Aundrea Singer's Blog

It's Hurt/Comfort Bingo ( hc_bingo ) time again!

Last year's card is here, and I murdered that sucker. It was awesome. :D I don't know if I'll get as many squares this year, but I certainly aim to try (and if I hit, there will be injuries).

Here is my painfully beautiful card for this year:


crucifixion
arena
betrayal
strapped to a moving vehicle
amnesia

isolation
surgery
loss of hearing
humiliation
loss of identity

nausea
confession in desperate situation
WILD CARD
Accept Injury to Protect Someone
self-harm

eating disorders
sex pollen
headaches / migraines
destruction / natural disasters
minor illness or injury

serial killers
assault
phobias
learning to be loved
combat



As you can see, I've already filled a square. Misery for the win. :D

Welcome to my Livejournal. If you're looking for Aundrea Singer, you've come to the right place. If you'd also like to find me other places, I have a whole mess of links, including where you can find my novels, just a small scroll down to the right.

If you'd like to know more about me, here is my bio at About Me.com. My short fiction is all right here under the here have a story tag. If, on the other hand, you'd prefer to read my fanfic, here it is at Archive of Our Own.

My main blog is Aundrea Singer.com, which I'm planning to update regularly. New short fiction will be crossposted there, as well as the Archive of Our Own.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment to this post, or contact me via aundreasinger.com.

Thank you!

Written for the prompt Temperance at wordsinthebrain .


Margaret didn't go to clubs.

She didn't go by 'Peggy', either. Hadn't ever, in fact, though 'Maggie' had been tried a few times. 'Marge'. 'Meg', even. They all slid off like water. Margaret wasn't the sort of person to whom things stuck. Though, she thought with a vague internal sigh as she gazed at her ruined blouse, perhaps that had changed since she'd died.

It'd been a nice blouse. There wasn't much blood on it, but it wasn't the sort of stain one could explain to the cleaners. She'd have to try salt and cold water when she got home. Maybe some soda; that was supposed to work—

The young man, who was very much the sort who went to clubs, shifted in her arms and exhaled the scent of cheap beer across her cheek. His shiny, dark burgundy dress shirt had blood on it too, not that it would show. The bruise on his neck would. It was large and ugly, surrounding the puncture wounds like a hickey delivered by an overly enthusiastic vacuum cleaner. Distressing.

Margaret licked the small, ragged holes again, to make sure they stayed closed. The fang marks, at least, would be gone by morning. She'd no idea how he'd explain the bruise. Not that it mattered, really, because he wouldn't remember anything.

The fact he wouldn't remember was the only good thing about the entire circumstance. Margaret favored precision and discretion in all things. This greasy alley offered a perfect example of exactly neither. It grated; shoddy jobs always did.

He groaned, finally coming round, which at least meant Margaret could get out of the extremely uncomfortable crouch she'd been in whilst keeping him off the pavement. He blinked open eyes so dark it was difficult even for her to tell where the enormous pupils ended and the color began. He'd been high as a kite before he was fed on. Now…well, luckily it was early Sunday morning. She'd hate for him to trip over his feet and break his neck on the way to work.

"Can you tell me your name?" She had to raise her voice so he could hear her above the skull-rattling music pounding through the building's walls.

An enchanted smile curled clumsily at his lips. "Are you an angel?"

She didn't, quite, roll her eyes. "Yes. Absolutely. Now, pay attention. Can you tell me who you are?"

He had to think about it, which wasn't surprising, but then he beamed again like he'd just won a prize. "Josh!" he said with triumph. "Josh Shcherbyna. What's your name?"

"Gabrielle," she said immediately, since it wouldn't matter. "And if you can remember a last name like that you'll probably be fine. I'm going to stand you up now. Don't pass out."

She stood, hauling him up. He tottered, then leaned heavily against her. "You're really beautiful," he slurred into her neck. "Like Posh…No. Baby…? Spice… The black one."

"Thank you ever so much." Margaret shook out her ankles one at a time. She loathed these impractical heels, but needs must and all that. "Melanie Brown is one of my heroes."

"Really?"

"No." She pulled one of his flopping arm across her shoulders, cinching him flush against her side. "I really hope you don't live far from here."

"Um," he said. Margaret sighed internally again. "I have a flat," he added helpfully. "It's, um, there." His gesture encompassed roughly the entire planet.

"Lovely." Margaret adjusted her grip and began pulling him out of the ally. "I need you to look at me until we've reached the street. Do you understand me, Joshua? Whatever you do, you must only look at me, all right? Your beautiful Angel Spice Girl. You look at me and nothing else."

He nodded heavily. "I love you."

"Of course you do." She led him past the mangled lump half hidden amongst the bulging, leaking garbage bags. The smell of blood and new death was enough to make her gag, but Joshua didn't seem to notice. Good. Even if he wouldn't remember it, calming him down in the short term would still take effort she didn't care to spend. "Next time someone too perfect to be real invites you behind the club for a quick shag, you're going to tell them to sod off, aren't you?"

Her implicit command would stick; she could tell by the way he blinked before he nodded. "But, you're perfect," he protested sadly.

"Yes, except I'm an angel and I'm taking you home, not going to fuck you."

"Oh." He drooped like a scolded puppy. A scolded puppy who was also high as a kite. "You could, though."

He sounded remarkably eager for someone who was stumbling like a horse trying to walk on two legs after having a stroke. "Oh, I am exquisitely aware of just how easy you'd be right now. But the only thing I'm going to do is take you home, give you a glass of orange juice and put you to bed."

Joshua didn't answer, possibly because he was trying to remember whether he had any orange juice. Or a bed.

"I have to walk you home, though," he said at last. "You're a girl."

"Thank you for noticing." He was too stoned to be anything but earnest, which made his offer sweet instead of dodgy. "But I'm an angel, remember? I'll be fine."

"My beautiful spice angel," he said.

"Exactly."

They reached the street and she started the slow walk around to the front of the club, in the hopes Joshua could remember his way home more easily from there. There were still people out, standing in clusters outside the pub doorways, drinking from plastic cups and laughing with the insouciance of the deeply inebriated. No one paid her or Joshua any mind, just like no one would remember them. The two people walking close as lovers would slip like mercury through their minds, just like this night would slip through Joshua's. Her shambling, pliant burden would wake up—probably late Monday morning—with an empty glass of juice on his night table, a bad hangover and a bruise he couldn't explain. Maybe he'd take it as a sign he needed to be more careful. More likely he'd just decide he'd had a really good time.

Margaret didn't care one way or the other, though the world could always use fewer idiots. All that mattered was that Joshua of the nigh-unpronounceable last name would get home safely, and that her city now had one less greedy, stupid predator to ruin things for everyone.

There were rules, after all, and discretion was the primary one. Exsanguinated corpses with holes in their neck weren't discrete, and unnecessary besides. A few sips, a gulp or two, was generally more than enough to leave everyone involved happy and alive. Dead bodies, on the other hand, left grief and fear and questions. Grief was cruel and fear was dangerous, but questions were worst of all.

There would be questions about the anonymous dead body in the alley, but ultimately it would be dismissed as a random robbery gone particularly badly. Margaret was very good at that.

But her kind would know it for exactly what it was. And they'd heed it, or she'd come after them.

And perhaps, in a week or two, she'd hunt up Joshua and see if he still thought she looked like an angelic Spice Girl when he was in his right mind. She was sure his untainted blood would taste lovely.

She'd only take a little bit.

END


This story also fills the Dub-Con square of my hc_bingo card, though more in its absence than presence. And hey, it's happy! Happyish! Not terrible!

Hey, everyone!

Here I am at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Las Vegas, and I haven't been outside since Sunday evening! I'm anticipating returning to Texas exhausted, pale and squinting. It'll be great.

While I'm here, Dreamspinner Press has been selling Aiden's Angel for $1.00. (Here it is on Amazon.) I volunteered for this in the hopes it might mean that people would actually know the book existed.

Apparently it worked, because I just got an email from All Romance EBooks saying it hit their bestseller's list. :D I am very, very happy.

It'll be on sale until sometime on the 17th, in case any of you would like to read about magic, angst and angels for less than a cup of Starbucks coffee to go with it.

I'll be back online for reals starting Monday. Right now I need to eat something before the next event. I'm thinking a ridiculous Las Vegas buffet might be in order.

Today, I am pleased to inform all and sundry, is the Beautiful brumeier 's birthday! In honor of this auspicious event, I have forced cajoled bribed threatened been lucky enough to elicit Rodney McKay's help in creating a music mix for her. You can see how thrilled he is.



Happy birthday, sweetheart! I hope you have a great day!

Written for the prompt from this post at wordsinthebrain .



She waits on the wrong side of the barrier next to the water, leaning against the worn wood. The clouds churn dark grey above her, bleeding into black at the edges where the night is falling. It might rain, it might not. Either way it'll be dark and cold. The water smacks at the docks over and over again, like a petulant child. The lake has a constant smell of old fish, oil and garbage, wrinkling her nose every time the wind pushes her hair back. It's late and damp and unpleasant and she's the only one around: the one living shadow under the crackling boardwalk lights.

It's a good night to drown.

In the distance, she hears the long, cold blast of a ferry, and she shivers, pulling the folded blanket tighter against her chest. It could happen hours from now, she knows; it could be minutes. Nights like this, she's always here at the same time anyway.

Tonight, there's still a sheen of daylight over the water when she sees—when she thinks she sees—the telltale ripple of movement towards the shore. She loses it several times before it's finally close enough that it's unmistakable, but she doesn't start walking until his head breaks the surface and he shakes the wet bangs out of his eyes.

He puts his hands on the dock and heaves himself out of the water, climbing to his squelching, sneakered feet on the worn, slick wood. It's too dark to see the blue of his lips, but she knows exactly how cold that water is. She unfolds the blanket and wraps it around his shoulders.

"How long?" he asks, just like always. His voice trembles from cold, despite the blanket clutched around him. Water cascades from his hair and skin and clothing, pooling on the wood until it leaks between the slats or runs over the side. She brings the blanket every time, but stopped trying to dry or warm him years ago. He will never be dry or warm.

"A week," she says, just like she always does. He nods distantly.

"Are my parents okay?" He asks, trembling. He always asks that too.

"They're fine. They miss you." He nods again and she's glad, as she usually is, that he can't see her face in the dark. Once he would have caught the lie; now his eyes shine like wet stones and he believes everything.

"Can we sit? I'm cold," he says, and she leads him up the dock to a black iron park bench on the other side of the barrier. They sit, facing the lake. His side is covered in rust.

She puts her arms around him, leans her head on his shoulder the way she used to. Once he would have put his arms around her too, held her close and kissed her hair. Now he stares out at the black water, clutching the blanket and shivering.

"I'm so cold," he says. "Can we go home, please? I just want to go home."

She swallows, throat aching like she's sick. "Of course we can. It'll just take some time."

"Okay." He says nothing for a long while after that, eyes fixed on the dark. She rubs his back. The blanket is soaking but he's not any nearer to being dry.

The ferry's horn sounds again. She startles, gasping. He doesn't notice.

"I saw something in the water," he says. "It was bright, like a lantern among the weeds. I tried to find it."

"Did you?"

He shakes his head. "It disappeared. It always disappears."

"One day you'll find it," she says. "I promise, one day you will."

"If I find it I can go home, right?" He turns his head finally. The hope in his watery, glittering eyes is terrifying.

She smiles for him anyway. "We both can."

"It'll be warm there, won't it?"

"Yes." Her voice cracks, her smile brittle and tight. "And dry too. Dry and so, so warm."

"It would be nice, to be warm again."

She nods because her throat hurts, then holds him as the water drips down and he shivers and stares out at the darkness. Until she hears the ferry one more time.

"It's time to go," she says.

He looks stricken, but he nods and stands, relinquishes the blanket when she tugs. She walks with him to the end of the dock, waits as he stands there, looking down at the black, lapping water.

"Will you come back?"

"Yes. I promise." She puts her hand on the nape of his neck. It's pale and icy cold. "You go on now." She nods at the water. "It's all right."

He looks at her one last time, his face suffused with resignation and fear, and then he steps off the end of the dock and disappears from sight. There's no splash when he breaks the lake's surface.

She steps back, crumpling the wet blanket in her arms. It's soaking now and chills her papery, wrinkled skin.

His parents have been dead more than twice as long as he was ever alive. She won't stop coming back here, though. Not until he can find the bright thing in the water, and they can both go home.

In the meantime, she stands on the dark, wet wood and shivers, waiting for the ferry to come.

END


This also fills the Unwanted Transformation square of my hc_bingo card.

I would like to say that my next story will be happier, but it's me so I can't. But I certainly appreciate anyone who's brave enough to read it anyway. ♥

So, Empire Online posted this thing about how Captain America: Civil War is a love story but Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are not boyfriends (Which I found out via this Tumblr post originally by YouNeedToStrut). For those of you who aren't into links, the Empire post by Phil De Semlyen talks about how director Joe Russo refers to Civil War as a brotherly love story, saying:

"These are two guys who grew up together, and so they have that same emotional connection to each other as brothers would, and even more so because Bucky was all Steve had growing up."

Now, I made my own post about that whole 'Brotherly' thing back in February, generally going on the assumption that the Russos were madly trying to avoid a mass homosexual freakout. And then Sebastian Stan said this:

"I think it’s easy and generalising [sic] it to say that they’re lovers, when you’re forgetting that one has a lot of guilt because he swore to be the protector of the other, the father figure or older brother so to speak, and then left him behind." Adds the actor: "I have no qualms with it but I think people like to see it much more as a love story than it actually is. It's brotherhood to me."

Here's the thing. He's not wrong, and the Tumblr post I mentioned above has some thoughtful discussions on that fact. I know for myself that even way back in my Star Trek: Enterprise fandom days, I would occasionally wonder if we slashers were devaluing male friendship by interpreting the male characters' chemistry as romantic so much of the time. And I'm certainly aware that friends can love each other platonically.

And yet, I'm just so freaking disappointed.

It doesn't matter to me that the Russos' Word of God is that Bucket and Steeb are only friends. I'm used to creators overlooking or blindly ignoring aspects of their own work, especially when it veers towards territory they're uncomfortable with. Given what I've seen of Disney properties, it seems reasonable that even if the Russos were all over the Stucky like Red on Johann Schmidt, the mouse paying them would never, ever go for it.

But this is Sebastian Stan, who has played gay characters before and is actually playing Steve's long-lost whatever now. And if the actual actor who made Bucky Barnes live for us says Bucky and Steve are bros, not lovers, then...Then it's true. Then my wanting to see their relationship as anything other than that feels wrong. Illegitimate. Not a reinterpretation of canon, but a desperate scrabbling for something that never existed.

It's weird. I shipped Danny Williams and Steve McGarrett even when Hawaii 5-0 kept throwing women at Steve like spaghetti at a wall. In Stargate: Atlantis, I happily wrote around the cannon Rodney McKay/Jennifer Keller relationship to keep him with John Sheppard. I love Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton shacking up even though they were both with other people in Age of Ultron (then again, I ignore a lot of things about Age of Ultron). But Sebastian Stan calls No Homo and suddenly I feel like a kid sneaking porn.

I wanted his approval, damn it. Not for me or my fic, because that's pathetic and creepy. But for the possibility that went into the fic. I wanted him to say, 'sure, that's cool,' and instead I got condemnation.

Maybe it is overly facile to see romance where there's only deep affection. Maybe we (female) writers are just picking out nonexistent subtext for all the same varied reasons we enjoy slash in general. Maybe we're just seeing what's not intended to be there, because we've been trained to (I urge you to read this brilliant essay on that subject). Maybe an actor's opinion about the character he plays shouldn't carry more weight than my own, but it feels heavier all the same.

This issue is that, as a writer who also writes fanfic, I'm always fighting the sense that my hobby is illicit; that I'm furtively dabbling where I don't belong. Allowing myself to do what I do is hard enough, without the knowledge that one of the actors who inspired it wouldn't accept my perception of his work. The fancy of tacit approval, no matter how spurious, is far more liberating than the certainty of its opposite. And honestly, I was expecting the guy who made his career playing troubled, gay sons to not reject the thought of a gay romance out of hand. Maybe seeing a romance in every love story is generalizing and easy, but that didn't mean he had to make it difficult.

Hello, my beauties, and Happy Friday! Monday the March Break officially begins and I will be going to Canada with my kid to visit the fam. It should be awesome.

While I readily admit that I, too, can be at times almost as awesome as a trip to Canada to visit the fam, I am, as I'm fairly sure you're aware, human and therefore extremely fallible. Occasionally more fallible than your average bear, so to speak. There have been times, I admit, when the only thing keeping my mouth shut or my fingers still is the fact that I don't like hurting peoples' feelings. I am a big adherent to the rule that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all (or just hit the back button). I've also gotten pretty good at keeping things to myself.

All that typed, between you and me there have been many, many times with I've just wished I could, for example, leave a comment on someone's fic or their post that completely represented what I was thinking. Now, I would never actually do that (see above). I'm not generally a mean person and life is too short not to be nice.

But. And I hope I'm not alone in this, but. That hasn't stopped me from compiling a list of things I could say, but have and will not. I've included it here, because I can.

I hope some of you might unleash your baser selves and contribute in the comments, bearing in mind that this is nothing but venting, not aimed at anyone. Just devilish self-indulgence that I won't partake in out loud again.

I just think that we're entitled to what we feel, and allowed to feel things even if they're bad. The point is not to inflict those feelings on anyone else. Which is why they're under a cut.

But if you'd like to join me, there's plenty of room on the dark side. And we have cookies.

• Thank you for reminding me why I hate this pairing.
• Thanks! I really appreciate being able to find out just how fast I can hit the back button!
• Yes, your story is just as terrible as you warned us it would be. Yes, you really shouldn't have posted it. Next time you should listen to yourself.
• If you don't know how to tag, why do you have so many tags?
• Just from reading this, I know you're way uglier than that person you're insulting.
• Your politics suck. Your values suck. Your education sucks. You suck too.
• I'm sorry, I'm not going to go along with your passive-aggressive ploy for attention.
• Actually, I'm really sorry you don't want to leave the group/archive/list/forum faster.
• Can I comment urging you not to update?
• I had no idea anyone could write something as excruciating as the last phone conversation I couldn't escape from.
• This is my favorite trope, my favorite fandom and my favorite characters. And yet you've managed to make it unreadable. Congratulations!
• You write really well. I just wish you ever wrote anything I wanted to read.
Thank you for your forbearance and understanding. Now I'm going to take a shower.

I'm not apologizing to Demi Lovato, because I'm linking to the really cool video I stole the chorus from.

Let me say, O best-beloveds, that there is nothing at all wrong with giving compliments. I used to not do it very often, because it felt safer to keep things to myself than to court the potential embarrassment of engaging in a possibly unwelcome interaction. But then I got older and I decided that life is too short not to tell someone that you like their shirt or that they have beautiful eyes.

Last night I sent a message to someone I know on Tumblr just to say I really liked their posts, and I made them really, really happy. That made me happy too. Being nice is almost always a win-win.

I've mentioned before about how I leave kudos on AO3 for fics if I read them the entire way through, because someone went to the effort of writing the story. A kudo is a quick way of complimenting them for that effort. Clicking it says 'hey, I liked this. You did good.' Nice comments are even better, but a kudo is so easy it astonishes me that so many people don't leave them.

The last time I posted about leaving kudos (the link above), someone replied that they only give a kudo when something really moved them. Otherwise they thought that the hits alone were enough acknowledgement of the writer's effort.

I've honestly been thinking about that on and off for two years, and I still have a problem with it. While I can understand the principal--be happy anyone bothered looking at your fic--all that hits actually show you is that someone went to that page. Maybe they noped out after reading the tags. Maybe they got three paragraphs in and hit the back button in a panic. It's impossible to tell. But a kudo means that they both read the story and thought it was good, or good enough. And seriously, we're writing this stuff for free, here. Isn't a story that keeps you reading until the end automatically good enough for a lousy click on a burgundy button?

I know that some people like certain stories so much they read them several times, and unfortunately (or fortunately, I suppose) you can only leave kudos once. But there are loads of readers out there who don't bother leaving them in the first place. Not one little compliment saying that they appreciate your time effort.

And that, honestly, is just mean. Sure, no one forces a writer to put their stuff out there, just as no one pays us. But that's also the point. We don't have to do it. That fic you rolled your eyes at but still gave you ten minute's worth of entertainment is completely, totally free. Our only expectation as writers is that people will read our work, and our only hope is that they'll let us know they did.

So, why should anyone think they deserve a masterpiece before leaving a kudo? It's one click. One tiny, easy little click. But I can tell you as both a writer and reader that one tiny, easy little click can actually mean the world.

And life is too short not to say something nice.

This was written for wordsinthebrain . The prompt was 'Invasion'. The Train isn't my idea, and was used with the creator's permission (you can check out the other passengers via the 'the Train' tag at the community).

2232 words; warnings for heavily implied death and violence. Hover over the French words for a translation.



Cliff knows the Train's near the kid's stop when he starts shaking again.

Cliff blows on his hands and rubs them together. The fucking boxcar is always freezing, but his sweat never dries. His hair is wet, his skin shiny and itching with sweat beneath the grime. He can feel it sliding down his chest and back beneath the flak jacket.

Maybe that's part of the punishment. Who the hell knows? One of the very few things Cliff is sure of is that the Canuck's trembling has nothing to do with the cold, even though his breath mists with every exhale. He's sitting with the butt of his rifle on the floor between his knees, knuckles white from gripping the barrel. His eyes are fixed on the car door, just like always. Sometimes he murmurs prayers to himself, but tonight he's silent. His dark brown hair flops across his forehead. The kid's eyes are dark brown too, and way too innocent for whatever he's seen. He's about twice as pale as Cliff is tanned, mostly from fear.

He looks as delicate and pretty as a girl, despite the uniform and the gun between his hands. It makes Cliff think of Georgie, and he tries never to do that. Georgie wasn't nearly as fragile as this kid seems anyway, but at the end the fear in his eyes was the same.

"Here." Devon, on Cliff's right like usual, offers him a cigarette from the pack he keeps in one of the pockets of his vest. His fatigues are covered in camouflage made of tiny squares in tans and browns, and his gun is something sleek and more deadly than anything Cliff's ever seen. His gear looks like it came out of a sci-fi movie.

"Thanks." Cliff takes the cigarette with a nod, puts it in his mouth then waits while Devon lights it, ignoring the bloodstains all over the paper. He's never asked what Devon did to end up here, but he always comes in with blood all over his clothes and a fixed smile on his face, like he's seen so deep into hell all he can do is laugh about it.

Devon doesn't look like the kind of guy who'd deserve to end up on the Train, but for all Cliff knows he doesn't either. It's not like any of them can see each other's souls. Hell, even the Nazi at the very end of the bench doesn't look like he did anything. All he does is stare down at a thick braid of blond hair he twists in his hands. But the hair came from somewhere, and when the Nazi gets off there's always the sound of people moaning and crying, and the stench that comes back into the car is unbelievable.

The Canadian looks like he deserves to be here the least of anyone, but he's always sitting on the bench when Cliff gets on, wordless and trembling.

Cliff takes another drag on the cigarette, then nudges the kid's ankle with the side of his foot. "Hey."

The Canadian jumps about a foot, staring at him wildly. "What?" It's the first time he's actually said anything out loud for someone else to hear. He sounds so fucking young.

"Relax, I'm not going to bite you." Cliff offers the cigarette. "Here. It'll help."

The kid looks wary, especially when he sees the blood, but he still reaches for it. His hand's shaking so badly that Cliff takes it in both of his without thinking, making sure the cigarette isn't going to fall before it gets to the kid's lips. His fingers are cold as ice, and his eyes go even wider at Cliff's touch. But he doesn't pull his hand back.

"That's it." Cliff keeps his smile steady. He figures he can't get punished for anything he does anymore, but he can't help glancing back at Devon anyway. He's lucky: Devon's got his eyes closed, singing under his breath to whatever song's piping into his ears through the wires attached to that tiny TV in his pocket.

Cliff lets the Canadian go, then watches him inhale around the cigarette like he needs it to breathe.

"Better?"

The kid nods woodenly, though not one bit of the terror has leached out of his eyes. He yanks the cigarette out of his mouth to exhale, then stuffs it in again.

Cliff wants to ask what the hell's waiting for him at his stop, that he's still this fucking scared. You don't ask, though. Not in this car. Maybe the other passengers do, but in this car they know better. He couldn't stand anyone prying into his skull; least he can do is return the favor.

So instead he holds out his hand. "Clifford Reilly. Corporal," he adds a second later, because he feels like he should.

The Canadian blinks, startled again, then seems to figure out what Cliff's doing and returns the handshake. His hand trembles in Cliff's like a trapped bird. "Private Silvio Fortin." His accent makes it sound like 'pree-vatt', but it's nice. Reminds Cliff a bit of some of the Cajun boys in his unit. He likes it.

"Where are you from, Private Silvio Fortin?" He plucks the cigarette from Silvio's hand and takes a long drag, then hands it back. "Besides Canada, I mean." He runs his fingers over the 'Canada' patch on the kid's shoulder, touching a little longer than he should, maybe.</p>

"Quebec," Silvio says.

Cliff grins again, though he's not sure where in Canada that is. Somewhere with accents, obviously. "Well, how about that? I'm from Detroit. Guess we're neighbors, then."

Silvio nods distantly, takes another pull of the cigarette.

They settle into silence for a while. The Train clacks and rumbles. Devon's sleeping, his cigarette rolling back and forth along the floor at his feet, trailing dying sparks. The Nazi has his head in his hands, holding the braid against his cheek. Next stop they'll pick up the African kid with the dripping machete, and then Silvio's stop will come.

The Train slows. Silvio says something under his breath, low and fervent. His fingers twitch around his gun.

"Hey." Cliff bumps him with his elbow. "You're gonna be fine. Tomorrow night I'll get on this train and you'll be sitting here just like always. Nothing out there can kill you anymore."

Silvio inhales around the cigarette like his life depends on it. It's almost gone. He pulls it out of his mouth and grinds it out on the floor. "The pain." He rubs his chest. "If I run, if I stand…It is always just pain." He swallows, wipes his eyes with the side of his hand. "I hate this. I hate this train!"

"Don't say that!" Cliff snaps. Devon snuffles awake from the noise. "You want the conductor to hear you?" He glances around, but no one's appeared with an immaculate uniform and hot coals for eyes. "You know what'll happen if he throws you off?"

"You die?" Silvio sounds hopeful, the fucking idiot.

"You wish," Devon snorts, then frowns at his burnt out cigarette. He snags his pack out of his pocket. There are three cigarettes left; tomorrow night there'll be five again.

"We screwed up too bad to get to die," Cliff says. He wipes the same sweat off his forehead. There's the same grime on his fingers when he looks at them. Sometimes he wonders if that's part of the punishment too, how nothing changes. Boredom as its own kind of hell.

"Speak for your fucking self. I just did my job," Devon says.

Cliff clenches his jaw. "I did too."

That's why he's here, he knows that. He knew it when it was happening: how much of a fucking coward he was. How he always did whatever Sarge wanted, instead of standing his ground. Too afraid of what else he might reveal, if he didn't toe the line.

Georgie was the brave one, the one who threw his gun down and said no.

Cliff is never going to see him again, but he's so glad Georgie's not on the Train.

"I ran," Silvio says, looking straight ahead. He pats the 'Canada' on his shoulder. "There was no one else, when the Algerians break. The lieutenant yelled for me to stay. My friends also. But the gas…I cannot breathe. It hurts. So I ran. And behind me, they die." He shudders. The word he says sounds like "lash", but it's a lot worse than that, from his expression.

"Is that what you go back to?" Cliff asks quietly.

"'Fuck's sake, Cliff. What's your problem?" Devon mutters. He's right—that's another thing you don't ask here. They all get to keep their horror and shame to themselves. It's the only thing they have anymore.

Silvio nods anyway.

The Train rolls to a stop and they all go silent, listening for the heavy, confident footfalls before the doors of their car slide open. The conductor ushers the boy in, then gives them all a tip of his hat and a pleasant smile before he slams the doors shut again.

The boy barely glances at them before he goes and leans against the wall. In the silence right before the Train starts they can hear the tick of the blood dropping from his machete.

Sometimes Cliff wants to ask what the boy goes to when his morning comes around. Is he forced to hack apart the same victims over and over again? Or does he have to clean up the mess he made?

Probably it's just whatever's worse.

The Train chugs out of the station, picking up speed. Next stop is Silvio's.

"I ran too," Cliff says, over the grunt and sway of the car. Silvio looks at him in shock, like he would never have accused Cliff of that kind of cowardice.

(Cliff didn't run, though. Not in the end. He just walked right up to the Train where it waited for him.)

"Oh," Silvio says. "I am sorry."

Cliff shrugs. "Just saying, it ain't only you."

The kid doesn't answer. The Train is slowing again. Shorter time between stops, now.

"You'll be okay," Cliff says. He puts his hand on Silvio's back. "I'll see you again in a few hours, all right?"

Silvio shakes his head mutely. He wipes more tears off his face, starts murmuring words Cliff can't understand, but has heard so many times he's memorized them: "Notre Père qui es aux cieux, que ton nom soit sanctifié, que ton règne vienne, que ta volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel…."

Fuck it, Cliff thinks. He knows the kid's name now, and he's sick to the teeth of watching this every damn night. He throws his arm across Silvio's shoulders. "You're gonna be okay. You'll come right back here and it'll stop hurting."

Silvio doesn't let go of his rifle, but he leans into Cliff and rests his forehead against Cliff's temple as he cries. Cliff cups the back of Silvio's head with his free hand, telling him he'll be all right over and over again.

Cliff doesn't realize the Train's stopped until he's startled by the boxcar doors opening. The conductor stands on the top step, expression mild beneath his hellfire eyes. "You need to get off, Fortin," he says, not unkindly. "You're holding everyone up."

Silvio jerks out of Cliff's hold and scrambles to his feet, frantically wiping his eyes. He grips his rifle in both hands and walks to the door. He glances back once, then follows the conductor out into the cold mist of early morning.

The conductor sticks his head between the doors. "Next stop's yours, Reilly." He smiles before he ducks out again. The doors shut. A minute or two later the Train starts moving.

"It's a fucking shame, that kid ending up here. What kind of idiot stays put when he's being gassed?" Devon scowls at the door, arms crossed over his vest. "I tell you, none of us should be here. We were doing our jobs, that's all. What the fuck else were we supposed to do?"

Cliff thinks about Georgie, standing at attention with his gun in the dirt. The sadness on his face when he looked at Cliff, right before Sarge shot him. It'd taken the death of the one good person Cliff knew before he had the balls to do something, and it was too late by then anyway. He'd fragged his own team for Georgie, and in the end all he could do was watch the village burn.

"Nothing, Dev," he says to him as he stands. "Not a damn thing different."

He waits by the doors, swaying for balance when the Train slows down. He's not scared, but he shivers a little. He hates the fucking cold.

The Train stops and it's no time at all before the conductor's back, opening the doors. "Have a good day, Reilly." His teeth are sharp and bloodstained when he grins.

"Thank you, sir." Cliff steps into the oppressive humidity of late afternoon. His shovel's sticking out of the dirt, right where he left it. He can already smell the burned flesh among the dirt and green.

He starts walking, one foot in front of the other. He has a ways to go yet, before he reaches the village, and lots of bodies to bury.


END



"Forty-and-Eight" was the name given to the European boxcars that were used to transport soldiers or cavalry mounts beginning in World War I. You can read about them here.

The Battle of Ypres was one of the most bloody conflicts of World War I. It was also one of the first times the Canadian Expeditionary Force was tested in battle, when they were forced to hold back the advancing German troops after the Algerians (reasonably) fled from chlorine gas. The Canadians suffered incredibly heavy casualties: at least 75%.

The flat, 'Tommy Hat' helmets weren't available until the summer of 1915, which is why Silvio dosn't have one.
Betaed by the lovely, talented and extremely generous brumeier , considering I make her cry all the time.