playing the game, living the lie

epilogue: moments in the woods.

[date: 12 - 21 June.]

Bobby's mum had always told him he wasn't cut out to be a soldier. It was nights like this he tended to agree. Standing sentry duty outside a barely used U.S.A.F. base on Greenham Common. The only reason it was still kept active was so the Americans could keep a military presence on U.K. soil, at least as far as Bobby could tell. Most of the actual aircraft on base were fifteen years out of date, and the fricking missile silos were full of Tridents, and hadn't that been superseded at the end of the Eighties?

There wasn't much to do other than grin and bear it, and hope that he wouldn't freeze his privates off. So he stood, and bore it, and didn't get pneumonia of the testicle and at two in the morning he clocked off and went to the nearest pub. There was a small semi-settlement a short way off from the base proper, with a few shops, a few houses for the civilian support staff, and a pub. It wasn't exactly the place Bobby expected to pick up in (because last time he checked Her Majesty's Government was still a bit iffy about having active homosexuals serving for the Land of Hope and Glory) but it served good drinks, and he could wind down before stumbling off to bed.

This night was different. This night, there was this young bloke leaning against the wall when he came out of the bar.

"Bet you're a soldier," he said, grinning, and Bobby was captivated with the sheer fucking sight of him. White teeth, jet black messy hair, smooth skin, and green eyes. Fucking beautiful, if Bobby was ever a judge of beauty. Of course, he lost whatever charm or wit he had ever randomly possessed.

"Er, yeah. The uniform kinda gives it away."

"So it does," the bloke murmured, moving forward to run his hands up Bobby's back. "I've been wanting to pick up a soldier for a few days now." He licked Bobby's earlobe. Bobby moaned and rolled his hips against him. "Think you could be my lucky night?"

The Cold War was over. He couldn't be a security risk. Bobby threw caution to the wind and let the bloke drag him off to his bedsit, which was apparently somewhere on the outskirts of the settlement. He was half way undressed before he realised the young bloke was looking at him oddly, with a queer smile on his face.

"Get your kit off," Bobby prodded, hoping to relieve some of the tension.

The bloke opened the chest of drawers behind him and pulled out what looked like a bloody magic wand, levelling it at Bobby. "I don't think so. Imperio."

Bobby's world dissolved into a haze. He remembered orders and tasks and things he did and said, but everything was disconnected, random, distant. As if it had all happened to someone else, days passing in the haze. The last thing he recalled clearly was standing here in the bedsit as the bloke ordered him to recount everything he could remember with clarity since he'd met the bloke.

He felt the words tumbling over his lips, anxious to please the young man who sat on the bed in front of him. "...And that's all of it," he murmured, fidgeting.

"Good," the bloke said, and stood, softly moving across to Bobby and take his head between his hands. "You've done everything I've ordered, Bobby. You've been very good."

The goofy grin on Bobby's face was frozen in place as Tom snapped his neck.