The Wrong in Without

11 November

At first, he hadn't thought anything of it. He never imagined that this sort of cruel, ungodly hostility was something that actually went on outside of the books that she had stacked upon the shelves above their mantel and spent many an hour buried in. Like the fool that he now realizes he is, he hadn't realized how /real/ this all was until the day she came home with a fear in her eyes that he had never seen before, bringing news that confirmed what exactly was going on in the world outside of their cottage, how it's finally gotten here, pointing to the horrid thing stuck to the lapel of her coat. He didn't want to believe it, he couldn't for the life of him wrap his head around the fact that running out for some fruit at the market could subsequently cost both of them their lives, that it was only going to get worse from here, and he knew that she, his tender hearted, good girl who flinched and frowned when he swatted at a fly, wouldn't last a day in the hell to come.

They had to leave.

She hadn't had time to save her books, and he didn't have time to salvage any of their heirlooms before they were running, dodging through fields and away from any man in uniform, away to Jack and Mary's, who, both Irish in decent and rural in community, were the only people that the couple knew of that most definitely wouldn't be questioned.

They ran for weeks, sleeping in ditches and abandoned, ratty barns on the hillsides. They ate from what little bread he'd shoved in his knapsack on their way out, though their stomachs were too twisted to take in what they needed, anyhow. They ran, and through all of the danger, he never once released her hand from his own, never stopped whispering encouragements that sounded like irrational hope even to his own ears, didn't relent trying to kiss the tear tracks from her face, even when they were in more danger than they'd ever imagined possible. Tried to steady his lover when she was quivering so hard from the fear and the malnutrition combined that he was concerned her knees would buckle and send her falling right to the frigid and wet ground.

Talked even though his lover was quiet.

When they'd finally got inside, shut into a room to change and promised warm food, he she had immediately pulled his stricken and soaked lover into his chest, running a hand over her wavy, wet and matted hair, craning his head to kiss her temple several times in quick succession. "We're safe here, we are. It's all going to be alright. This will pass, time will heal all of this. Please tell me that you believe me." She doesn't move, though. Her eyes look hauntingly hollow, as if the deep forests that Louis found himself hopelessly lost in all those years ago had been burned right out into vacancy.

Two weeks pass. He doesn't know what to do with himself, spends most of his time constantly looking over his shoulder while chopping firewood to fuel the hearth. Before, he'd been a working man, a merchant that'd made a decent amount with a shop of he and his lover's very own downtown.

( The morning, just a few days before they'd fled, that he'd walked in to find everything gone, shelves torn away and glass littering the floors he kneeled and polished every night, he could hardly call himself anything more than a beggar.)

She spends his days with Mary in the kitchen. She rises before he does, and every morning when he makes his way downstairs, she's staring into a deep-bottomed pot, peeling potatoes with the same emptiness in her eyes. He tells her he loves her, even if he doesn't get a reply.

It's been a month, and she's yet to show any sign of being anything less than a hollowed-out cast of what she used to be. He cuts himself on the wire of a fence he's fixing for Hamish, Jack's kind neighbor, one Sunday, but even when she'd stitched him closed with a thread she had stripped, she didn't utter a word.

"You could leave." She says, one night, both of them staring up at the wooden beams of the ceiling from the bed they're lying in. His brows furrow into a line, but he can't deny the way his heart jumps at the sound of his lover's long-silenced voice. "You could go. Home. You're not-..." Louis had silenced her, calloused hands on either side of her face, turning her around. "Hush. Hush." He says, resting the top of his head against his lover's. She lets a frustrated sound escape from her throat, shaking her head frantically, determinedly. "No! I'm what's keeping you here!" She shouts, and he has to pull her closer. "I'm what they want, you're not! They don't have to know, they don't. Go home, go home and burn everything that was mine, all of it, go home and, and," he doesn't let her talk anymore, can't do it. He hauls her in and kisses her; kisses until he feels tears fall between their lips and he can't tell if they're his, or hers. He's got her on top of him, moments later. Her skinny frame is balled up so she can lay atop him and tuck her face into his neck, sniveling and shaking something fierce. "I can't go home." He finally says in a voice he has to fight to keep from wavering. "I can't go home when I've got it right here with me." She's silent, again.

They're found on a Wednesday morning. Mary's screaming, the sound harmonized with the sound of boots marching up the splintered wooden stairs, and Jack's groaning, as if in pain. She'd awoken first, scrabbling for purchase until she'd found him and pulled him close by the hem of his shirt. He had gathered her up, at a loss of what to do, and just buried his face in his lover's hair, kissing, hushing, murmuring how much he loves her, adores her, the only light of his entire life.

They crash in, and she's still quiet.

Snatching them apart, the men in uniform scowl.

"Are you with her? Is this what I think it is?" One barks, spit hitting him dead in the face. "Speak up, bloody bastard, or so help me God, you're going exactly where she's going."

He turns to her, who's shaking in the hold of the other officer, and sees nothing but forest green.

This time, he's is the one who's silent.