Chapter Text
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
Judy Garland
Once again, as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us once more
Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now
~~~~~~
Soldier of Love
An Offhand Production
Director: Missandei Naath
Producers: J. Lannister, T. Lannister
He knows it is almost Christmas because the boy who empties their waste bucket lets it slip.
Damon doesn’t know much Qartheen, but he knows numbers -- useful when trying to figure out how many goddamn rotors are flying in or how many snipers are hidden in the scrubby, endless underbrush that seems to cover this godsforsaken country.
And surprisingly he knows the Qartheen word for Christmas (even though it’s not a holiday here), having watched a dubbed version of some Christmas show or another back on the base last year.
Last year? Jesus, has it really only been one damn year?
It seems like an entirely different lifetime ago.
Since then, Damon’s existence has narrowed to this cell -- to this stinking straw -- to the lousy bowl of tepid soup or rancid hash that he gets once a day -- to the bucket that he shits in -- and to her. To Corporal Elinor Costayne -- cell mate, fellow prisoner of war, huge pain in his ass, and Damon’s only reason for not saying “the hell with it all” and tagging out of this fucking endless nightmare.
The boy hauling their shit wasn’t paying attention to them when he said it. He threw the offhand comment back over his shoulder to the man guarding them while the bucket was being emptied.
“Three days until Christmas,” he had said. And then he had said something else and laughed; and the man had yelled at him and had gestured to Damon and Elinor, and the boy had fallen silent, looking abashed.”
When the boy and the man had left, Damon had turned to Elinor to tell her what he had sussed out. “Three days until Christmas.”
She had blinked those crazy blue eyes at him. And for one moment, he had seen something in them -- seen something pass over the blue of her irises like a signal from a lighthouse; but then they had dulled again.
“That means I’ve been here for almost a year,” she had said quietly. “A year in January.”
He had only nodded stiffly at her, because what could he say to that? She had been here almost a year. They had been here almost a year. Almost a fucking year. Prisoners of war for a whole fucking year. That part of it was difficult to fathom.
Hells, the truth of it is that Damon had never thought he’d live this long.
When he had first been taken prisoner, he had been barely alive, missing a hand and a whole shit-ton of skin on his right side, having taken a direct hit from an IED in a poorly planned and even more poorly executed offensive raid.
The Qartheen medic had patched him up -- well, sort of patched him up. He had given Damon fluids, and cauterized the stump of his right arm, and bandaged his burns, thinking that a soldier of Damon’s rank would be a valuable pawn to trade.
However, they must have found out how worthless their prize really was to the Westerosi army, because, after a day or two, Damon had been moved to this cell and left to rot -- which, he kind of did -- his wound becoming infected almost immediately, his fever spiking into dangerous territory.
There was a while there when Damon had thought he was a goner -- or would have thought that, if his foggy brain had been capable of actual thought at the time.
Luckily for him, Corporal Elinor Costayne from the Fifth Battalion had been there to clean his wounds and wipe down his body when his fever climbed too high -- to hold him tightly against her when the tremors and the chills had threatened to shake out his teeth -- his brain -- his very bones.
And somehow he had come back from it -- come back from the infection and delusions and fever and pain.
Damon had never thought himself a lucky man -- but he had survived. Although, maybe that was the unlucky part of it, after all.
Damon couldn’t decide.
Would it be better to be shot of all of this bullshit? End the pain and the fear and the choking, suffocating dread once and for all?
Some days, probably yes.
But some days, when he and the Corporal are getting along -- trading war stories (literal war stories), joking and taking the piss, and ribbing each other, Damon is very, very happy to still be alive.
Besides, at least, those early days of endless, burning, pain are over.
Not like there isn’t still pain.
Shit, the both of them are constantly being taken for “interrogation” -- beaten, bruised, bloodied -- over and over again, until it becomes just part of life -- something to expect like quarterly taxes or trips to the dentist.
Damon finds it easier when they take him -- because that, at least, he knows he can handle. He survived the worst already when he had been half-blown up by that fucking IED.
Shit, they can beat the fuck out of him. He will just go away inside. Easy, peasy, lemon squee…
Well, not all that easy, actually. But doable, at least. Bearable, at least.
No, the real torture is when they take her. Those goddamn hours when he doesn’t know what is happening to her -- when he imagines the worst.
Sometimes she comes back strong -- her bruised face set and unmovable, her spirit unbent.
But sometimes she comes back cowed -- shaking and wounded and weeping -- one tiny, fragile minute away from giving up.
Those are the days that Damon hates the most. The days when she folds herself around her long legs, trying to collapse into herself and disappear. The days when she’s empty -- gone somewhere he can’t follow -- somewhere dark and cold and far away.
It sometimes takes her ages to come back to herself. She just sits in the cell, in the filthy straw, pale arms wrapped around knobby knees, her blue eyes vacant.
On those days, Damon hovers around her uselessly, trying his best to coax her back into herself -- asking her endless questions -- calling her “my lady” -- trying to goad her, or insult her, or bully her into responding.
But lately, it’s getting more and more difficult to do so.
This last time she had huddled in the corner for days, quiet as a stone, looking at him with dulled, empty eyes, as Damon prattled on.
Her eyes are dull now, as she processes the fact that it has been a year -- a year without word of a ceasefire -- a year without word of a prisoner exchange or a hostage release -- a year without word at all --not one goddamn word --- just fucking silence.
Shit, why had Damon opened his big mouth in the first place? Who cares if it’s almost Christmas? There is no Christmas here -- in this goddamn cell. Why rub salt into an already festering wound?
Fuck, he’s an idiot, as well as an insensitive asshole.
“What was it like for you?”
Her voice is low, quiet even, but it still startles him just the same.
“What? What was what like?”
“Christmas.”
The longing in her voice does something weird to his heart, makes his throat feel tight; but Damon swallows down the emotion, concentrates on keeping her talking, keeping her out of her head.
He shifts his body on the straw. They are still sitting, up against the wall, where they had been herded for the bucket exchange.
Trying for nonchalance, Damon lazily crosses one leg over the other and gives her what he hopes is an easy, friendly smile. He doesn’t want to send her back into that vacant place inside. He wants to keep her here with him.
“As a kid or now?”
“Well, not now,” she says, gesturing to the cell; and Damon’s shoulders sag a bit in relief that she is, at least, making a joke of it.
Thank god he hasn’t fucked it all up again.
“Oh, Christmas was a huge deal in the Brax house,” he explains, keeping his tone light, almost teasing. “My father was all about the show -- the spectacle. Not a whole lot of warmth, my old man, but hells, the son of a bitch knew how to make it look good.”
Damon waves his left hand around the cell dramatically. “The whole house was decorated -- tastefully, of course. None of that Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman bullshit. The Brax family didn’t have time for that common, commercial nonsense.” He gives her a slightly sheepish smile.
“The tree was insane, though. Every year, my dad had like a twenty-foot-tall blue spruce trucked in from gods knows where. Took four guys to set it up.”
He huffs, as the memories assail him. “And the presents? Christ, there were so many presents. I mean, if you had seen the piles of presents, you would have thought that the old man actually liked us.”
Elinor frowns at that detail and opens her mouth, but ends up staying silent.
“My little brother and I would spend hours shaking the boxes,” Damon continues, when it’s clear that she’s thought better of her comment. “Feeling their shapes, to see if we could guess what they were.”
He leans his head back against the wall, remembering. “Man, when we were little, we were obsessed with the idea of Santa Claus - probably because my father hated the guy. Every damn year we begged to be able to sleep by the tree on Christmas Eve -- see if we could catch Santa in the act. But my father wouldn’t let us.” He gives her a sardonic smile. “Actually, he didn’t let us believe in the big guy for very long. Didn’t want anyone else taking the credit for the gifts, I guess.” He laughs at that. “Honestly, I don’t blame him. He must have spent a fucking fortune every year.”
“Did you celebrate Christmas Eve or just Christmas?” Elinor has relaxed a bit, as Damon has spun his tale, shifted her long legs, bringing herself a tiny bit closer to him.
He side-eyes her, not able to keep the pleased smile off of his face, although he still proceeds cautiously.
“Oh, yeah. We didn’t do the whole church thing. But we sure as hell ate well.” Damon’s stomach grumbles just thinking of the meal. “Roast beef, potatoes, Grandma Brax’s famous cherry cranberry sauce, these bacony cheesy things with gravy, vegetables galore -- which, as kids, we weren’t as thrilled about -- and these fucking amazing rolls that the cook only made at Christmas. Oh, and eggnog! Not the kind in the carton -- the real, homemade stuff.” His grin widens.
“One Christmas, my brother raided my father’s liquor cabinet. Added three quarters of a bottle of Jack to the eggnog, when the cook wasn’t looking. Luckily, that happened to be the year my father had sworn off sugar, so he wasn’t any the wiser. We kids got pretty lit, though. Caught the giggles and were sent to bed without dessert.” Damon sighs and holds up his stump. “Gods, I’d give my right hand for a glass of that stuff right now.”
Elinor cracks a smile at that, but then bites it back, as if she shouldn’t joke about such things.
“I mean, granted, Christmas wasn’t always the best,” Damon continues, not wanting to paint too perfect of a picture of his childhood. “There were always hurt feelings and anger and that low-level of disappointment that my father constantly had when he looked at us. And, shit, after my mother died, we kind of just went through the motions -- played happy family without ever really being one. But, what I wouldn’t give for one of those Christmases right now.” He looks up at the ceiling. “It’s a hell of a lot better than this.” He gestures with his stump to the cell -- the one fluorescent light blinking from the hallway, as if it were trying to give a shoddy, bloodless rendition of the Christmas star.
Elinor nods, a far away look in her eye.
“What about you?” he asks tentatively.
She hasn’t really shared much about her family -- about her past.
It’s strange, she has wiped the vomit from his face and the shit from his legs, held him through his tremors and delusions, but she’s still pretty guarded about her personal details -- even after a year -- a fucking year together in this cell.
He knows she’s from a little island in the South. He knows she has a brother. Was engaged once years back -- an engagement that didn’t end well. He knows about her time in the army -- the hazing, the battles, the honors and accolades that she was awarded. But that’s it.
Mostly they talk about little things -- superficial things -- music and movies and sports and books, although Damon doesn’t have much to add to the latter conversation.
He has told her some stories about his upbringing, confessed all the sordid details about his now defunct marriage; but she’s been surprisingly reticent about her own past.
“Christmas was …” she breaks off, her blue eyes foggy for a moment. “It probably sounds trite, and more than likely I’m totally idealizing it in retrospect, but it really did seem magical … at least, it did when I was a child.”
“Tell me,” Damon says, adjusting his body so that he’s facing her. “Fuck knows, I could use a little ‘magic’ right at the moment, Corporal.”
And he’s not lying.
He could use it. Hells, he could use anything. Anything that could take him away from this goddamn cell.
She turns her head and gives him a small quirk of her lips; and, inexplicably, Damon finds that his chest hurts.
He squares his shoulders, sits up straighter to help alleviate it.
“Well, I didn’t grow up fancy like you,” she begins. “I mean, we weren’t poor or anything -- lower/middle class, I guess. But I think Christmas was always a bit of a financial stretch for my parents. My brother and I always knew to keep our Christmas list pretty short -- reasonable, you know?”
Damon nods, as if he does know. But he doesn’t. He never wanted for anything in his childhood -- well, love, of course -- but certainly nothing material.
“Actually, the whole of December was pretty special where I come from. The island is made up of mostly fishermen; and those who don’t fish, work at the cannery. And when you work that damn hard all year, you tend to enjoy the hell out of any holidays that you are given. So come December, everyone on the island goes into holiday mode -- decorates their boats with lights and wreaths and greenery and such. My brother Don and I were always in charge of hauling the decorations down from the shed and doing up my dad’s boat to make her…”
“What was the boat called?” Damon interjects, suddenly quite taken with the picture Elinor is painting.
She smiles at that. “The Just Maid. Named for my mother.”
Damon nods, contemplating the Corporal seriously. He can’t help but think that the name fits the daughter as well as the mother -- maybe even more so, although, to be fair, he has no knowledge of Elinor's mother.
“Anyway, it’s pretty festive in December to see the boats out on the water all sparkling with lights. Puts everyone in a good mood. I mean not like a twenty-foot tree or masses of presents or anything like that,” she quips, nodding to Damon, a somewhat teasing smirk on her lips. “But still quite something to see. And then, of course, there’s all the baking and brewing and gift making,” she continues, as if Damon is familiar with any of those activities.
“Did you make your own gifts?”
The story she is telling sounds like something you’d read in a book -- some quaint, idyllic time in the past. Certainly nothing like the hellscape of Qarth with its scarred and burnt landscape, the constant hum and shriek of artillery, the smell of smoke and death. Nothing like this cell -- the stink of it -- the stink of them.
“Some of them.” She frowns. “I was always shit at needlework. Couldn’t sew a straight seam to save my life, as you well know.” She gestures to his stump, to the jagged scar where she had sewn his skin closed, after the infection had finally healed. “But my brother and I were pretty good with woodworking. We made my mom a bookshelf one year that turned out really nice -- almost professional looking.”
“My, my, my, Corporal Costayne. So many hidden talents.” Damon raises his eyebrows cheekily.
“Well, they came in handy during combat,” she snipes back. “I could put together a temporary shelter quicker than anyone -- make a splint, a crutch, a shooting blind, whatever was needed.”
“I don’t doubt it, Corporal,” Damon soothes. “So what about Christmas, then? What was that like?”
“Hmm… well, Christmas Eve was pretty special on the island -- is still pretty special, I guess. When the sun goes down, everyone troops to the dock for the Christmas procession of boats. You should see it, all those big, ruddy fishermen in their best Christmas sweaters and Santa hats with little bells, driving their boats past a crowd of kids.”
“Santa’s boat comes at the very end. It’s all decked out with red, white, and gold lights; and Santa and his helpers throw candy canes and those red, gummy fish …” She grins at him, her eyes alight. “You know -- the kind that stick in your teeth and pull out your fillings? Throws them to the children waiting on the dock. And the kids have their Christmas lists, all rolled up and tied with ribbon, ready to toss into his boat in exchange.”
“After the procession, everyone heads to the church hall for a big chowder dinner with hot rolls and beer and cider prepared by one of the island’s service clubs -- the Sisters of the Seven, or the Loaves and Fishes, or the Greenseers, or whoever is on duty that year. And then everyone goes home.”
“That sounds fucking amazing,” Damon murmurs, blinking.
Suddenly the Brax family Christmases pale in comparison -- twenty-foot trees and mountains of presents, be damned.
“At home, Donny and I would change for bed and hang our stockings. And then Don would nudge the dog over in the dog bed and curl up in front of the fire -- and I would sit on my dad’s lap -- and Dad would read aloud from Christmas Day in the Morning. She shakes her head. “Even when I got too big,” she gestures down at her endless legs and huffs out a laugh. “Which was when I was like eight, Dad would always insist. ‘No matter how tall you grow, you will never be too big for your Dad, Ellie,’ he’d say; and then he’d squeeze me until I laughed.”
She breaks off, swallows hard, blinking rapidly in the hazy light.
“I don’t think my father ever held me,” Damon says, interjecting himself into the emotionally charged moment, giving Elinor time to compose herself. “If he did, I don’t remember it. The idea of sitting on his lap would have never even occurred to me or my brother.”
“What about your mom?” Elinor asks stuffily, her curiosity outweighing her melancholy.
“Probably,” Damon says, shrugging. “I don’t remember her all that much. But probably she would have held me. I mean, that’s what mother’s do, right?”
Elinor gives him a strange look -- a look that almost seems like pity; and Damon laughs, slightly embarrassed.
“Regardless, there wasn’t a whole lot of hugging and holding in the Brax household.”
“Sorry,” she breathes.
“No worries. It was fine. Good for us, really. Made us into men.” He shifts away awkwardly.
“What was the best gift you ever got for Christmas?” Damon hastily changes the subject, uncomfortable with this strange feeling that makes him feel so exposed.
“That’s easy,” Elinor says, a grin lighting up her face. “When I was nine, I got a dog -- this scrappy, wiry, disaster of a thing that looked like a cross between a Wolfhound and fucking moose. Ren was my constant companion and best friend for thirteen years.”
Damon smiles. “Nice.”
“What about you?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. A car, I guess? I got a pretty sweet Porsche when I was sixteen.”
She snorts at that. “You guess?”
He has the good grace to blush. “Honestly, I don’t remember many of the presents.”
“Too many to keep track of, Lieutenant?”
“Something like that.”
He turns to her. “What would you want now? If you could have anything?”
“To get out of here,” she says, as if it’s a foregone conclusion. “Go home. See my family.”
She looks at him, her eyes so blue. “You?”
“I’d fucking kill for a bath,” he quips; and she laughs.
“Yeah, that too.” Elinor turns her head and sniffs the top of her shoulder, wincing. “Gods, we used to tease my dad about the way he smelled coming off of a days-long fishing trip. But, shit, he smelled like roses compared to me now.”
“So … your dad, he’s still around, right?” Damon asks carefully. He’s pretty sure of the answer, but ...
“Yeah,” she says quickly, turning to him in alarm. “God, yeah. Yours is too, though, right?”
“Unfortunately.”
“He must be going crazy worrying about you.”
She says it like she means it. Like she’s not trying to make a joke or rub it in.
Damon laughs darkly. “He’s probably patting himself on the back. He told me I was a fucking idiot for volunteering for the front line. That I should have used my enormous privilege to stay at The Keep and fight from a safe distance. And he was right.” He shakes his head. “Shit, I hate that the old man was right.”
Elinor grimaces.
“Your dad, though,” Damon continues, and he can’t keep the wistfulness out of his voice. “He must be worried sick. Worried about you.” His voice cracks on the last word; and she nods.
“I know.” Her voice is a whisper. “Honestly, that’s the hardest thing about all this.” She closes her eyes, leaning back against the wall. “I wonder what he’s doing this year for Christmas. I don’t want him to be sad.”
Damon doesn’t know how to respond to that.
Suddenly he is tired.
So damn tired of it all.
Tired of the war.
Tired of this cell.
Tired of trying to keep it all together.
Tired of hoping.
He lets his head fall back against the wall; and they fall into silence, sitting there on the scratchy straw, the stupid broken light blinking from the hallway, the dulled sounds of artillery booming softly in the background.
~~~~~~
When they come for her the next day, Damon is sleeping.
There’s a commotion in the hall, and then the door to their cell is pulled open. And before Damon can get his bearings, they are wrenching her up and out into the corridor.
“Wait!” he cries, not knowing what he’d say, if they did stop.
But they pay no attention to him, roughly pushing Elinor down the hall. And all she can do is give him one panicked look before she is gone.
It’s not time for this!
It’s not fucking time for this!
The interrogation sessions are regular -- almost like clockwork. Never twice in the same month. And they had taken Elinor only a week ago.
Shit, her bruises from that session are still fading, still slightly greenish on her pale, freckled skin.
No, it’s his turn! It’s his fucking turn!
Gods, why are they taking her AGAIN?
Why the hells are they taking her?
Damon is beside himself.
He paces the length of the cell -- forward and back, forward and back.
Shit, he’s losing his mind. He’s losing his goddamn mind. And he wants to hurt someone -- hurt someone very badly.
When the boy comes with the bucket of water -- their water supply for the day -- Damon is ready for a fight.
However, sensing this, the boy doesn’t enter. He simply pushes the new bucket in, without taking the empty one, shutting the door quickly and locking it.
Damon rushes the door, his left hand grasping the cold metal, and his useless stump, falling between the bars.
“Where is she?” he growls at the frightened boy. “Where the fuck is she? What are they doing to her? If they kill her… if they fucking kill her, so help me, I’m going to burn this place down! Burn this motherfucker to the ground and everyone in it! Do you hear me? Do you fucking hear me?”
The boy looks at him strangely. Backs away two paces but doesn’t leave. Just stares at Damon.
“Please tell me,” Damon begs, swiftly changing tactics. “Please tell me where she is. What are they doing to her? Are they …”
He can’t say it.
He shakes his head and looks at the boy through watery eyes. “Is she alive?”
The boy nods his head solemnly. “No kill,” he says; and Damon feels like every muscle in his body has turned to water, as he slides down the bars until he is sprawled on the floor.
“No kill,” the boy says again. “No beat… only little.”
“Then what ...” Damon starts. “What are they doing with her?”
“TV,” the boy says. He makes a rectangle in the air with his hands. “Lady. For TV. Alive.”
“They’re filming her?” Damon asks, amazed.
The boy nods.
Gods, they must be trying to broker the release of one of the Qartheen prisoners of war. Hoping that the Westerosi army will be willing to trade Corporal Costayne for one of many Qartheen POWs that it’s holding captive.
Damon wants to cry with relief.
Does actually cry with relief.
“Thank you,” he says to the boy.
The boy nods and starts backing away.
“Wait,” Damon cries, scrambling to his feet, suddenly struck with an impossible idea.
Could he …?
Could the boy be trusted?
The boy turns to look over his shoulder but stays, watching Damon warily.
Damon pulls out all of the Qartheen he knows -- gestures to the bucket. “Christmas,” he says in Qartheen; and the boy nods. “Christmas. Lady. Hot? (he thinks he’s said that right, but he’s not entirely sure). Water. Soap.”
The boy looks at him puzzled; and Damon repeats the string of words, before bending down to take off his boot.
The boy comes a step or two closer and watches, as Damon pulls off his boot, slips out the leather insole, unearths a folded money note wrapped around a faded and torn picture of his ex-wife.
He holds the note out to the boy. “Hot. Water. Soap. Christmas,” he repeats. “Please.”
The boy looks behind him, takes three paces back; but the pull of the money is too strong, and, suddenly, he surges forward, snatching the note out of Damon’s hand.
He looks at Damon, bites his lip, his face worried.
“Christmas ...” Damon tries again.
However, before Damon can repeat his request, there is a noise from the corridor.
The boy startles, looking at Damon through wide eyes, before pocketing the money and running from the room -- leaving Damon standing, holding a picture of his ex, the cold of the concrete floor seeping up into the threadbare sole of his sock.
~~~~~~
Elinor is returned that evening, slightly worse for wear -- a few new bruises on her arms and a darkening mark below her lip. But, on the whole, in one piece.
And this time her spirits are high.
“They filmed me,” she whispers to Damon, tilting her head towards him so that she won’t be overheard. “I had to spout all this bullshit about how well they’re treating us and how civilized they’re being. But I think they are counting on a trade. Trading us for a couple of Qartheen Generals captured in the last siege of the Red Waste. I couldn’t make out most of what they were saying. But, when a guard backhanded me across the mouth, one of the guys in charge stopped him from doing more. Yelled at him about damaging my face, I think.”
Damon winces, reaching up his thumb to skate it across her bruise.
She lets out a breath, blinking rapidly, before pulling her face away.
“I think things are starting to happen,” she says hoarsely, not looking at him. “I think things are finally starting to happen.”
She is so wound up, she can barely sleep that night.
They sleep back to back, curled up on the straw -- close enough to draw warmth from each other, but not close enough to push any boundaries.
Not like Damon cares about boundaries.
But Elinor cares.
It’s strange, the closer they get, the more guarded she seems to be -- especially at night.
After all those nights early on, the nights she had kept him close, holding his wounded body against hers, as he thrashed and shook with fever, Damon had thought that closeness wouldn’t bother her. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Hells, the one freezing night he had cuddled close to her, wrapping his arm around her, she had frozen, before carefully extricating herself from under his arm and scooching away from him.
She had thought he was asleep.
But he wasn’t.
He was awake.
And he hadn’t tried since.
Especially now. Especially since he told her he wanted to take her out, when this stupid war is over and done with. Take her out on a date.
She’s been extra cautious since then. Extra careful.
It doesn’t matter that they share a cell -- that they both shit in the same bucket. She keeps her walls high.
Damon would take her wariness as an insult, as an outright rejection, except he’s caught her, many, many times, looking at him.
And all those times that he’s caught her, it sure as hells seemed like the Corporal liked what she saw.
So he’s decided to just wait her out. Give her the space she needs and hope that, someday, those walls will come down on their own.
Tonight he can feel the excitement in her body, as she thinks about release -- the tension of the muscles stretching across her back, the rapid inhalation filling her ribs.
He wants to tell her to settle down.
That it probably won’t happen.
They will probably be stuck here until the war is over -- if they survive that long.
But he doesn’t have the heart.
Instead, he moves slightly away from her so that he can’t feel her nervous energy; and eventually he falls into a restless sleep, dreaming of fire, and smoke, and pain so sharp it burns.
~~~~~~~
The boy must have taken the goddamn money and run, because, the next day, someone new comes to take the waste bucket and fill the water.
Damon sighs.
Goddamn it.
It’s not like he really needed the money. Not in this fucking cell. But still, it was the last thing he had to barter.
Elinor is surprisingly quiet, her excitement from the day before significantly dulled.
Damon tries to ask her about it; but she waves him off.
Tells him that she doesn’t feel so hot.
Worried, Damon reaches up his hand to feel her forehead; but she bats him away.
“I’m fine. Just a little under the weather.”
He nods and leaves her alone, retreating to the other side of the cell, still pissed as all hells about losing the money.
Dinner is a bleak affair -- certainly not one of the better Christmas Eve feasts that Damon’s had in his thirty-some-odd years.
The stew seems extra sour tonight -- the meat barely cooked, both rubbery and mushy in turn.
Merry fucking Christmas, indeed.
Elinor doesn’t eat much of it.
After a few bites, she pushes her half-eaten bowl away and leans back against the wall.
“I’m being stupid, aren’t I?”
Damon stops, the makeshift spoon freezing halfway to his mouth. “What?”
“Getting excited about this?” she says bitterly. “The army doesn’t care about me. I’m certainly not worth a General.” She shakes her head. “They should have used you. The army would be more likely to make a deal for a Lieutenant -- not a lowly Corporal.”
Damon laughs at that. “Christ, they don’t care about me,” he says, placing the bowl and spoon on the ground, so that he can reach out and push on her shoulder fondly, as if she is in on the joke. “I mean, they probably don’t care about you either, but they really, really don’t care about me.” He grins. “I told you about the suicide mission -- the one that lost me this.” He holds up his stump. “Shit, girl, I’m not worth a General. I’m probably not even worth a Private these days.”
“Shut up. You are,” Elinor says stubbornly, pushing out her bruised lip in a sullen pout; and Damon suddenly wonders what it would be like to have that lip in his mouth.
He shakes his head, startled at the thought.
“To you, maybe. But not to them.”
Elinor sighs heavily. “Fuck it all. We’re going to be here until the war is over, aren’t we?”
Damon smiles. “Probably.”
He leans over and bumps her shoulder with his. “But, hey, there’s no one I’d rather share a cell with, Corporal.”
She’s quiet for a long time; and Damon picks up his bowl again. Chokes down another bite.
“Me too, Sir,” she says finally -- softly.
“Hey, now. No more of that ‘Sir’ shit. We agreed,” Damon protests.
Her compliment has disconcerted him, so he falls back on teasing -- the only surefire way he knows to save the moment.
“You keep that up, and I’m going to start with the “my lady” again.”
“Gods, please no,” she groans, covering her ears with her hands.
“What’s that, my lady?”
“Stop,” she says sternly; but, before she can protest more, the door to the hallway corridor creaks open, and the boy comes in, hauling a black bucket that’s half the size of him.
Damon tenses.
The boy doesn’t look at him. Just opens the cell door, pushes the bucket in. Reaches in his pocket for a tattered rag wrapped around a hard object.
He says something in Qartheen that sounds like “one time” or “hour” or something, tossing the rag into the cell, locking the door, and running back out of the hall.
“What the hells?” Elinor breathes; but Damon is already up and on his feet.
He approaches the object cautiously, bends down, and unwraps the tattered rag.
It’s soap.
Hard soap that smells faintly of almonds and something spicy.
Damon straightens, puts the soap and rag under his arm, and walks to the bucket, dipping his left hand into the water.
Fucking hells, it’s hot.
It’s fucking hot water.
He could cry. He could fucking cry right here -- right now.
Instead he turns to Elinor, still sitting against the wall watching him, her jaw slack.
“Merry Christmas, my lady.”
She wrinkles her brow. “Don’t call me that.” But she is sitting up, looking at him. “What … what is that?”
Damon smiles. “You said that you’d kill for a bath.”
She shakes her head. “No, you said you kill for a bath.”
“Yeah, but you agreed with me.”
“Is that …?” She rises to her feet, takes a step towards him.
“It’s hot water,” Damon says. He holds out the rag. “And soap.”
“But how …?”
“Merry Christmas,” he says again.
She walks to the bucket, reaches in and lets out a groan. “Jesus. It’s hot.”
She stands to face him. “It’s fucking hot.”
“I know,” he smiles.
“Lieutenant. It’s hot water.” Her voice is high-pitched, incredulous.
“I know. And there’s soap.” He pushes the soap into her hands.
She smells it. Closes her eyes. Opens them again and looks at him strangely.
“I could fucking kiss you.”
He can’t stop the flush that splashes up his face. “I …” he sputters. “Well, I think …”
“You should go first,” Elinor says, handing the soap to him. “I’ll keep watch.”
She gestures to a dark corner of the cell. “Move the bucket into the corner, and I’ll keep a watch on the door.”
However, he grabs her arm before she can get far.
“It’s your present. You go first,” he rasps.
“Lieutenant…”
“No, I insist,” he says. “It’s your fucking present, Corporal. Just accept it graciously and say thank you.”
She does kiss him then, just a faint brush of lips against his cheek that suddenly has all of his blood rushing to where her mouth has pressed and … um, to other places too.
“Thank you,” she whispers and then leans down to pick up the bucket, haul it into the dark corner of the cell.
He stands with his back towards her, but he can still hear her. Hear her shirt dropping to the floor, hear the rasp of the zipper of her pants, hear the splash of the water.
“Fuck,” she mutters under her breath; and Damon feels his pants start to tighten.
That isn’t good.
This is supposed to be her Christmas present. A nice thing for her. And here he is acting like a letch -- a dirty old man who can’t control himself.
He shifts his weight between his feet, trying to conjure up the face of his father mid-lecture -- the old man yelling at him yet again for being too impetuous, too naïve, too stupid.
There’s a bigger splash; and Damon tries not to think of what she’s washing now.
Football. Football and beer and trucks and Aunt Marjorie’s green bean casserole that smells like feet, and that time he slammed his fingers in the car door, when he actually had fingers on his right hand -- shit, when he actually had a right hand and…
He’s totally immersed in his thoughts when he feels a soft hand on his shoulder.
He startles, whipping around to meet the clean, scrubbed face of Corporal Elinor Costayne -- her wet, blond hair dripping onto her green fatigues.
“Your turn,” she smiles.
Gods, her freckles are cute. Damon wants to trace them with his finger.
His left hand flexes against his thigh at the thought.
“Water’s still warm,” she says. “Go. I’ll keep watch.”
And so Damon goes, unbuttoning his overshirt with stiff fingers, stripping off his t-shirt, kicking off his boots, pushing down his pants.
And she’s right. The water feels good.
Fucking good.
He scrubs himself all over, praying that she won’t turn around and find him standing here at a full salute. He’d never live that down. Although, maybe, just maybe, if he asked her really nicely, she might be willing to help him … um … relieve a few things, him finally being clean and all.
His hand on the rag tightens, as he imagines it.
Shit, Brax, get a hold of yourself. Jesus Christ, man!
He dips his head in the bucket, takes the soap and scrubs his hair, his beard, under his arms, his painfully excited junk. Washes the soap off with the rag, feeling like years of his life are washing away with all of the grime.
Gods, this was the best idea he’s had in a very long time.
When he is fully clean, Damon looks down at the pile of dirty clothes.
“I wish we had clean clothes,” he grouses to Elinor’s back.
She grunts. “I kept off my skivvies,” she admits; and Damon almost chokes on his tongue.
“I figured, when you were done, I’d wash them. Let them dry tonight.”
He coughs. “Good idea, Corporal,” he manages. “Socks too, I think. Anything else, and the guards will get suspicious.”
She nods.
Still blushing, Damon extracts his boxers and socks from the pile of soiled fabric and pulls on the rest of his clothes.
He clears his throat. “I’m decent,” he says, his face heating at the lie.
“You’re not fucking decent,” the voice inside his head chastises. “No decent man would have those thoughts about a fellow soldier on Christmas Eve.”
Elinor turns to him, appraising him with those ice blue eyes of hers. “You look different,” she says, cocking her head to study him.
“Cleaner,” he quips. “Fewer lice, maybe.”
“Whatever it is, it suits you.”
Suddenly realizing what she’s said, she shakes her head, blushing to the roots of her hair.
Damon grins at her; but she only harrumphs, walking over to the bucket and bending down to wash her undergarments.
Damon joins her, trying not to look too hard at what it is she’s washing.
“How did you arrange all this?”
Damon gives her a smug look. “Santa and I are like this,” he says crossing two fingers of his left hand.”
She snorts. “Oh, please. You’ve never been on Santa’s Nice List in your life, Lieutenant, and you know it.”
“Hey, now, Corporal. Is that any way to talk to someone who just gave you the best Christmas gift you’ll get this year?”
“You mean the only Christmas gift I’ll get this year.”
“The best gift,” he insists.
Suddenly, she stops what she’s doing, looking up at him stricken. “Shit. I don’t … I don’t have anything for you, Sir.”
“You can stop calling me 'Sir,' and we’ll call it even,” he says, rolling his eyes.
She nods, just looking at him earnestly.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” she murmurs quietly; and he’s gone.
He’s gone in her eyes.
In the fucking blue of her eyes.
“Damon. My name’s Damon,” he rasps, finally, noticing that his sock is dripping all over his bare feet, wetting the cuff of his pants.
He returns the sock to the bucket, wringing it out one-handed, and then setting it on the straw to dry.
She bites her lip in hesitation, just watching him with those eyes of hers. “Thank you, Damon.”
He nods, suddenly feeling overly warm, despite his wet hair, his bare feet, the chill of the cell.
“You’re very welcome, Elinor.”
~~~~~~
The boy comes back and gets rid of the bathwater without anyone being the wiser.
Damon wants to thank him; but the boy shakes his head at him before he can open his mouth. Instead the boy grabs the bucket and rag and locks the cell behind him, muttering something under his breath.
Damon can only make out the word “Christmas.”
The boy leaves the soap; and Elinor carefully hides it under the straw in the corner of the cell. There’s enough to last for a while, if they are careful and not too liberal with its use.
They sift through the straw to find the cleanest patch, not wanting to dirty themselves again, and settle down, back to back, both of them smelling a hells of a lot better than they have in a long-ass time.
Damon wants to say something, make a joke of it, but suddenly his throat feels too tight, his tongue too big.
So they stay silent, lying there, back to back.
Elinor is shifting nervously, squirming to get comfortable; and Damon is about to give up hope of ever getting any sleep, when she speaks.
“Thanks again for the gift.” Her voice is low, almost a whisper.
“My pleasure.”
“I … Honestly, I don’t think I could do this -- get through all this -- without you.”
“You could,” he says simply.
“No, I don’t … I don’t think I could.”
He presses his back into hers firmly in protest. “Bullshit. You’re the strongest fucking person I know, soldier.”
“Bullshit,” she answers him back, her own tone testy. She’s quiet for a beat, and then begrudgingly, “Maybe the second strongest, though?”
He grins. “Oh yeah, and who’s the first, then?”
“You, Sir.”
Her faith in him -- in his abilities -- hits him like a mac truck; and it’s all he can do to stop himself from rolling over and throwing his arm around her.
He goes for a joke instead. “What did I say about calling me 'Sir,' my lady?”
“Sorry. Sorry,” she excuses.
She falls silent for a moment, still restless.
“I feel bad,” she finally mutters. “You gave me such a great gift, and I didn’t give you anything.”
Damon shrugs, hoping she can feel his movement. “I forgive you. It’s not like you had many opportunities to shop for anything this year.” He huffs out a laugh.
“Yeah,” she says dully.
She inhales noisily. Lets out her breath. Inhales again.
“Could I …” she breaks off, falls silent. “Only you mentioned … earlier … when we were talking about family and Christmas...”
Suddenly, she sounds like she’s been running a marathon, her breathing coming in quick, labored puffs.
“You said something about not being held, when you were a kid. About your parents never holding you…”
Damon feels the flush, even in the cold of the night.
He keeps silent, though, letting her struggle through this.
“I just thought… I mean, it’s stupid, I know.”
He hears her swallow.
“I just thought that maybe… you might like me to ...um, hold you? This Christmas Eve? It’d be warmer; and you could just pretend it was your parents -- your family… uh, someone you love?”
Damon shuts his eyes tightly, concentrating on keeping his voice even, his movements small.
“Don’t scare her,” his brain warns. “Don’t fucking scare the girl.”
He is silent too long; and Elinor starts backpedaling.
“Never mind,” she excuses. “It was a stupid idea. Let’s just go to sleep, yeah? Go to …”
“I’d like that,” Damon interrupts her, and feels her back slump, as if she had been holding her breath. “I’d like that very much. Only, I don’t want to make you do something you don’t want to do.”
“I …” She clears her throat, steadies her voice. “I wouldn’t offer, if I didn’t,” she says firmly, sounding somewhat annoyed at his concern.
Damon nods, steels himself, rolls over.
And, after a deep breath, Elinor mirrors his movements, rolling over to face him.
He can see by the faint, fluorescent light of the hallway that her face is bright red. But somehow it only makes her more lovely.
He reaches up his hand, lets his index finger softly trace the freckles on her scarred cheek, the way he had wanted to earlier. “You’re sure, Corporal?”
She nods; and then, before she can lose her nerve, moves closer to him -- fits her arm around him and pulls his head and upper body into her shoulder and chest.
“Is this OK?”
Damon inhales, smelling the spicy tang of the soap, feeling the slight dampness of her hair, the warmth of her body. “Yeah. This is good.”
They lie quietly together -- their bodies awkward -- adjusting to the proximity of each other -- the feel of each other’s flesh, the hard angles and sharp points -- before finally relaxing, their muscles slowly softening, loosening.
After long moments of silence broken only by their slightly ragged breathing, Damon speaks.
“I want to change my answer.”
“What?” Elinor croaks. Her voice is sleepy -- endearingly rough.
“Earlier -- I said the best gift I ever got was the Porsche. But, it’s not.”
He shifts, burrowing further into her warmth. “The best Christmas gift I ever got is this. This right here.”
She laughs, her chest rising with the action; and Damon can’t stop his grin at the sound. He lifts his head to gaze up at her.
She is bright.
So damn bright.
It almost hurts his eyes to look at her.
“You are such a fucking liar, Lieutenant.” But her arms tighten around him, drawing his head back into the shelter of her body.
“Damon,” he reminds her.
“Damon,” she repeats softly. And then, “Merry Christmas, Damon.”
“Merry Christmas, Elinor.” He speaks the words into her throat, watching her skin tighten and shiver in response.
One of her hands reaches up to tentatively card through his hair; and Damon relaxes into it, reveling in her touch -- in her care -- in the warmth of her neck, the spicy smell of her skin.
And soon -- much too soon -- their breathing regulates.
Their bodies sag and go limp.
And eventually … eventually … they drift off to sleep.
There on the scratchy straw of their cell.
The artillery shelling blessedly silent for one night.
The broken fluorescent light of the hallway blinking its faint, glowing gleam into the darkness.