical travel bag with a loud snap. “Most men who returned from the war had fewer limbs than you, sir. This is good news” He smiles that practised smile Randall has grown used to, and lightly pats his knee. “And for those episodes—”

Randall grits his teeth. “There are no episodes—”

“As for those episodes,” the doctor continues without paying him any heed, “rest and proper meals are the best medicine. I’ve left pain medication with your nursemaid for those nightly spasms you’ve mentioned.”

It’s no use arguing. They’ve had this same exact conversation half a dozen times already. Randall rubs a hand over his face. These so-called nightly spasms are the results of too-tight leather bands, but his father and his physician don’t believe him. No doctor has been permitted to remove or even touch Randall’s braces, even when he mentioned their discomfort.

But he remembers, nebulously, the taste of wet copper in his mouth and the words accompanying it: never remove your braces. And sometimes Randall finds himself tracing them over his clothes, a habit that started almost a year ago and that now he can’t kick. He hates the comfort it brings him. The mere idea of removing them himself sends his heart into a frenzied panic.

Dr Longhorn leaves him with a promise for a follow-up in a month when Randall doesn’t respond. The doctor will share the news with his father, so Randall decides sitting outside for some fresh air will do him some good. There’s another fete this afternoon, but it’s bound not to start for an hour or two.

Normally, he confines himself to the garden in the back of the house, but today he wishes to have a bit of sun on his face, so he settles on a bench near the drive-way. He no longer needs his nursemaid everywhere he goes, but his father insists she accompany him whenever he ventures out on the estate. Despite his solitude, Randall is glad to have some time alone outside. It feels like a rare luxury even if it’s completely at odds with everything else in his heart screaming for company.

Time, once again, slips between his fingers as he sits here alone. A raven, white-breasted, watches him from a distance. It’s perched high up in a birch tree, and hasn’t moved since Randall sat down. Something about it is familiar, but as he continues to trace the leather band around his thigh, he shakes the feeling away. Why would a bird be familiar to him? He’s never cared for birds before.

So caught up in his staring contest with the corvid, he doesn’t notice the person approaching him at a rapid pace. Doesn’t notice who it is, either, until there are arms around him and a very familiar voice in his ear.

“Randy! God’s wounds, Randy, you’re alive!”

Randall startles at the nickname. “It’s Randall,” he chokes out, “you know I hate when you call me Randy.”

Robert Gale pulls away from him with a blinding smile and wet eyes. “Oh, my friend, you haven’t changed, have you?”

An animal — nay, a beast unfurls in his chest at the sight of his old friend. It is nothing short of watching the sun rise and set, and his entire body immediately warms at the significance of this meeting.

“You’re alive,” he rasps, reaching with one hand to touch Robert’s shoulder. Randall needs to feel the solidity of his friend’s body for himself. It hardly seems real at first sight. “Crikey, it really is you. You never wrote.”

Robert simply shakes his head in bemusement. “Mate, I thought you were dead.”

“I very nearly was.” Randall retrieves his hand, but he can’t help raking his eyes over Robert. How could he have forgotten his friend’s face? It’s a handsome face, and a memorable one. The cleft in his chin, the crow’s feet next to his eyes. Randall could point him out in a crowd drunk out of his mind, he knows this. “I’ve been back for…” He huffs. “Nearly three years now.”

“What?” Robert sits on his haunches, and seems — for the first time — to take in Randall’s state. His eyes dance over the crutches, over Randall’s stiff posture, over the unhealthy pallor of his cheeks. His bushy brows draw together in a frown. “Your father… brought you back?”

It’s odd, the way Robert asks this. Randall isn’t all that ignorant about the activities his father gets up to, but Randall himself has never been interested in the occult. So he shakes his head. Who would have known Robert had similar interests to his father?

“No, no. Nothing like that. I was returned to him, and he called in every physician still in England to heal me.” He gestures to his body. “It isn’t like I’m whole, Robbie.” The nickname slips easily, and Randall feels the embarrassed flush creep up his cheeks. But Robert’s — Robbie’s smile is brighter still. His own smile is brittle. “Full body brace, for life as far as Dr Longhorn says.”

Robbie’s smile dims a little, but the shine in his eyes remains. “Oh, Randall. I’m so sorry, mate.”

“It’s alright,” he reassures his friend, relief filling his limbs with warmth. “I’m alive, and that’s all that matters.” He glances around them, and notices there are a few people milling around. Right, the afternoon fete. “Are you here for the fete, then?”

“Yeah.” Robbie rubs the back of his neck and rises to his feet to sit next to Randall. “I got an invitation a month or so ago. Figured that if nothing else, I could come pay respect to your father. I never expected to see you here… or anywhere ever again, truly.”

Randall wants to reach for his hand, wants to squeeze it hard enough to convince them both that they’re alive. But there are people around, people who would gossip if such a thing happened. And his father would be furious.

“I am sorry,” he whispers hoarsely. “I… I haven’t had the easiest of times, and I wish I had thought of writing to you. I could have used a friend.” Randall cracks a small smile and looks at Robbie. “I could still use one, if you’ll still have me.”

Robbie clicks his tongue and bumps their shoulders together. “Don’t be daft. Of course you’ll always have a friend in me. I wouldn’t want you to be lonely.”

Something about these exact words sends a powerful shiver through Randall. His breath hitches and he quickly looks away to stare at the birch trees instead. “Thanks.”

His friend hums and brushes a finger over his knuckles. Randall brushes his own back, and is pleased when he feels Robbie relax next to him. Everything’s changed all of a sudden, and the future doesn’t look so ghastly. Maybe… maybe he doesn’t need to be so lonely anymore.

After that, Robbie comes to every fete. Randall suspects someone in the staff sends his friend an invitation regardless of who the other attendees are. If Randall is expected to show his face, Robbie is there. If Randall needs to step outside for some air, Robbie is there.

Robbie is there. He still can’t believe it, sometimes.

It’s summer of 1919 and things are rebuilding everywhere. Something about the hope after the misery of the past years makes Randall hopeful too, like the sun is finally out after a long period of darkness. Robbie is a steadfast friend, and soon he’s there nearly every day. Eventually, his father questions him about it.

“Who is Robert Gale to you?”

Randall carefully avoids specific memories from their time together in Gallipoli. Of strangely calloused hands and how they felt on his skin. “He was in Gallipoli with me. A medic.”

His father hums at that. “Quite a common name for a doctor.”

“Common name, but he is an excellent doctor.” He shouldn’t defend his friend — his father is like a bloodhound whenever these sorts of friendships come to light. “He had a wife, but she is no longer in the picture. He says he’s wed to his profession, now.”

Randall is paraphrasing, but it’s enough to reassure his father.

“Would you have him as your nursemaid, then?” he asks mockingly, as though it were a great emasculation for a man to care for another in such a way.

“Father, I—” But Randall pauses, just a moment, to think about it.

It would be better if Robbie were his nursemaid. His current one is an old woman who has little patience for conversation, and he knows she reports everything to his father. Robbie wouldn’t do that. And what’s more… he trusts Robbie. He likes him. They wouldn’t have to change anything, though he dares not think about the more… private matters in which his nursemaid currently helps him. But he could get better, he could do all those things himself without needing Robbie’s assistance.

He clears his throat. “I think that is a great idea, Father. Robert is a well-learned man, a man of letters. He could teach me a great many things in the sciences, even if I may never be able to practise medicine myself.”

“Very well.” He pulls a fresh sheet of paper from a stack and wets his pen. “I’ll have Sykes send him a contract for… a nursemaid position.” His father chuckles to himself. “Surely a soldier, medic or doctor or whatever he may be, is cheaper than a physician and nursemaid. Don’t get me wrong, Randall,” he pauses from his bookkeeping to look at Randall, “I wish to spare no expenses for your recovery. You are my son. Nothing would stop me from keeping you hale and hearty.”

Randall shivers at the foreboding tone in his father’s voice, but nods regardless. He doesn’t dare say anything that would compromise this. When his father dismisses him with a wave of his hand, Randall hurries to his room to pen a letter to Robbie. Sykes will send a decent contract and letter, he’s sure, but he wishes to send his friend a letter to explain it in his own words.

That night, Randall dreams of a smoky tavern and his oldest friend sitting across him with a shaggy beard and wild, long hair.

Robbie is running late, a few weeks later, when Randall is accosted at a party by someone he knows.

Or feels like he knows. The man is handsome, tall, blonde, and American. That should narrow it down significantly, but he cannot for the life of him remember this man’s name. He wears thick, round sunglasses, and a very nice cream three-piece suit with a silk ascot.

“Well, well. Look at who it is.” The man saunters towards him. They’re alone, even though there’s a party going on in the garden. No one hangs about the front garden, which is usually where Randall finds refuge when he gets a bit overwhelmed with the people here.

“Do I know you?” he asks the American.

“Course you do, boss.” The American leans close enough that Randall has to lean back against the bench to avoid the man’s face. “We’re something pretty close, you and I.”

“Pardon?”

But the words sink into his mind, deep and confusing. The American grins with all his teeth, and Randall wants to reach out and touch. He’s transfixed by the American, unable to move. The leather bands around his body stir to life and burn violently against his flesh, but it isn’t enough to snap him out of it.

“Yeah, you remember,” the American drawls, his voice low and dangerous. “How’s it feel, my lord, to be so confined and caged? To be unmade?”

He can’t breathe. The leather around his chest keeps him from gasping for air.

“You—”

“Uh-huh.” The man puts a finger on his lips, quieting him effectively. The touch is electric, and he wants to melt into it. Wants to consume this man, to crawl into his skin. “Things could have been worse, you know, my lord? Could’ve been trapped in a globe for so, so long. I suggested it to old man Rod, but he had other ideas. Different dreams.”

Fury rises in his chest, swift and violent.

“Nice to see you’re still in there.” The American taps his cheek, heedless of how breathless it makes him. “Gotta enjoy your punishments properly, o king.”

He growls and let goes of his crutches, jumping to his feet with a feral rage that blinds him.

“You— you—” The name is on the tip of his tongue, but it continues to get stuck behind his teeth. The man side-steps and laughs mockingly when he falls to the ground, on his knees.

“Ohh, my lord, how pretty you look down on your knees for me!” The American cackles and runs a hand through Ran—Dre—his hair. Like one pets a dog. “Maybe I should tell old man Rod to whore you around for a pittance, you look so good like this, my lord.”

This… this title, this way of addressing him, it’s undoing him. He struggles to get to his feet, but his body doesn’t respond. He’s too weak, too broken. There’s so little fight left in him, but the American’s presence suffuses him with such hatred, such disappointment—

When he glances up at him, though, the American recoils and drops his hand as though burned.

“Randall, Randall, Randall,” he sighs. “You have no power here.”

“Fuck,” Randall wheezes, stumbling over to his side. He clutches his ribs and tries, vainly, to catch his breath.

“Gotta go! See you in, let’s see, a decade maybe?” The American kicks him, right in the face, and saunters away whistling a jaunty tune.

But Randall still can’t breathe, can’t catch enough air through his tight braces. The world goes grey at the edges, and pain blooms rapidly on his cheekbone. He’ll get his linen jacket all dirty if he stays like this, writhing on the grass like a wounded animal. But he can’t—

“Randall?!”

A spasm rushes through his body and he gasps for air again.

“My friend, are you alright? What happened?” Suddenly Robbie is right in front of him, on his knees and fretting over Randall. “Did… did someone just beat you?!”

Yes, he wants to say. But something in him doesn’t want to give up the American man, a strange sort of instinct that desires more than anything to protect him. It’s senseless! Randall closes his eyes and says nothing.

“Oh, my friend,” Robbie sighs. “Let’s get you up, eh?”

Slowly, carefully, Robbie helps him back to the bench. He fetches Randall’s crutches, which had somehow been thrown many feet away from where he’d dropped them, and uses a well-worn handkerchief to wipe the blood from his cheek. The concern in his eyes tightens Randall’s throat.

He doesn’t want to cry, not here, not in front of Robbie. Randall traces the leather band under his trousers with a trembling hand and tries to match Robbie’s breathing.

“We should loosen your brace, dove,” Robbie murmurs. “It’s hardly helpful if it prevents you from breathing properly.”

Before Randall can stop him, Robbie reaches for Randall’s shirt buttons and begins to undo them. (Never remove your braces!)

“S-stop, stop!” he gasps between two strained lungfuls of air.

Thankfully, Robbie immediately pulls his hands away. “Sorry, sorry.”

“Can’t remove them,” he wheezes, a hand on his heart as it tries to beat out of his chest. His world is greying at the edges again, and his face stings something fierce.

“Randall, dove, breathe with me. Your lips are turning blue.” Robbie gently grabs his face between his warm palms and presses their foreheads together. “With me, dove. One, two, three, inhale. That’s it, hold it a bit. Exhale, three, two, one. Again, with me.”

Randall follows his friend’s instructions, eyes closed and one hand still on his chest to, foolishly, prevent his heart from jumping out of it. The image of the blond American man continues to flicker behind his eyelids, but Robbie’s presence, his warmth and wonderfully woodsy scent, manages to chase away the nightmarish vision.

“Thank you, my friend,” he says quietly after a little while. The fete is still going on, he can hear the merriment from here, but it’s all sort of muted when Robbie is so close to him.

“Of course, dove,” Robbie replies, just as quietly. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Randall shakes his head minutely. He can’t explain it, this… need to protect the American man’s identity. Like he’s a part of him, a secret he’s at once proud of and disappointed in. It doesn’t make sense, but he decides to follow his gut feeling on this one.

“Just… just a prick,” he finally says, because he knows he has to say something. Randall sags against Robbie. “God, I’m exhausted.”

“Want to go inside instead?” Robbie asks gently. “You don’t have to attend every party.”

“Yes, inside.” Randall lets Robbie pull him to his feet and leans heavily against the other man. His form is solid and strong, like Robbie has been a soldier his whole life instead of only during the past decade.

It’s a long, exhausting trek back inside. When Randall glares at the stairs leading up to the first floor, Robbie chuckles and drops to his knee before him.

“Come on, get on. I’d carry you like a proper little bride, but I don’t want to kick your pride any more today.”

Randall huffs a laugh despite himself, and drapes himself over Robbie’s back. His friend places his crutches under his arms, and grabs Randall under his thighs to steady him. It stretches his full-body brace a bit, but it’s not uncomfortable. In fact, Robbie is very comfortable, and Randall almost wishes he could ask this of his friend more often.

It’s the most pleasant aspect of their new… caretaking relationship. Robbie was always a very tactile man, but Randall had never realised how much he took such things for granted. Now every hug, every kind touch makes him feel alive. Makes his skin both too tight and tingle with pleasure. It gentles a fragile part of his mind, the one that comes awake when his father takes his cane to him or locks him up on those Forced March pills in the cellar.

He hasn’t told Robbie about those, and he doesn’t plan to. It’s been a few months since the last incident, in any case, and he’s done everything his father has asked of him lately.

When Robbie deposits him on one of the couches in the library, Randall startles and looks up at him. Concern still mars his friend’s face, so Randall takes his hand and pulls him onto the couch next to him.

“Sit with me,” he says, immediately melting into Robbie’s side once his friend drapes an arm over his shoulders.

“Of course, dove.”

The easy acceptance, like Robbie would rather be doing this more than anything else — it’s so much. Randall can’t bring himself to look at his friend, just then, because he fears Robbie would see more than he’s prepared to share. This is leagues different from their friendship at the front. It’s softer, and it stitches the gaping hole inside Randall’s chest. Robbie feels like his oldest, closest friend even if they only met while deployed in Gallipoli. Sure, war and battle draw men-in-arms together into something like brothers. He’s seen it.

But Robbie… he is so familiar. There are no other words for it, and perhaps it’s why Randall needs him more than anyone else these days.

“Hey, Randall?” Robbie asks some indefinite time later. The sun is setting in the window, so Randall thinks it’s been a few hours.

“Hmm?”

“You never said what happened to you, in Gallipoli.” Robbie runs his fingers through his hair, and his nails against Randall’s scalp send pleasant shivers down his spine. “I know it’s difficult to talk about. Seeing so much death, so much violence, it does terrible things to a man. But if I have learned anything in my life, it’s that it’s important to talk about such things.”

Randall sighs heavily. He can understand that logic. There’s only one problem.

He doesn’t know what happened.

Everytime he tries to remember what happened between the last gunfight and the day he awoke, naked, in the cellar with his father’s acquaintances, a painful lance races through his mind.

“We were sent on patrol,” he starts, even though Robbie already knows this part. He has to say something. It might jog his memory. “It was raining, and the streets smelled so much like gunpowder. We investigated a report about some Ottoman gunmen hiding in some wine cellar.” He licks his dry lips. “This… is where it’s difficult to remember. We went in, but it was a trap. Either we had a traitor in our ranks, or one of theirs fed us the information. Or they… sent us to die.”

Robbie hums and continues to card his fingers through Randall’s hair.

“They were waiting for us,” he whispers, the words more difficult to say now. “They shot us down like dogs. There was so much smoke, so many bullets…”

“I helped retrieve the bodies,” Robbie suddenly says. “We sent everyone through a morgue…” Robbie chokes up and buries his nose in Randall’s hair. “I… I don’t remember you breathing, Randy. You had lost so much blood…”

His heart skips a few beats. How had he survived, then? How was any of this possible? He thinks back to everything his father said when Randall came back to himself, that first morning. He repeats the words by rote.

“Father had my body returned and set his best doctors on it to heal me.”

Robbie chuckles wetly. “Yeah? Lucky bastard, eh?”

“Yeah, must be.” Randall shrugs and leans a little more into Robbie. His friend is so warm, so real. “I thought everyone else from the campaign was dead. How did you survive?”

It’s Robbie’s turn to shrug. “Guess we’re both lucky bastards. Death’s a mug’s game.”

Randall smiles. “Good.”

“Yeah?” Robbie’s hand stills, but he doesn’t remove it from Randall’s hair.

“Of course. Means I get to keep you, old friend.”

This time Robbie flinches, and pulls away to stare right into his face.

“Randall?” his friend asks in a shaky voice.

“Hmm?” Suddenly languid and calm, Randall leans back into his friend and tucks his head under Robbie’s chin. Robbie has always been a tall bastard. “You’re very comfortable.”

The fingers are back in his hair. “Sorry, I thought… I thought I heard something. Don’t worry about me.”

The fluttery sensation in his chest hasn’t abated, but Randall luxuriates in the way Robbie says his name. It’s nothing like how his father says it, or even his brother. Robbie says his name like it means something real, something important. Not an order, or a supplication. Just… real.

“Would you like me to read to you?” Robbie inquires after a few minutes. “Since you seem pretty comfortable. You could use a nap.”

“A nap and a story sound great.” Randall watches his friend fetch a book from one of the many bookshelves, from that section his father despises but can’t bring himself to get rid of. Randall’s mother had been the one to purchase those books, long ago. Once Robbie is back, Randall stiffly wiggles around until his head is on his friend’s lap. “Very comfortable, might require the use of your lap more frequently.”

Robbie chuckles and flicks his nose. “Hush, silly man.” He clears his throat and begins to read from The Canterbury Tales.

It takes no time at all for Randall to fall asleep to the soothing cadence of his friend’s voice. And this time — he dreams of nothing at all.

Autumn brings with it more hours spent with Robbie. They walk the gardens together, with Robbie close by in case Randall has one of his dizzy spells. It’s… so nice. Randall thinks he could live the rest of his life like this, even if it means remaining a bachelor. Even with salacious thoughts about his friend to keep him awake at night, his body doesn’t respond as he wishes it to. It’s disheartening, and it’s difficult not to despair at his impotence.

He dares not bring this delicate topic up with Robbie, even if having a friendly ear would alleviate the burden weighing on his heart.

In the back garden, far enough from the prying eyes for those always milling around Fawney Rig, is an orchard. Randall doesn’t remember what sort of apple grows here, but he knows the scent of the sweet earth like he knows his own name. He remembers, when he was a child, how his mother would wrap them both in wool blankets and set them up with a book under the trees. Other times, she would bring a short ladder and help him up to pick the apples. A woman of her station would never cook by herself in the kitchen, but the servants would use their day’s pickings for pies, sauces, and other sweets.

Now he sits here with Robbie on an old, ratty blanket. It’s difficult for him to sit comfortably on the ground these days with his braces, but Robbie always helps. They lean against the tree together, thighs almost touching, and Randall nearly feels normal again.

It makes him bold, so he asks Robbie something he’s been meaning to ask for weeks.

“You mentioned a wife, before,” he starts, bold but not daring to look at his friend. “Is she… I mean, of course, if you still had a wife, I’d be questioning your devotion to her, seeing as you’re always here now, but…”

“Ah, well.” Robbie clears his throat and presses his thigh against Randall’s. “I’m a bit older than I seem, I suppose.” He chuckles, though Randall isn’t sure why. They’re not more than ten years apart, surely? “I was indeed married for a while. Her… her name was Eleanor.”

“Yeah?” Randall encourages, voice soft, dreading the price of his damned curiosity.

“Yeah.” His friend takes a deep and slow breath. “She passed away in… in childbirth.”

“Oh, Robbie, I’m sorry—” Randall turns to face his friend, but Robbie continues, and Randall can’t bear to witness such pain in his friend’s eyes. He sits back.

“We had a son, too. Robyn.” Robbie huffs, a fragile and oh-so tender thing. “He had her eyes.”

Had her eyes. Sweet heaven, Robbie lost his wife, his son, and his unborn babe? Randall’s heart clenches fiercely, a ferocious ache rising in his throat. Losing a child, a son — it is the worst pain imaginable. It’s unforgettable. It’s like losing a part of oneself. It’s a father’s failure, somehow, and no manner of sympathy-filled words can ever ease this burden. Tears escape from his eyes, but he doesn’t move to wipe them.

“What was he like? Robyn.” He finds Robbie’s hand and tentatively interweaves their fingers together.

Robbie squeezes them.

“He was a tall, gangly thing. Hated learning his letters, couldn’t sit down for any longer than an hour or so.” There are tears in his voice, too, but Robbie huffs out a wet laugh and sniffles. “I wasn’t much better at his age, honestly.”

“I am sure he would have been as brilliant as his father,” he whispers fervently, “and just as kind.”

Robbie rolls his head around to look at him, and there are tears on his cheeks too. His smile is soft, melancholic, but so beautiful.

“Yeah?” Robbie breathes out, as though the answer might change the very alchemy of the world.

“Yes, Hob.”

Robbie’s breath hitches. “What…?” Robbie reaches over and cups his cheek, thumb tracing the wet trails of his tears. “Randall? Are you…”

Randall leans into the touch and closes his eyes. He doesn’t know where the tidal wave of pain and loss comes from, or why it crashes against the shores of his mind so violently. But he knows one thing, and it’s that he should have done this weeks ago.

He leans in to kiss Robbie.

At the first brush of his lips, Robbie freezes. Has he read the signals wrong? This gentle, easy intimacy between them? But before he can pull away, Robbie’s hand slips down to his jaw and angles him just so, in a perfect angle for their lips to meet over and over. It’s hardly more than a soft press of lips, warm and sweet from eating ripe apples from the lowest branches. Randall doesn’t remember the last time he’s kissed someone like this, as though they had all the time in the world.

Then Robbie exhales harshly, and presses his mouth more firmly against Randall’s. This time there’s a tongue licking his lips, seeking entrance, and Randall is loath to deny it entry. The kiss doesn’t grow much more heated than that, but he could lose himself in the slick slide of their tongues as they dance languidly between their mouths. He wants to trace and memorise every ridge, every spot of Robbie’s mouth. He wants to swallow him whole and crawl into his friend’s skin. He never wants to stop kissing him, even as it makes him lightheaded and wanton.

Eventually, they both have to come up for air. Robbie presses his nose along Randall’s, and Randall wishes more than anything that he still had the full range of motion of his body. He wants to sit on Robbie’s lap, wants to press up close against him and that wonderfully familiar warmth. They share light, soft kisses for a few moments longer.

“We should be careful,” Robbie whispers, “your father doesn’t seem to be the type to appreciate…”

“I know,” Randall says quickly, not wanting to think about his father right this second. But Robbie’s warning is wise, and he does not wish to anger his father without cause. So, he steals a last kiss and leans his forehead against Robbie’s. “I know.”

Someone must have seen them, because that night when Robbie leaves for his new flat in Wych Cross, his father summons him to the cellar.

Randall is helpless to resist the order. There’s something in his father’s voice, a thread hard as steel that Randall can’t ignore. He is pulled by it down the stairs, tripping a few times in his haste to obey. The stone floor is freezing cold for his bare feet. His shirt lies somewhere, discarded along with his trousers. It’s always the same thing, when he’s called to the cellar.

His father wants him vulnerable, humiliated. Sometimes his father’s acquaintances are there to witness his shame, sometimes Alex creeps down in spite of their father’s orders to remain upstairs.

“Randall!” His father grabs his arm and forcefully drags him to the centre of the room. There are a few candles lit to provide a minimum of lighting, but it doesn’t seem like Randall is to be made a spectacle tonight. “No son of mine will be a sodomite!”

His father throws him on the cold stone, and takes away his crutches. Randall knows the drill by now, and turns on his front to present his back.

“No, you filthy creature,” his father spits, “on your back.”

Randall shudders. He still has his small clothes on, but a shot of animal fear zings through him at the possibility that his father might decide to hurt his manhood. Surely he would not—?

But the implement his father wields is not sharp, and does not seem to be devised to threaten his manhood. The strip of leather is strangely similar to Randall’s braces. There are runes pressed into the leather, and something metallic blinks in the reflection of the candles around them. A shiver of dread ripples through his entire body. He doesn’t know what this implement is, but a certain part of his mind recognises it as something painful and dangerous.

“No son of mine will be a sodomite. That is not who Randall Burgess is!”

His father punctuates Randall’s name with the first slash, so that the familiar warmth (command) is accompanied by the violent press of the leather on the front of his thighs, right between the leather bands of his braces. It burns like nothing Randall’s ever experienced. It eats through his flesh and imprints right into his muscles, into his very bones.

“You are Randall Burgess!” Another hit.

Randall screams.

“Father! Please, I beg you—”

“SILENCE!” A hit of the folded leather lands right across his face.

He screams and writhes, feels blood mix with the tears he can’t hold back.

“You will do as I command, always!” His father hits his flank. “Randall Burgess!” Again. “Randall Burgess!” Again, again, again.

Whenever his father canes him, or uses a belt to his back, he never breaks the skin. No — he is too skilled with these tools of discipline to make this sort of mistake. Randall’s bruises always fade quickly, and when his father takes a knife to carve the flesh under the leather bands of his braces, it scars within minutes.

But not this. No — every hit breaks his skin and leaves him set aflame from the pain. It’s like his father is using a whip made of actual fire, like flames are licking his flesh and finding a home there.

Randall whimpers and tries to curl in on himself, but his full-body brace is so tight, so stiff, he can’t do anything but lie there and take every hit. His only hope is for his father to tire soon, to see his son’s blood on his hands and to find error with his treatment. But Randall knows it’s hopeless. His father doesn’t tire, never does.

It doesn’t matter how long it lasts. Every lash is unbearable, and the Force March pill he always has to take before heading to the cellar prevents him from losing consciousness. He stares unseeing at the ceiling, watches the shadows cast by the candles dance on the stone. Imagines he’s in a bath made of liquid fire, imagines it melting his braces. He imagines Robbie, with his soft lips, and decides this afternoon’s kisses are worth this. Randall decides every pain his father inflicts on him is worth every one of Robbie’s smiles, touches, kisses. Every finger carded through his hair.

Randall Burgess is not a sodomite, but he can be a lover. He can be Robert Gale’s lover, his friend, his confidante. Randall Burgess knows his name is nothing but a command from his father and a supplication from his brother. But from Robbie, his name is a promise.

Long hours after his father does tire and the door to the cellar is locked, Randall decides — through the spells and compulsions that haven’t yet faded to his subconscious — that he’ll be anything Robbie promises him he can be.