Unhinge the Universe

  You said that you are in my debt, but it’s truly the other way around. No other man had so many opportunities to destroy me, and yet you chose kindness, mercy, and now friendship. In fact, I am much too far in your debt to be asking favours, but there is one last thing I hope I can ask of you. Only one thing, John.

  When I am released, will you come for me?

  Your friend,

  Hagen

  Camp Forrest, Tullahoma, Tennessee, September 1945

  When Hagen left the camp with his few belongings, one car stood just outside, a man leaning against the driver’s door with a hat shading his eyes, passing time smoking. Hagen’s heart pounded in his throat as he sped up, barely keeping himself from breaking into a run. It was too hot for that; the lingering late summer heat was very nearly unbearable as it was.

  He’d have recognized John anywhere, in a crowd in Times Square (which he intended to visit) or in the middle of the night. Hagen couldn’t express how relieved he was. Here was the one person in America he knew outside the camp, apart from his aunt’s family in Pennsylvania, and the only one he wanted to be with.

  John straightened when he approached, and then they were face-to-face, almost within arm’s reach.

  Hagen hesitated, glanced back to see if anybody was watching him, then grabbed John’s hand and clapped him on the shoulder, though he’d rather— But no use. “Hi,” he managed to get out. Rather lackluster after all the things he’d wanted to say, had said to himself a thousand times.

  John just smiled. “It’s good to see you again.”

  They held each other’s gazes. So much to say and not enough breath to say it. John opened the door for him, and while Hagen got settled, John went around to the driver’s side.

  He started the car and drove down the road, the camp soon vanishing in the distance. Hagen cleared his throat and kept staring at John, the line of his nose, his jaw, but above all, he marveled that the man looked very different out of uniform. And although he knew it, he just had to ensure that John was fully healed.

  “Thank you for picking me up. My relatives offered to send me a train ticket, but I . . . I don’t really want to get stuck on a farm. I mean, they were so kind and offered, but . . .” He pulled at the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt, always making sure it covered the tattoo on the inside. Too many people knew what it meant.

  “You’re welcome.” John’s voice was soft over the hum of the engine and the rumble of the tires on the rough road. “Besides, I—” He glanced at Hagen, and a guarded smile appeared on his lips just before he looked out again. “I wanted to.”

  Hagen wasn’t sure what to say. Nine months and a dozen or so sporadic letters between them since he’d walked away from John and the Iron Cross in the infirmary, Hagen just didn’t know what to say. What was the right thing, what was the wrong thing, what might be the incantation that would make John vanish like the phantom Hagen was afraid he was?

  “Are, um . . .” John tapped the steering wheel with his thumbs. Nervousness didn’t look quite right on him. “Are you hungry? There are a few places to eat. In town, I mean.”

  He was hungry, and sitting down to a meal sounded good, but . . . his stomach was fluttering too much. He was afraid to try to eat just yet. “No, I’m all right. Thank you.”

  Silence again. Then John gestured at the glove box in front of Hagen. “I brought something for you.”

  “You did?”

  John smiled, but it was still a guarded, uncertain look.

  Hagen reached for the glove compartment. Inside, a smaller box, long and slim, was wrapped in brown paper and some thin twine. He pulled it free and closed the glove compartment.

  “I would have liked to have given it to you when we parted ways,” John said. “But they would have taken it from you.”

  Hagen stared at the box.

  “Go ahead,” John said. “Open it.”

  Hagen removed the twine. Funny how neat, delicate things like this had become alien after the past several months and the gritty, bloody years before. But somehow, his fingers still knew how to maneuver the paper without the box tumbling from his hands.

  He set the paper at his feet and carefully lifted the lid. His heart stopped.

  Sieg’s razor.

  He pressed his lips together and ran his finger across the weathered antler handle. Across his brother’s name. Swallowing hard, he closed the box again, then slid it into his pocket. “Thanks for keeping it. I . . . I wondered what had become of it.” He rubbed over his face. “Even as a ‘model prisoner,’ I couldn’t have kept it.”

  John arched an eyebrow. “Were you?”

  “Absolutely. Just kept out of trouble, mostly. There were some . . .” How to describe them? “Uh. Old faithful officers. Smiled to the Americans, but didn’t really . . . bend. There was a huge thing about some officers wanting to work because they were bored, but a faction in the camp called it ‘currying favors with our captors.’ I stayed away from both sides.” He shook his head. “That’s what I didn’t write in the letters. I didn’t want to rat anybody to the censors.”

  “Wise,” John said with a slow nod. “Keep your head down and don’t make any noise. Best way to handle it.”

  Hagen let go of a quiet, cautious laugh. “If you of all people can believe I was a well-behaved prisoner.” Hagen prayed those weren’t the words that would snap him out of reality and throw him back into that camp or back into a wintery, bomb-riddled France. Or, worse, remind John of how things had begun between them, making John come to his senses and leave Hagen by the road.

  But John laughed. Really laughed. Without taking his eyes off the road, he reached for Hagen, and nothing in his life had ever taken Hagen’s breath away like that warm, affectionate squeeze. Then John glanced at him. His laughter faded, but the look lingered until it was slightly more than a glance, and then John looked at the road again.

  But he didn’t release Hagen’s hand.

  Hagen held his breath as he returned the squeeze, closing his fingers around John’s hand. It wasn’t quite as rough as it had been back then. The same warmth, the same . . . the same undefined something that would have told him in total darkness that this was John, but the leathery edge was gone. A product of working in an office instead of a reappropriated church in the middle of nowhere.

  Hagen watched his thumb trace John’s first knuckle and index finger. And still, John was here. Not vanishing into the ether, not another dream that someone would rouse Hagen out of and back into his repetitive, caged existence. John was really here, which meant Hagen was really free.

  He looked at John. John looked back at him.

  As John turned toward the road once more, Hagen shifted his gaze out the windshield too, and he smiled. The war was really over.

  “Any word from your family?” John asked eventually.

  “Still nothing. Things being what they are . . . what I’ve heard . . . it’s all in chaos, the whole country.” Strange, how Germany had become “the country.” Or even “the other country.” It clearly wasn’t Greater Germany anymore. And no longer the Third Reich. Twelve years instead of a thousand. “I contacted the Red Cross and gave them your address, as you offered. I might have to go over and look for them, but I don’t even know where to begin to look.”

  He leaned against the window, slowly relaxing at the thought that, of all the things he’d expected for this day, it was nothing like them. It wasn’t the alienation of strangers. It wasn’t at all how they’d been as soldiers. They’d had such a short time together, an even shorter time together, and yet this felt familiar, good, natural, like they hadn’t even been apart that long. Like things could be easy. He’d worried that John might simply move on, but he hadn’t. Now that fear just seemed silly. Of course John wouldn’t. After all the things they’d gone through.

  “And I wanted to tell you I’m sorry about your friend. Michael.” Another one of those things he couldn’t have written in a letter. “I had a lot of time to think about the past.??
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  John’s fingers twitched against Hagen’s, and cool panic rushed through him. But John didn’t withdraw his hand. If anything, he held a little tighter, slid his fingers a little deeper into Hagen’s grasp.

  “It was war,” John whispered. “We all . . . we all did things.” He glanced at Hagen. “I’m sorry too. For what happened to your brother and . . . when you first came into the camp.”

  Hagen pressed his fingers between John’s, clasped them over the back of his hand. “As you say, it was war.”

  Neither of them spoke for a while. Neither protested the other’s apology or outwardly accepted it, but the forgiveness was there in the tiny, warm space between their palms. Everything they couldn’t say in all their letters, they still couldn’t say now, but it was . . . it was known.

  Near the outer edge of what looked like a small city or a moderately large town, John gently freed his hand so he could steer properly. Hagen’s hand was cool now, a little damp from perspiration, and he folded his together in his lap as John turned off the main road and into a car park in front of a two-story brick building with uniform, numbered doors. A large sign proclaimed “MOTEL” above the end of the building, and cars were parked in front of maybe a third of the doors.

  John parked in front of one. Number seventeen. He shifted, and then turned off the engine. “Here we are.”

  They got out of the car. John had the slightest limp now, favoring his left leg, but it was almost unnoticeable. Probably only obvious to someone who knew how badly he’d been injured less than a year ago.

  As loose gravel crunched beneath Hagen’s shoes, renewed nervousness tangled in his gut. This was something else that couldn’t be discussed in their letters. The only thing he’d known was that John would be there to take him from the camp, and that they would stay here for a night. And tomorrow, they’d drive on to Indiana.

  But what about between the unlocking of the door—which John did now as Hagen stood beside him with a pounding heart—and leaving again tomorrow?

  The door’s hinges creaked. Hagen followed John into the room. He didn’t let himself look at the bed yet. Instead, he busied himself setting his small bundle of belongings, including the antler-handled razor, on top of the bureau. That only took a second, though. A second to have his back turned and his hands occupied, and now that second was over. What to—

  “Hagen.”

  Gooseflesh prickled beneath Hagen’s clothes. There hadn’t been any command or question, just the simple statement. His name. Spoken in John’s voice. In a quiet, private room with the peaceful world locked outside.

  John’s hands came to rest on Hagen’s shoulders, and Hagen closed his eyes. There had been a time when those hands were threatening, menacing, on his shoulders, but now they were gentle and kind.

  Hagen reached up and put a hand over one of John’s. Then the other, his arms crossed over his chest.

  John leaned forward. His lips brushed beneath Hagen’s ear. “I’ve missed you.”

  Hagen blew out the breath he’d been holding. “Didn’t mention that in my letters, either.” He took John’s hand and kissed the back of it. “I kept my head down. As you said. I made a few friends, but nobody close. Most of them are going back to Germany, and I’m . . . not.” Hagen rubbed his face against John’s hand. “Some paired off, you know. Even some of the hard-liners.” He laughed tonelessly. “I couldn’t do it.” He couldn’t make himself face John. “It’s crazy, I know, but I didn’t think anybody would measure up to you.”

  John moved closer, brushing him, and a thrill raced through every vein in Hagen’s body. He’d very much doubted that any other man could make him feel that. He hadn’t wanted to become too familiar with any of the old comrades, whether officer, NCO, or ordinary soldier. Somehow, they hadn’t felt as close to him anymore, though he couldn’t have said why.

  “Hagen.” He’d never get tired of hearing John say his name. John kissed the side of his neck, and Hagen shivered under the weight of the man’s warm breath. “Turn around.”

  Hagen released John’s hands and slowly turned around. Damn, it had been too long since he’d seen those eyes smoldering with a need that perfectly matched his own.

  John reached for his face. He hesitated, hand just shy of Hagen’s cheek, and his lips tightened for a second. Then Hagen tilted his head, and they both pulled in shuddering breaths as his skin brushed John’s fingertip. More contact, more soft, electric flesh on flesh, and John slid his hand from Hagen’s cheek and into his hair.

  John inched closer. “There were . . . opportunities for me, too. They wouldn’t have measured up either, and I didn’t want them to.” He closed some more of the distance. “Ever since that night in France, I’ve only wanted you.”

  He kissed Hagen. Gentle, tender, coffee, smoke, and more than enough to turn Hagen’s knees to liquid. He wrapped his arms around John. John put his free arm around Hagen’s waist, but kept the other hand in his hair, cradling the back of his head as he parted Hagen’s lips with the tip of his tongue.

  Gott. Oh Gott. Everything Hagen had kept under the surface, hidden from the censors and the other men, former comrades and guards alike, surfaced at once. Muscles that had been unrelentingly tense since the last time they’d touched—Happy New Year—relaxed as he released a long breath through his nose.

  Hagen let his hand drift lower, following John’s side to his narrow hips, and then following the leather belt to the small of John’s back. He pressed in with his hand. John groaned. So did Hagen. The sheer freedom of it thrilled him. For the first time in years, he could do whatever the hell he wanted. And he knew exactly what he wanted to do first.

  He pulled John’s shirt out of his trousers, fought the impulse to tear and claw it off the man, but instead slowed down, pushing his hips up against John’s while unbuttoning John’s shirt from the bottom up, grinning to himself as he did. Once he’d released the last button, he pushed the shirt off John’s shoulders. He liked that strong neck better without dog tags around it. He placed a kiss where the collarbones almost met while he pulled the undershirt up, too, sliding his hands underneath.

  “I’m hoping you brought some of that greasy stuff,” he whispered against John’s throat.

  John’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he nodded. “I was hopeful.”

  “Good.” Hagen grinned and trailed his teeth along the outline of John’s shoulder, the one that had been wounded, and kissed that, too, only interrupting the touch to pull John’s undershirt over his head. He ran his fingers over John’s chest, feeling the wiry friction of the dark hair there, and fought hard to not rush this. “I’ve imagined this . . . so often. So often.” He slid his hands down to John’s belt and opened it. His fingers had to be shaking with anticipation, or maybe it was just the lack of practice. He managed to fumble the button and zipper open, then pulled John’s trousers and briefs down.

  He still had no clue what he was doing, just that it had been too frantic the first time he’d tried this, so he went down to his knees and kissed the groove of muscle right to the side of John’s groin. Licking his lips, he glanced up to John, pleased that John was letting him decide what happened—though part of him wanted to drag John to bed and rip the rest of his clothes off and sink into him fast and hard. But he’d imagined this for too long, too often, to ruin his fantasy now with the bone-grinding need that spurred him on to take his fill right now.

  He took John’s dick in hand, stroked him hard, then, when John’s hands landed on his shoulders, opened his lips and took him in his mouth. The taste was as he remembered, just better now, since there was no fear, no cruelty, and no shame. He’d had enough time to make his peace with what he wanted, and after escaping alive, it seemed stupid to worry about such small things.

  He slowly ran his tongue around the head of John’s dick, and when John groaned, it was Hagen who shuddered. He looked up again, meeting John’s already heavy-lidded eyes, and then lowered his gaze and took John a little deeper into his mouth.
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  “Not . . . not all of it,” John’s voice echoed from a distant time. “Just . . . ooh, yes. Like that.”

  Hagen dipped further, taking as much as he comfortably could, and slowly pulled back before doing it again. John rewarded him with a soft, helpless whimper.

  “Fuck, Hagen . . .” John’s hand left Hagen’s shoulder and found its way into his hair, alternately combing through it and grasping it. Hagen’s scalp tingled, and he felt it all the way down his spine and into his own hard dick that was barely restrained by the front of his trousers. As he tasted every inch of John, running his tongue from head to base and back before taking him inside his mouth again, he imagined himself on the bed, fucking John. Or John fucking him. How to decide?

  “We don’t have to choose sides.”

  Hagen shivered. No. No, they didn’t. And there was no hurry now. No clocks ticking down their time together. He could have John both ways. Any way they wanted. Finally.

  He shifted a little, and nearly swore aloud when his zipper dug into his erection. He sat back, grinning when John offered a weak protest.

  That protest died away and John’s eyes widened when Hagen reached for his own belt. John quickly got out of the last of his own clothes and stood before Hagen completely naked—my God, I’d forgotten how much I loved looking at you—when he offered Hagen a hand.

  Hagen clasped his hand around John’s forearm, and rose. They both fumbled with his clothes until he, too, wore nothing but the motel room’s warm air.

  John pressed into him, pulling him close and kissing him with a combination of insatiable hunger and the slowness of a man who needed to savor every last second. Then he drew back and pulled in a breath like he was about to speak, but Hagen beat him to it:

  “Fuck me.”

  John swallowed his own words—something to the effect of “Let’s not rush it,” but Hagen, as always, proved the irresistible force. John opened and closed his mouth, surprised, delighted, too turned on for words, and suddenly rushing seemed like the best idea they’d ever had.