#fellas is it gay to go picnicking with your boyfriend during a military campaign?

[massensterben-a]

@jawlost​ said:                       The trenches were always cold so close to a new year, the feeling of the wet mud never quite seemed to go away no matter how dry you may or may not have been. It was enough to send a shiver to your bones and ache until you would be set alight. It was not the birthday that Porco had wanted to spend celebrating with Bertholdt, but it was the one he was given. Bones had been rattled during the onslaught of the day, enough so that they’d both wound up in the infirmary. Bed rest. Bullshit, more like it. Hours waiting for guards to change over, moments spend persuading them to turn a blind eye in favour for a favour that Porco would deal with at a later date, he’d dragged Bertholdt (whether he was entirely recovered or not, Porco figured he’d rest later) out into a distant clearing he’d found on one of the many trips back to the camp. It was bone-rattling cold and all Porco had was a shitty blanket, their jackets and a loaf of fresh bread he’d swiped from the eatery. Piss-poor efforts to most, but it was the best he could do with the circumstances they had been given.

A kiss was given to Bertholdt under the stars, the loaf being unveiled between them and Porco harboured the smallest of smiles. A shell sounded off in the distance, Porco let out a chuckle and told him to pretend it was a firework. Tearing the bread open between them, there was a gentle reddening of Porco’s cheeks. “Happy Birthday, Toldie. Not the present I had planned, but y’know. The bread’s fresh.”

The resistance was futile and not well executed to start with. It is his own fault, in the end. He doesn’t keep track of time out here, not with shells springing around his feet and mines crushed under his heels, not with the planes dropping bombs overhead and zeppelins deploying white-parachuted soldiers by the score. Days bleed into each other here, where there is dust in your eyes even when it rains, even when the ground freezes solid. Bertholdt has little to do with such sedimentary concerns. He lords over the battlefield, crouching over battalions of tanks and infantries like a spider over its brood. His jurisdiction deals in sweltering heat and steam, the kind that nearly boils your skin but never quite breaks it. He is unhappily removed from it now, after a bombardment of anti titan shells lodged themselves in his red throat and tore him free of his confines. 

Back on the ground, the anthill business has kept him well away from the awareness of the eclipsing year. Another one, spent far from home. Another one, wasted on senseless brutality, fighting with feral viciousness for scraps of his masters’ dinner table. Originally, he supposes he would have simply slept right through the night, had it not been for Porco. Suddenly he appeared, like a gust of wind, like an errant speck of light, badly reflected in the dark. Under Porco’s urgent supervision, Bertholdt got dressed, sluggishly pulling on his boots and muttering under his breath about what on earth could be so goddamn important. 

It is when the older man guides him to a clearing and makes him sit, that it begins to dawn on Bertholdt that it’s himself. If he had known, perhaps he could have refused Porco with more conviction. As it is, he can only tiredly insist that it doesn’t matter, that it’s not worth freezing their asses off out here. There is nothing to celebrate but one year closer to the finish line, one step down the long queue in front of the slaughterhouse. Instead, he is tugged down and closer, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and told to deal with it. Bertholdt settles uneasily, oppressed by the dark, by the orange glow in the east that is not the dawn. 

Porco makes light of it, calls it fireworks, kisses him for it. He brought bread. The good kind from the Marleyan mess hall. He makes it... not pretty but palatable. Bertholdt sits beside him, struggling to keep up with Porco’s effortlessness, the detail with which he executes tranquility in this frozen, pockmarked tundra. Everything about him seems to cry out with it: simple and quiet, that’s what I’m trying to give you. And Porco breaks the bread. Bertholdt watches him, stunned and arrested. He doesn’t feel like he belongs here, bleeding steam from his mouth as his... his... —As Porco makes himself comfortable for him. 

A sting of embarrassment tightens his heart at the cheesy nickname, that attempt at adoration that hails from their earliest childhood. He’s long outgrown it, this label of innocence, best bestowed upon a little brother or a clumsy pet. But he is tired and he doesn’t want to argue. He wants them to be warm. 

“Works for me,” He mutters as he places his half of the loaf in his lap to instead catch Porco by the hands. He cups them between his palms, turns his grip into a furnace, a glowing oven. “C’mere...” His voice turns into a purr, a vibration so deep in his chest, you’d mistake it for a running engine. It’s gratitude on that halting, coy level that Bertholdt has. He wants to be good, be deserving, but he only has his body and the way that it can serve. 

“I’ll warm you up.”