Chapter Text
There’s a war, and it’s one hell of a war, and it twists Alex. It forces him to look Death square in the eyes, and he hates it. Wants to crawl into a hole and cry for the rest of his life, as he watches first his NCO, First Sergeant Edmund Moore – a pretentious fucking scholar from Cambridge that had too many words in him, and was too concerned with everyone else to fucking look behind him and see the fucking grenade - get killed not too far away.
He can still feel the blood splatter.
He watches Jones die next. He’s a Technician, and he’s 23, and he has a bird back home. Sweet, sweet Eliza Ray, Jones tells him one night. I’m gonna marry her, Al, I’m gonna marry her and shower her with love until she forgets this war, and so I can forget it too, and Alex thought it sounded like a plan until stupid, stupid Jones gets himself killed with Kraut artillery. A bullet to his head, a bullet to his main artery in his leg. Nothing the medic could do.
He can still hear the gasp from his friend’s lips.
He watches the most of his platoon die, in the most horrific ways, and he himself remains unscathed. Pretty much. A bullet grazes his neck but all it does is bleed, and he can wrap a bandage around it, and he moves on; he doesn’t bleed out like William does. He doesn’t die screaming, in incredible pain, like Emma – Emanuel, but they thought it was way too long, way too complicated, and they already had a Jones, and Emanuel hated Emma, so naturally Emma it was – had, grenade having torn up his stomach.
There’s not enough time to even mourn for his fallen comrades, his dead friends, and this, more than anything, makes Alex hate the Kraut scumbags with a fiery passion. He wants them all to die. He wants them to move out of France; if they have to fight a war, couldn’t they then fight in Russia? Long away from France, and mostly, the United Kingdom. It might be selfish, but he’d rather be selfish, a prick, egoistical, fucking stupid than he’d be dead. Dead like Sergeant Fraser. Dead like his best mate Matthew.
He’s not alone, though; there’s so many people dying, dropping like flies. People he knows, people he cares for, and people he had hoped would make it through this war. They die and die, and he goes on because he’s not alone. Everyone hasn’t left him yet, and that’s enough a reason to keep on fighting as any he’s ever heard from his CO’s. They all speak of how this war, this defending of France, will determine the outcome of the war; and that too makes Alex more bitter because they’ve send a half million young men to defend a country with half a plan and not even half the artillery that the Krauts have, and now they’re sent on the run.
They’re getting killed, fucking slaughtered, when they were supposed to defend a country against Germany, Kraut-land as Tate used to say, but now they’re on the run same as the Frogs, and Alex wants to throw up, because it’s such a disaster, and it’s so embarrassing, and his parents must sit at home, shaking their heads as they watch the news.
Our boys let us down and bring the war to out doorsteps.
It’s not a thought he can bear to think of for long. He thinks of his sister – 12 years old, 11 years younger than him. He hasn’t seen her in a year.
He’s afraid she won’t be able to recognize him if ever comes home. God knows, he can’t recognize the Alex from before he was deployed. It scares him how much he’s already changed, especially because he knows that this war is far from over, and if he doesn’t die, he’ll be shipped off to some part of the world again, and he’ll see even more people he cares about die, and he’ll turn even more bitter.
He hates war, he decides. Fuck war, fuck nazis, fuck Germany, fuck this fucking war and everything involved.
He takes a deep breath, in and out, in and out.
“War,” he whispers, “war is fucking hell.”
They get to the beach, and if he thought hiding in French fields and forests and villages were shit, then it’s nothing compared to the fucking beach.
They’re sitting ducks.
If the Krauts take the city, they can hide snipers in the buildings, and there’ll be nowhere for them to hide but behind the corpses of their friends.
If the Krauts come from the sea, there’ll be nowhere to run because the city is already taken by the Germans, and there’s not enough space in the Allied’s half of the city for four hundred fucking thousand soldiers to hide.
When the Krauts come from the air, there’s nowhere to run. All they can do is fall flat and hope that they by some miracle won’t get hit by a falling grenade.
As soon as they are trapped on the beach, he knows that there’s two ways out of here; one that is fairly easy – get killed and fly out of here with motherfucking angel wings. And two, get on a ship that miraculously won’t get torpedoed or bombed.
He knows, as soon as they get trapped, that there’s no way he’s going to survive this. He could survive the French country side because there were others to take the bullets meant for him; here there’s barely anyone he knows.
He knows Smokey is somewhere close to the mole, hoping to get on a ship. He thinks that maybe, maybe he could join Smokey and it’d be like old days; third platoon against the world.
And then there’s bombs raining from the sky, and the man next to him flies everywhere, and he falls to the ground, trying to make himself as small as possible, tries, if possible, to dig himself into the sand by just pressing.
He doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to die, and he could care less about Lieutenant Andrews and his ‘the only way to not go insane is to accept that you’re already dead’, because damn it, he wants to live. He wants to see his mum again, he wants to see his sister again, he wants to get an education – maybe a stuck up degree, as a tribute to Sergeant Moore. He wouldn’t do well in Cambridge, not like Moore had, but for a war buddy, as pretentious and arrogant as he had been, Alex could try. Heaven knew he had nothing better to do with his life, if he ever made it home.
“Hey soldier,” a shout made him startle and he looked over to his side. A Highlander with ashblonde hair waved at him, “you wanna go home?”
Alex raised his eyebrows, before a smirk settled on his lips, as he pushed himself up from the sand, deliberately not looking to his side, to where he knew there would lay corpses of soldiers, medics, and already wounded.
“You could say that, yeah.”
The other soldier grinned at him and stuck a hand out to him as they walked to the Mole, “name’s Joe, by the way. Joseph, a real son of Abraham, yessir.”
Alex shook his head, already liking the fellow. “Name’s Alex, not any Alexander, no thank you, and if you want, I respond to Al.”
Joe nodded and mumbled a little ‘nice to meet you’ which Alex nodded agreeing to. A friendly face in a sea of downcast eyes and hopeless faces was a rare sight, and it already did wonders for his mood to walk alongside someone else full of hope once again.
“So what brought ya here?” Joe broke the silence once more, and Alex got an inkling that silence did not settle well with the other man.
He frowned. “Krauts and their fucking grenades. N’ you? You just took a lil’ vacation or wha’?”
“Nah, not like that, you dafty”, but he didn’t sound mad. Actually, Joe was laughing like he was having the time of his life, and Alex couldn’t resist smiling. No cause is lost as long as there’s one fool left to fight for it, he remembered vaguely a text saying once.
Maybe, not all hope to go home is lost, if just one still holds onto it, he thought with a strange, new warmth in his heart.
“I meant, why’d you join the army?”, Joe elaborated his earlier question, explaining himself, “I joined because why the fuck not, yeah? It’s war, sooner or later we’re gonna be drafted, enlisting makes it all easier, I think.”
Why did he join the army? To get away from home? To experience some action?
“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully, eyes downcast. “Just seemed like the right decision, is all.”
“Yeah, yeah” the other mused, “yeah, I can understand that. Lots of things seemed right, that in hindsight perhaps wasn’t as bright.”
Alex couldn’t help but grin, “quite the poet, aren’t ya?”
A laugh, and the easy banter between the two of them makes Alex feel at ease in a way he hasn’t since Matthew got killed.
“Nah, not really, not yet,” and at Alex’s raised eyebrow, Joe explains, “I was getting a degree in literature before this war, am 21, and I wanted to be a writer.”
That’s fair. Alex can understand that. Putting one’s life on hold, giving up one’s dreams, to fight a doomed war.
“So what,” he tries to clear the air, he wants the lighthearted mood back, he doesn’t want this gloomy Joe, he wants the Joe that hoped to go home. The Joe that still dared to hope that despite all evidence, maybe they could go home. “You going to write a memoir when you get home? Just rat us all out, tell them all our dirty stories?”
Joe shrugs as they near the Mole. “Maybe. Maybe not.” A wink, and Alex feels himself relax minutely by the action. “Best not tell me anything juicy, though. Never know when I’m gonna run out of my own stuff to put in there.”
“Just my thinking,” Alex agrees with a smile, and just like that the dark mood has dissipated.
They stand at the Mole for what seems like ages; around them is anonymous soldiers, all looking like they’re on their way to their doom, when they’re really on their way to freedom, to home, and Alex wants to scream at them to cheer the fuck up. They’re going home, and if they’re not, he’s blaming it all on these fuckers’ negativity jinxing it.
Turns out negativity is just the thing that draws in German bombs, because suddenly they can hear the Jaegers, and they huddle closer, try to appear as small as possible, invisible even, and Alex closes his eyes. Tells himself what Lieutenant Andrews always said, that he’s never had a chance at going home, that he’s already dead. He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead.
Everything’s silent for a little while – turns out when you scream so loudly on the inside, very few sounds from the outside can make it past it – and then the bombs drop once again, and everything’s shaking, and he feels his hands go sweaty, he feels all blood leave his face, he feels like he might faint.
And just as quick as it’s begun, it’s over, and he opens his eyes, doesn’t look for Joe. Can’t look for Joe because if he does, he’ll see his friend lay somewhere with empty eyes and blood running down their face.
He’ll look at the body and see the person, the life, that’s been gone to waste.
The longer Alex is part of this war, fights in this war, he learns more and more how unequipped he is to handle all this. He can’t handle not going home one day, he can’t handle having to mentally forfeit his life, he can’t handle this fucking war taking and taking, and giving nothing back
But he waits on the Mole, he waits on the ship that will take him home, because Alex is a soldier, and no matter how rotten a soldier he is, that is what counts at the end of the day. That is all he has left.
So he functions as a soldier is meant to function, hopes he’ll make it through, forces himself to think that if he doesn’t make it through? That’s okay as well. It has to be. There’s really no other way.
And then there comes along a ship, and it’s big, and most of all, it’s freedom because they usher him aboard, and he’s finally going home. He’s going home, home, home, and he could fall on his knees and cry out of relief, but he doesn’t. He is a soldier, and soldiers are tough, they don’t cry.
Soldiers should be allowed to cry, he thinks.
They’re going home, and he’s so happy.
And then, all of a sudden, and he really should’ve seen it coming, they’re not.
They’re fleeing for their lives, and he jumps over board. The water is cold, and it’s dark, and he has to fight because his gear is damn heavy in water, damn it, and he’s breaking the surface, and he’s fighting against all odds because has he ever been a good swimmer? No way, never, and it’s heavy, his uniform, and the ship is coming closer, so fucking close, and just before hands drag him away from the water and the enclosing ship, he thinks of his mum, wants her to know that he is brave. He just wasn’t good enough to survive, lucky enough.
He is saved by two boys with hair as dark as raven. One has brown amber eyes. One has eyes, he thinks as he beckons his heart to calm the fuck down – he isn’t dead, like the ocean. Blue, so fucking blue, and he really does not fucking need this right now.
But they saved him, and he doesn’t say anything to them when they take a quick dip in the water, and he doesn’t say anything to the officers, and nothing to the captain, when they’re ushered to another ship; he doesn’t say that they haven’t served their time on the beach, because the beach is hell, they’re sitting ducks waiting to be bombed and gunned down, and well, they saved him. So he feels a little in debt to them – and that’s it. Now it’s even. Now he can think of his own survival.
He’s going to survive.
Fuck Andrews and his suicidal philosophy. Alex is going home, like Andrews isn’t, and he’s going to live because he’s a soldier, and he’s served his time in France this time ‘round.
He wants so fucking bad to live, to go home and live his life, so when the trawler probably won’t float, he votes for sacrificing Gibson – fucking Gibson, his name is not fucking Gibson, it’s Jerry, it’s Hans, it’s not fucking British and they’re dying because of a fucking Kraut, that’s apparently a Frog. Doesn’t change that his name’s not Gibson; it’s Pierre, it’s Javert. it’s Eugene, and he begs Tommy – with the blue, blue, blue, blue eyes to understand, that they won’t float, and he, they all, everyone, needs to go home.
They need to live, can’t you understand, Tommy?
He wants to scream it at him, but there’s Krauts out there, and they’ve probably figured out that there’s Brits in the trawler, and they’re shooting it up, and they can’t hold the water out without being in danger of dying, and everything’s so confusing, and Tommy doesn’t fucking understand him.
Well, fuck him then, he’s not part of Alex’s regiment – he makes sure to tell him that, with a casual voice that does not reflect how turbulent his head is, how sorry he is, how angry he is that another Brit can’t understand that Brits deserve to go home, because the Frogs couldn’t defend their own country and now they’re all going to die because of it, and the Frogs can fucking wait their turn.
He’s so confused, and desperate, he’s really fucking desperate, he knows that, but he just, wants to go home. Home, home, home, home.
It’s only when he sees Tommy come down the stairs, wet, oil washed off his face, but blessedly alive, and he wants to cry, that it stands clear as crystal, that the best would be to go home alongside Tommy.
And then they see the cliffs, the English cliffs, and he has to force himself not to reach out for Tommy’s hand, squeeze it, tell him they’re coming home, because the boy with the ocean eyes – and now they match, now that the sun shines on the sea, he can see how beautiful (not beautiful, you aren’t allowed to say that about another male, not in the army, not now, not in this time, maybe in the future, he thinks) the colour of his eyes is – looks out at the ocean like it’s the secondcoming of Christ.
Maybe it is.
Realizing they’re going home could be like witnessing God, his angels, his Son, his Spirit – Alex isn’t really big on the whole religion thing, but his mother is, and he knows, in his heart, that for the rest of his life, he’s going to be listening to her proclaiming that their rescue is the work of God.
Maybe it is.
He doesn’t think so.
If there was a God, then he is a cruel, selfish God that could never be worthy of worship. The things he allowed to be done, the things he will allow to be done in the future of this war, were and will all be evil.
If there is a God somewhere, Alex decides as he and Tommy, side by side, watch England – home come closer and closer, he surely must be the Devil in disguise.
He closes his eyes, rests his head on the glass, pretends that they’re going home, that they’re not being rescued from some military disaster, that they’re not begging for the Krauts to attack their homes and take their women, that they’re not going to fight in any more battles.
It’s a lie, and he knows that because the guilt is eating him up, and he wants to smash something, a glass, a window, anything that will splinter as much as his soul.
He talks, instead of freaking out – he’s not fucking shellshocked, he’s not going crazy or anything, even though he can see how little Tommy cares for his words. He would care little for his words too, because they’re poisonous and bitter, and Tommy survived Dunkerque as well, and he knows how bad it was down there, so all Alex’s really doing is just dragging back uncomfortable memories.
Then again, Tommy never tells him to stop. Perhaps it’s because then he himself has to fill the silence, and Tommy doesn’t look the fellow to just strike up casual conversation.
Alex remembers himself as that fellow and thinks of dumb, unaware, naive, and innocent he was at that time. Never seen another human being die. Never seen any being die, really, that wasn’t an insect. Not even a fucking cat.
“So,” he prompts after a little while, Tommy still looking out the window, eyes far away and still looking as blue as the sea, “what did you do? Before this?”
Tommy takes a deep breath before turning his eyes on Alex. “Waiting. I was a waiter.”
A smirk spreads on his lips. “Ah, should’ve guessed that. Your small talk skills are off the charts.”
Tommy’s lips curve into a soft smile, and it’s warm, and yeah, he really should’ve guessed that Tommy was in the service industry. That smile.
“You?”, Tommy turned the question to him, and Alex turns his gaze to the window.
“Carpenter,” he says, shrugs. “Pa’s a carpenter, I’m a carpenter. Family business and all.”
Tommy nods like it makes sense, and it kind of does, and his eyes are faraway once more, and Alex wants him to come back, not to leave him all the time, to just leave those thoughts alone for a little while and let Alex get to know him.
He wants to know him better.
He wants to go to war with someone he knows.
“You think they’re gonna ship us out again?”
Tommy looks like he’s gonna laugh.
“Sure.” A beat. “We're either going to stay here and defend England, or we're going to the Pacific to break the war over there.”
And Alex goes cold at that, remembers the newscast. Remembers the awful descriptions of how the Japanese fare war. It’s a cruel, cruel way, and it kills, kills, kills, and even the fucking Krauts are to prefer over those sons of bitches over there.
He nods, thoughts faraway, gulping. He’d rather die in France than ever be sent to the Pacific, hopes to God that the Allied forces will never join that war, and looking at Tommy’s closed off look, he reckons he’d rather the same.
“You think they hate us?” He asks, has to, he needs to get it off his chest. “Them back here in England?”
Tommy looks at him, thoughtful, before shrugging. “Doesn’t matter, d’ya think? We’re dying like flies for them to enjoy the five o’clock tea. They best not cause us any trouble.”
Alex looks away. But they can still hate us, he thinks, doesn’t say anything because Tommy is turning and turning, and he looks ready to pass out, and he needs the sleep.
The thought doesn’t leave him, however, only when they get their hands on that newspaper, only when he gets the apples, the beers, and Tommy is reading out loud, and the people are cheering, and he feels warm again, and he smiles.
Their fellow Brits don’t hate them, they don’t blame them. He thinks his eyes are wet, and he doesn’t even think about wiping the tears away. The rest of the train, the rest of their cart at least, feels the same way.
Some even looks just as stricken as he feels.
He locks eyes with Tommy, with the blue, blue eyes, just as he’s finishing reading the article.
“We’ll never surrender,” Tommy reads with a soft voice, and if it sounds like doom, like a sealing of their fate as lambs for the slaughter, then he’s too happy to care.
Your life is already forfeit. Accept that, Andrews used to say, it’s the only way a soldier can function properly as a soldier.
Locking eyes with Tommy, none of that matters.