When the morning bell rang, Joe blinked and sat up.
He’d been awake for the last hours, thinking about his life. Thinking of Dubois.
Wearily, he stared at Dubois’s face on the pillow.
Joe hate Dubois’s pained expression. It sickened him to hurt his lover this way. He looked down at his hands; these hands he’d taken so much pride in. What good were they to him, if they couldn’t touch Dubois? Joe didn’t want him to leave, but didn’t want him to stay.
Downtrodden, Joe stood and washed his face with the iced water in the bucket. In his bunk, Dubois stirred and cracked an eye open, but didn’t say anything. Slowly, Dubois sat up and untangled his legs from the blankets. In this gray light, his face was ghostly pale, but his green eyes were dark with pain. He wouldn’t look at Joe. He stood an
