Paddy was curled up, back pressed against the cot, his breathing shallow and frantic, as if his heart was doing leaps inside his chest. His hands were clasped over his ears, which made him curl up even more, pressing his head impossibly close to his knees. He didn’t hear the flaps of the tent rustle open, didn’t hear eoin’s footsteps approaching, didn’t feel the cold night desert air fill the tent.
Eoin carefully crouched down beside him, using the cot to steady himself. His knees and back hardly recovered after the first jump.
“Paddy,” the words came out as a whisper. When there was no reply, he added softly “It’s me. You’ll be okay paddy. I’m here.”
When he got no response, eoin reached out to run his fingers through paddy’s hair, slightly outgrown and wet at his neck from all the sweat. Eoin didn’t mind it the slightest, not when paddy lifted his head up at the touch, brows furrowed and eyes tight shut. His breathing was still shallow as he slowly worked them open, head tilting sideways to meet eoin’s eyes. Paddy’s hands fell down to his lap as he took another ragged breath.
Eoin took the lack of shielding around paddy as an opportunity to shift their position so paddy’s back was pressed against eoin’s chest. Eoin pressed his palm flat right over paddy’s heart and was almost taken aback by how paddy’s heart threatened to break his ribcage.
“Breathe with me,” he kept his calm despite the worry. “Just like that. You’re doing good, blair.”
Paddy’s chest was still rising fast, eyes still shut snd head tipped low, except now his own hands fell down was covering eoin’s instead of his own ears. The pressure over his chest seemed to anchor him enough, because after a few shuddering breaths his pulse seemed to come back to normal.
It took paddy a few moments to fully calm down, body going lax at eoin’s arms, fitting perfectly like he was born for eoin. His head tipped back to rest on his lover’s shoulder, still holding his hand where it was clasped over paddy’s chest.
“The fucking thunders,” he began, exhaustedly. “The sounds were the same as those on the day of the jump.” He didn’t have to continue further, he couldn’t, but eoin understood him nonetheless. He didn’t have to hear paddy say how finding eoin all scarred up and barely breathing in the sand is an image he will never forget.
“Oh, paddy.” Eoin shifted slightly, taking paddy’s face in his hands and lifting his head up so their eyes could meet. “I’m here, love. I’m not going anywhere.”
Despite himself and his best efforts, paddy’s eyes burned, and he blinked away some couple of tears, eyes never leaving eoin’s.
He kissed him then, slow and careful, and paddy really felt the essence of it, of eoin’s soul and the safety of the both of them. That night they slept curled together, paddy appreciating the warmth of eoin’s very much alive body.
There’s something morose in Eoin’s expression when he tilts his head at him, drawing his attention again. God, but he’s so beautiful, even with that sad look on his face, “The jump didn’t kill me, Paddy.”
“It almost did.” He reminds him. Eoin had survived the jump, unlike in his dream, but it hadn’t come without its costs; scars on his beautiful face, a limp that he didn’t think would ever go away.
“But it didn’t.” Eoin says as he takes his hand, pressing it to the flat plane of his chest so that he could feel the beat of his heart through the thin undershirt that he had worn to bed last night, “D'you feel that? I’m alive.”
Look, you don’t even hate. Not really. You just… You get mad and then you squeeze the trigger. And then you make other people mad to make your madness seem all right.
Honestly this is one of my very favorite Paddy/Eoin moments. Paddy tells him he’s going to the Far East, and Eoin asks, “You are?” with a smile frozen on his face while his heart either stops altogether or goes into overdrive.
His face still says 😃😃😃 but his voice says 🥺🥺🥺
Also also, I love how Paddy is 100% testing to see Eoin’s reaction before he makes the offer for Eoin to join him. He’s been thinking non-stop about what Eoin might say, lying there with a book so it looks like he’s not super invested when Eoin gets back.
I mean, look at this!
You are NOT SUBTLE, Paddy Mayne. We know how much you care, even if Eoin is worried for a minute there.
As if it wasnt enough that paddy and eoin are two homosexuals in the 40’s we also had to give them a weird relationship with gender identity….. which is something i like a lot….. eoin with a more feminine side and paddy feeling neither like a man nor like a woman……. Yeahhhhhh
i was going to casually watch this show just to see what the hell tumblr user @egsaurus was on about but then it grabbed me by the throat. crops at 100% zoom (tasty brush strokes) and sketches under the cut
