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Kevin should have just slept with a whore. If he had slept with the new girl that was prowling around Eva's place, nothing would have happened. It would have all stayed the same. But no, Kevin Self-Indulgent Corcoran couldn't resist. Especially not drunk. The flirting wasn't enough. He was naked. It wasn't fair. He couldn't walk into a room with a naked Robert Morehouse laying in the bed without suppressing a shudder. Apparently life isn't fair. But Kevin always knew that.
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During the war, everything was different. Things got blown up, cannon fodder and clumps of dirt, ash, and bodily fluids, blood only the cleanest of them, flying everywhere because sometimes even the officer’s tents get destroyed, and a Harvard boy winds up shivering next to a scrappy boxer with an Irish accent and a righteous attitude.
Days and weeks came and went, passing cigarettes, stories; the idea rather than the memory of wives pushed further into the distance as each moment flew by. "My wife" became only just words that men say when they're too tired to force themselves upon southern women. Or too drunk to get it up for the ones that are willing after a successful raid. Robert didn't have that excuse; a bachelor is as a bachelor does. Corky never judged him, and he never to Corky. They did what needed to be done, mob mentality and sometimes just needing to blow off steam. What happened in war stayed in war as long as you were on the winning side, and it sure looked to be as though the tide was turning in the Union’s favor.
So they bedded whores. They drank, and smoked, and were terrible Catholics because they didn't care. It didn't matter. God wasn't with them anymore. God doesn't intervene in war. So they fucked out the long, hard scars of limbs flying and minds melting on ragged walks through the deep southern mud, all the while pretending not to hear the other man's moans through the paper thin walls, and pretending that wasn't secretly part of the thrill.
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"Corky?" Robert murmured one night over chattering teeth. It was still cold at night in the winter in Virginia, and they all were catching a cold, their medical supplies long running thin, medicine only for the truly wounded while they waited for the black regiment to arrive with more.
"Aye, Major?"
"Robert,"
"Robert, then. Do ya need a blanket?" This man, despite all they've been through, despite Robert treating him as an equal unless it was an order, was about to give Robert his only threadbare blanket.
"No, Corporal. No, Kevin. Come here. You've had the influenza twice now we can't afford you catching cold again. I need your shot, Kevin. It’s saved our asses more times than I can count, and we’ve only been out here a short while. Come share some of these blankets. The other men won't know. They're asleep, and if they're not, they should keep quietly pretending." A long best of silence passed. Of course Corky would weigh his options of having the other men think Robert favored him. Robert did favor him. Snores filled the tents.
"Aye, Robert. Budge over, then." Kevin probably never thought he'd be snugged up to Major Robert Morehouse, a 23rd Street Society boy. Robert never thought that he'd feel the cold press of an Irishmen's nose against his neck in the night, but war was always full of surprises.
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Robert woke up with his front plastered to Kevin's back. He was too sore and tired from sharing a cot with another full grown man to fully care about how strange this was to a normal eye. Groggily squeezing his eyes together to shake the sleep, realizing it wasn't even yet dawn, Robert mistakenly stretched, arched his back forward, his hips pressing into the solid mass of Corky's torso, Kevin's height advantage even more apparent in this position.
"Uhh," Corky grunted. It shook Robert's body to a step beyond awake, to hyper-aware. Robert was hard, and he had just ground it into Corky's ass. Maybe Corky didn't notice. Maybe he was still asleep, just needing to roll over. Robert slowly began to untangle his limbs from Corky, inching backward.
"Robert-" a strained voice graveled. He was awake. Shit.
"Corky I'm so sorry I wasn't fully awake I-"
Corky grabbed his arm with force and gritted out, "Robert. I. I uhm. I think I need this," and tentatively ground his hips back into Roberts apparent hard on.
Robert bit his own lip until it bled to suppress a moan. The only sound that could be heard over the Major and Corporal's harsh breath was the unmistakable fap of other men trying to relieve stress quietly in their own cots. Tents were a safe place. Robert was safe. Corky turned toward him, hand inching down toward Roberts trousers. Corky was safe.
Calloused hands with surprisingly nimble fingers dipped into his undergarments as he tried at the same time to undo the basic strings on Corky's. Corky was surrounding him, holding him and stroking him and murmuring in his ear as Robert could hardly suppress the moans, his cock leaking like a faucet in Corky's hands, his whole body surrendered to Corky, just letting him take control. Finally, Robert took a hold of Corky's length and began to stroke as rough as his hands would allow, Corky clearly needing the grounding.
"Christ, Robert. Let go. Do it for me. I need this. Fuck look at you," Robert moaned audibly this time, feeling Corky's teal gaze burning hot on his skin, in his own eyes. Corky met his gaze, twisted his wrist tight around the head of Robert’s aching cock, and Robert couldn't hold on. His cock spurted rope after rope of cum onto the front of his own trousers and all over Corky's hand.
It was too sensitive as Corky continued to stroke, so instead Robert only tightened his grip on Corky. "That's it, Corky," he murmured, still slightly lightheaded from orgasm. "You made me make a mess," Robert quipped lazily. Corky bit the joint of Robert’s neck and shoulder hard, sucking, and moaned through his own orgasm, cum shooting warm onto Roberts stomach and softening cock. They fell back to sleep like that until wake up call, cum drying between them and mouthed tasting of sweat on a cold morning. Nobody said a word.
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So sometimes they fucked. Kevin didn’t need to talk about it, and neither did Robert. Nothing needed to be said about the stolen kisses in cots at night, the realization that most of the time their Major was staying in the lesser ranks tent, or that their Corporal was never to be found late at night. Kevin didn’t know what it was about Robert, but the day Robert was lying on the damp, hard ground, hellfire raining down around them, clutching his leg with one hand and Kevin’s jacket with another, he knew that there was something about Robert that would connect them for life.
“I’m going to die, Corky,” Robert sputtered between gasps for breath, teeth gritted through the pain of a hole blown through his leg.
“Shut up, Robert. You’re not going to die,” Kevin burst out rashly, tightening the belt he tied around Robert’s leg to stop the blood flow from bleeding out as they waited for Dr. Freeman. “I won’t let you,” he said softer. He had to look away from Robert’s eyes in that moment, afraid of what he might find there. Or what Robert might find in his.
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Corky swallowed hard at the picture laid out in front of him: Robert’s hardly covered naked body twisted in the sheets, one of Eva’s whores next to him, bottles of brandy scattered across the room, and Robert’s wooden leg on the table. Kevin sighed deeply, inadvertently inhaling the musk of Robert’s expensive cologne as he did.
“Kevin!” he smirked, still nestled into the pillows, a lot less drunk than Kevin expected, honestly.
“Lottie, get out,” Corky muttered through cigarette clenched lips. She arose from the bed, knowing that even though he and Eva were no longer seeing each other as long as Ellen was around, that his word still carried a command. He paid her with a generous tip; she left without a word.
“Let me take you home,” Kevin sighed after Robert guilted him about the wedding. Kevin probably deserved that.
“That is not even remotely an option,” Robert cut. “Truth be told, your absence was the least of my disappointment,” he admitted more gently. “Why is it those we hold closest deceive us?”
Kevin didn’t try to defended Elizabeth. He couldn’t. He didn’t know what she had done, but she deserved the benefit of the doubt. He asked Robert if he had yet to show Elizabeth his worst side, “given her a glimpse of how we were in battle? Because that’s…” he trailed off. “Certain things are best left hidden away.” Robert asked him about forgiving Elizabeth. The only thing Kevin could come up with, to wrap up the hurt and confusion and even the little bit of lingering love and stupidity, or just the memory of the love, was, “I’m just trying to honor my commitment,” wearily. “Just like on the battlefield,” he added. Robert’s eyes flashed up to him as he gently took the bottle out of Robert’s fist, Kevin taking a long swig before unholstering his gun, putting out his cigarette and saying words he hadn’t since tents and cots in South Carolina, “shove up, Major. You and me, we’re bunking up tonight.” Kevin knew what it meant. Even piss drunk, Robert probably did too. It was an invitation. A casual one, no pressure, and no need to accept or deny. Kevin still had his leather jacket on for God’s sake.
Robert sighed through his nose, and Kevin resolutely ignored the pang in his chest when Robert murmered with closed eyes, “Then take off your goddamn boots before Kennedy strolls in,” accepting Kevin’s invitation.
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Kevin should have just fucked a whore. Maybe then he would have felt guilty for what he was about to do, like any married man should. He didn't feel guilty. He just felt something bigger and stronger coursing through his veins, urging him to touch Robert, to ground him and give him what he needed, and to take what he wanted. As he gently grabbed Robert’s wrist, hovering over the smaller man, his senses running on overdrive knowing he’d finally be able to touch Robert like this again, all he could think of to ask was, “should I lock the door?”
“No, Kevin, no,” Robert sighed lazily, pulling Kevin’s jacket off and grabbing fistfuls of Kevin’s biceps, grounding himself. “Leave it as is. Just like old times,” he grinned wider than a Cheshire cat, “For the thrill of it.”