Page 86 of The Words Beneath the Noise

Art's eyes flashed. “You think this is weakness?”

“What else would you call it?”

“I'd call it surviving.” He was on his feet now, pacing the small space like he did when equations weren't balancing. “I'd call it carrying more weight than any person should have to carry. I'd call it being a man who's seen things that would break most people and still getting up every morning and doing the job anyway.”

“You don't understand?—”

“Don't I?” He spun to face me, and there was something wild in his expression, something cracking open behind his careful control. “You think I don't know what it feels like to be drowning? To lie awake calculating how many people died because I wasn't fast enough? To walk into the canteen and wonder if anyone can see the blood on my hands even though it's invisible?”

“That's different.”

“How? How is it different?” His voice rose. “Because I don't pull the trigger? I just tell other people where to aim. Because I sit in a warm hut instead of a trench? People still die, Tom. My work still kills them. And I have to live with that every single day while pretending I'm fine, everything's fine, I'm just odd Arthur Pembroke with his numbers and his notebooks and his complete inability to function like a normal person.”

He was shaking now too. Hands clenched at his sides, breath coming fast, and I could see the same fractures in him that I felt in myself. The same barely-held-together edges.

“At least you have an excuse,” he continued, quieter but no less raw. “At least people understand that soldiers come back damaged. What's my excuse? I've never been shot at. I've never watched a friend die. I just sit at a desk and translate death into neat little reports and then can't sleep because the numbers won't stop.”

I got to my feet. Unsteady, but upright. “Art?—”

“Don't tell me it's different. Don't tell me I don't understand. We're the same, Tom. Broken in the same places. Carrying the same weight.” His voice cracked. “And I'm so bloody tired of pretending I'm not.”

The space between us had shrunk. Two steps, maybe three. Close enough that I could see the dampness on his cheeks, tears he probably didn't know he was shedding. Close enoughthat when he swayed slightly, exhausted by his own outburst, I reached out to steady him without thinking.

My hand on his arm. His hand coming up to grip my wrist. Both of us breathing hard, raw and exposed in ways we'd spent our whole lives avoiding.

“You're not weak,” he said, fierce. “You're not. And if you ever say that again I'll... I don't know what I'll do but it will be decidedly unpleasant.”

Something bubbled up in my chest. A laugh or a sob, impossible to tell which. “Decidedly unpleasant?”

“I'm not good at threats.” His mouth twisted, almost a smile. “But I mean it. You're the strongest person I know. And I won't let you believe otherwise.”

“Art.” His name came out broken. “I'm not strong. I'm barely holding on.”

“Then hold on to me.” Simple. Certain. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I'm not going anywhere.”

The bathroom was quiet. The whole estate was quiet, everyone still in chapel or gone to bed, and we stood in that small space with our hands on each other and our walls crumbled at our feet.

“Why?” The question scraped out before I could stop it. “Why do you care so much?”

“Because you're bona.” The Polari slipped out soft, almost unconscious. “Because you're the first person who ever looked at me and didn't seem to wish I was different. Because when you're near I can actually breathe instead of just performing breathing.”

His fingers tightened on my wrist. I could feel his pulse hammering against my palm.

“Because I want—” He stopped. Swallowed. Started again. “Because I want things I've never let myself want before. And it terrifies me. And you terrify me. And I don't care. I don't careabout any of it because you're here and you're real and you see me, Tom. You actually see me.”

“I see you.” The words came out rough, barely a whisper. “I've been seeing you since the moment you corrected my grammar in the middle of a snowstorm.”

His laugh was wet, surprised. “That was obnoxious of me.”

“It was you.” I brought my other hand up, touched his jaw. Felt him shiver. “And I can't stop seeing you. Can't stop thinking about you. Can't stop wanting?—”

I didn't finish the sentence. Didn't have to.

His mouth found mine in the half-dark, clumsy and desperate and tasting of salt. Nothing like the careful, tentative thing I'd been imagining in my weaker moments. This was raw. This was need. This was two people who'd been drowning finally finding something to hold on to.

I kissed him back like I was dying. Like he was the only air left in the world. Pressed him against the bathroom wall and felt his hands fist in my shirt and made a sound I didn't recognise as my own voice.

“Not here.” Art gasped against my mouth. “Not... there's a bed. My room has a bed.”