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He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to look at the colour white without feeling a deep sense of unease again. The colour white that is usually connected to purity, to innocence, to hope, now ruined forever by a single occurrence. It’s a colour that he’s come to associate with the fall of cherry blossom petals which cover the ground like freshly fallen snow most strongly. It reminds him of a quiet moment amongst the frantic disaster that was that entire day - a moment before his entire world had been dropped into the depths of hell that he hasn’t seen the likes of before.
Well, perhaps thinking that is a fair bit dramatic.
A moment ago he had his entire heart, still beating in his chest, torn to pieces and scattered, disturbing the white petal-covered ground around him with red.
Now, that wasn't much better either. Very tragic hero of him.
He hates the colour red.
Well, that one’s not new. He’s hated the colour red ever since he first stepped foot onto the battlefield and saw the next man to his right get blown up the moment they left the trenches. He hates the colour of red, hates the texture of all things red, and he hates the spray of it spanning the land sporadically as far as the eye can see until it rusts darker or gets washed out by the rains that fall so heavily over here.
Sometimes; sometimes, though, the colour red is nice.
Because it is the colour of his lips and cheeks when the wind blows a little too harshly, because it is the colour he feels the most prominently when he does something so ridiculously endearing that it makes his entire being run hot.
The colour blue, on the other hand, he loves the colour blue.
He loves the blue of the sky on a clear day, loves the colour blue of the open seas, loves the colour blue that decorates the front of his sister’s house and the little potted flowers planted there. But mostly, he loves the colour blue because it is the colour of Blake’s eyes. The bright of them when he’s happy, the murky colour of them when there’s no sun in the sky, the blue when he’s fired up and the bluegray when he’s tired and drained. He loves so many of the shades of the blue that can be found in the other’s eyes on any given day. Almost all of them.
He hates the fading, drab, washed-out blue that colours Blake’s eyes as he starts losing blood rapidly. And there it is again, that pesky, pesky red. And it doesn’t stop. It keeps flowing, dirtying everything in its wake, including the pale skin of Blake’s soft hands, the gold of his rings, the yellow of the envelope.
“Scho.” Blake gurgles, more red emerging between his pale lips and he wants to wipe it off, wipe it all clean, purge the world of red forever. Fuck the red theatre drapes, fuck red roses and red lipsticks, fuck fancy red cars, it all needs to go, it all needs to disappear.
“Blake – Tom – you’ll be fine – it’s going to be fine.” He wants to believe in his own words, wants to believe that Blake will get through this, that he’ll make it and that they’ll find the older of the brothers together but. But.
There's so much fucking red.
His vision blurs, Blake’s blue eyes becoming unclear and unfocused in his sights. The blue gets lost to the darkness that’s threatening to overtake his own vision.
“Hi,” Blake chuckles weakly and he chokes on his next breath.
“Hey,” He sniffles with a forced smile, tears making their way down his face and onto Blake’s pale cheeks. Now those, those he wishes were red again.
“I’ll be okay.” Blake reassures him uselessly and a sound that he hasn’t produced ever before makes it's way out of his throat. It’s raw and powered by grief and red hot anger he feels at Blake’s senseless and generous nature. Who other than Thomas Blake would set aside his weapon and help the enemy in the middle of a war? Who other would be so kind and good?
“Go – go find my brother. Save them, Scho, you can do it.” Blake urges gently, dropping his rings into his hands, words fading and body going lax.
“Blake.” He whimpers, voice cracking like the dried blood crusting on his clothes. “Please.”
The colour red stops existing for him. It becomes gray, flaxen and pallid. He looks up and his eyes catch bits and pieces of what used to be red now looking grim and bleak. The horizon blighted by dark patches, flowers losing their shine, their purpose. It fits, he thinks. It’s only fair that the flowers will no longer blossom because Tom won’t bloom again either.
He weeps. It’s silent and heavy, with his chest heaving and his hands shaking as he holds Blake against himself. He hums to try and stop the wailing that’s threatening to escape him, hums a lullaby to himself and Tom to kill the oppressive silence around them.
The red starts slowly trickling back in and he becomes horribly aware of how drenched in it he is. It’s everywhere, it’s tacky and it’s sticky and he abhors it. He hates it more than anything he’s ever hated – more than the war, more than the joyless visits home, more than the caked mud under his fingernails.
And then they arrive, his saving grace, Captain Smith and his company of soldiers with the trucks and the first aid for a dying man.
He can’t stay, though. He doesn’t have the time to hover over the medics as they grapple with the last strands of Blake’s life. He doesn’t think he’d stay even if he had the time. It’s too painful, watching someone you – care about – fade away while there’s nothing you can do about it.
He stashes the rings into the tin with the pictures of his sister and her daughters for safe keeping.
His tears stop abruptly and he wipes at his face with the back of his hand. They load him up onto a truck and he thinks he’s lucky for this, lucky that he gets to let his legs rest for a brief moment, lucky that they manage to get the truck out of the mud. He thinks he’s lucky up until they get to the bridge and find it collapsed.
But he doesn’t have the luxury of going down the river and finding the other bridge. It’s what remains of this bridge or 1600 people dying because he’s failed – another Blake dying because he failed.
The enemy shots barely concern him in the grand scheme of things. They matter little to him personally but they matter on a larger scale of his urge not to let Lance Corporal Thomas Blake down again. So instead of giving in, finding a longer way around to avoid the other’s shots, he shoots back. He fights back with all that he has and he still fails again. Because he’s desperate and in this lonely desperation, without Blake’s chatter to keep him sane, he becomes careless and reckless.
When he comes back to himself from the blessed darkness he thinks that it’s too late. But the sun still hasn’t come up and the dead man in the room up the stairs hasn’t started rotting yet so maybe he still has time.
The pain he feels is barely a fraction of that which he has felt but a few scant hours ago when Blake had been dying in his arms, covered in red and as white as a sheet with dull blue eyes pleading with him to go on. No, that was a pain this couldn’t even rival. Because that, what he’d felt right then, will linger past the physical wounds. It will dig into his very core and make itself a home there, forever remind him of what had happened, of what he’d lost. Because, surely, Blake is dead?
Blake is dead, he thinks to himself as he stumbles upon the town of Écoust. He’d voice this thought out loud as well – if he had the willpower to do so. But saying it out loud might make it all the more real, might squash down the flickering bit of hope he still has left.
He shuffles slowly until he has to run again, being chased by the enemy, the hides and meets a woman and a child that isn’t hers. He unloads the supplies that he has and gives the infant milk from his canteen that he’d gotten at that cursed farm.
And then he’s running again. They shoot but never manage to hit. It feels like he runs for hours, days, months, years before he takes the leap into the river. And then he’s drowning. And all that he can think about is that he should have already died, back there with Tom, mowed down by an enemy plane descending upon them like a blazing hellbeast.
Somehow, he makes it through that as well. He thinks that it’s Tom, looking down upon him, weaving stories of his good luck and good fortune so that it lives, and it feels almost blasphemous. To what? To whom? He doesn’t know. He makes his way out of the congestion of dead bodies and guts floating in the water, out of so much red, onto the plain brown ground. Half-delirious and half-alive he stumbles towards the sound permeating the still air as the sun rises higher in the sky.
A man stands solemn and solid, surrounded by soldiers paying rapt attention as his voice echoes. The melody is sorrowful, mourning the lost and mourning those who will be. He sits, leaning against the rough bark of a tree and he listens with all of the men with their helms and their gear strapped on. They’re getting ready for battle, he thinks idly as his conscience begins to drift.
There’s silence for another brief moment after the man finishes his song and then the soldiers start marching out of the forest.
Someone is talking to him, asking him what he wants, where he’s from and he has to think for a bit about what he truly wants before he remembers that it doesn’t matter and that he’s here to find the 2nd Devons. To complete a mission.
It turns out that they are the Second Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment but he finds that the first of the Battalion has already prepared for attack. He doesn’t have any more time left. He’s running in the negative and he’s running, alright, straight through the crowded trenches asking for Colonel Mackenzie and where to find the man. But he’s too late, the signal still goes off and the men start pouring out of the trenches – he has no choice but to follow.
He runs and runs and runs, through smoke, gunfire, the cannon fodder that is the first wave of the soldiers. People crash into him, fall around him, but he remains upright and running until he reaches the man that is the intended recipient of the bloody letter he carries. Of the damned letter that has cost him the only man to ever-
They call off the attack and Schofield finally breathes in deeply for the first time in what feels like weeks.
With that done, he decides that it’s time for the hard part.
He asks around for Joseph Blake, doesn’t get much information in turn, nobody seems to know much aside for the fact that he was in the first wave.
Running frantic, cold, hungry, dizzy, he rushes past faces but none of them hold the same lines that made up Tom’s precious visage.
When he finally finds him he thinks bullshit, they look nothing alike. But he quickly realizes that this is because there’s no one out there quite like Thomas Blake. With his soft red cheeks and his big blue eyes and his pale small hands, nobody compares. And he’d never even told him that-
“Lieutenant Blake?” He croaks, dragging the man’s eyes away from the injured men being transported on stretchers and onto himself – and oh, there’s the similarity, they’re the same vibrant blue as Tom’s are when the day is sunny.
“You alright, lad?” Blake comes closer as he starts swaying oh his feet from shock.
“Yes, I-” He feels his face scrunch up unattractively under the force of those blue eyes, under the pressure of what he’d just gone through. “Just a minor head wound.”
“You should get that checked, I’ll-”
“No, no. I.” He chokes again. He’s supposed to tell this man that his brother is possibly dead. How is he supposed to do that when he doesn’t want to believe the words himself? How is he supposed to cope and remain calm and collected when he’s standing in front of the same blue eyes – the kind that bore into your soul if you looked at them for too long. In fact, he’s sure that Blake already knows his every little secret, his every coveted sin, every reckless thought just from glancing at him for a moment.
He turns around, not willing to let those eyes stare at him any longer. He marches towards the lone beech tree he sees on the horizon, wondering how his life had gone to shit so quickly. Just yesterday morning he was enjoying the warm sun on his face with Blake dozing at his side peacefully. And now, now he’s a hollow man leaning against a brittle tree that seems just as fragile as him, a lost cause, too tall and too much of an eyesore not to get shot down by enemy fire eventually.
“Mate, you alright? Where’s your gear?” There it is again, that genuine nature that had gotten Tom stabbed. He’s beginning to think that it’s unfortunately hereditary.
He shakes his head, closing his eyes and pressing a thumb against the cut on his palm, letting the pain ground him. He should probably get that checked at some point. That and the head wound. But what does it matter now? He’s done his part, he’s delivered the letter and he found the older Blake brother alive and well. Though, he supposes he’s had very little to do with that since the man had already been in the first wave when he’d gotten to them.
“Hey, none of that.” Blake grips the wrist of his injured arm and twists to look at the wound properly. “What happened, come on, words, Private.”
“Lance Corporal Schofield,” He grinds out, clenching his other hand by his thigh.
“Lance Corporal,” The Lieutenant tilts his head curiously. “Which Company are you from, lad?”
He shakes his head, looking away again and he – he can’t speak. There’s a pressure inside his throat expanding outwards, suffocating and painful and making his chest heave. His vision darkens again and Blake’s hands are on his face, insistent and gentle despite it all.
“Steady now, Corporal. Come on, deep breaths, in an’ out.” Blake instructs, guiding his chest on the next inhale and forcing him to keep it in for a few seconds before releasing it. Eventually, he manages to calm down, the colour seeping back into his vision and the bright white spots disappearing. He meets Blake’s eyes and his mouth tugs down far enough that it feels the strain in the muscles of his face.
“That’s it, that’s good.” Blake smiles and Schofield wishes he had the ability to do the same.
He dreads the next words that will come out of his mouth because they’ll erase that smile right of the other’s face like one would wipe dust off an antique ornament that’s been on the shelves for too long.
“Thank you, I – I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” He clears his throat and Blake finally releases his chest, warm hands retreating as the man sits down in front of him.
“I reckon you’ve been through a fair bit, yeah?” The Lieutenant chuckles and offers him his canteen.
Schofield accepts it gratefully, chugging the water like a man stranded in the desert. He hasn’t had fresh water since – well, since the other Blake saved his life yesterday. He puts the cap back on and hands the canteen to the Lieutenant, dragging out the silence so that he doesn’t have to speak the words he’s so afraid of.
“I was sent here to deliver a letter from General Erinmore calling off Mackenzie’s attack.” He gulps as the other’s face settles into a stoic expression. “I was sent here with your – with your brother, Lance Corporal Thomas Blake, the man that saved my life as we crossed no man’s land, the bravest soldier I’ve-” He slams his mouth shut, lower lip wobbling and a whimper threatening to leave him.
“What happened?” The Lieutenant’s voice is near-silent, face growing pallid and eyes dulling like his brother’s had when-
“He got stabbed,” He sucks it up for Tom. Thomas believed that he was brave and he’ll do anything to live up to the man’s memory of him. “He was stabbed trying to help an enemy pilot out of a plane that lost a dogfight and crashed near us.”
A near-hysterical laugh makes it out of Blake’s mouth, hands scrubbing over his face. “Yeah, yes. He’d do something like that, wouldn’t he?”
He nods frantically, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand again, hating that he’s crying like a babe over this. He thought he’d seen it all, thought that the death in front of his eyes couldn’t have been worse before this mission but now all of the other death’s have just been replaced by Blake getting stabbed and bleeding out over the both of them.
“Is he dead, then?” Blake finally asks and, well, he doesn’t really have an answer to that.
He throws his head upwards, the wound on the back of it stinging sharply as it thumps against the beech tree. “I don’t know. I left him with a couple o’ medics but he was bleeding so much and I just – I had to deliver the letter. He wanted me to go on.”
Blake nods to himself, hands gripping the blades of grass by his bent knees, looking younger than he probably is in the midday sun. Looking like a man lost and a man that’s lost. He wishes he could say something to make it better but he doesn’t think he can say anything at all to the other man ever again. Doesn’t know if he has the right to try and comfort the man in front of him when he’d left his brother behind so coldly.
“You did well, lad.” Blake says after what seems like a too-long bout of silence.
“Ha,” He chokes out, curling forward and over his own knees, burying his face there. “Could have done better, yeah?”
The Lieutenant pats his shoulder, “You did what you could and that’s what matters. You saved countless lives out there today, including mine.”
“I wanted to go back. The moment we stepped out of our trenches I begged him to turn back. I was a – I am a coward. He was the brave one, he always told me to be brave and to keep going, to keep running to just.” He breaks off with another choked sob.
Lieutenant Joseph Blake, with eyes as blue as the coldest of seas but warm as the noon’s sky, envelops him into a crushing hug. The man lets him sob into his shoulder and shake like a leaf in a strong wind pathetically. He cries until he thinks that he can shed tears no more and the man holding his shaking frame never says a bad word about him. The Lieutenant should probably be out there with his men, doing his duty, and instead he’s here comforting a broken child.
“I’ll send word.” Blake says once he’s stopped sobbing so loudly. “I’ll send word and ask so that we know.”
He nods into the man’s tear-stained shoulder. It will be good to know for sure. “Come on, Schofield, let’s get you patched up.”
For the first time in a while, he allows someone else to take care of him. Not because he needs it, not really, but mostly because he’s physically unable to do it himself.
He doesn’t as much fall asleep that night as he sets his brain adrift into the vast and unknown nothingness. He doesn’t let himself feel. Doesn’t let himself think. Doesn’t let anything from what he’s seen and experienced leak into his consciousness.
And eventually, the darkness consumes him, envelopes him fully and the he’s gone.
He gasps awake in the morning, his heart rabbiting in his chest and his limbs shaking. He’s surrounded by men groaning in pain and nurses flitting between the one’s awake enough to complain, but he’s alive despite it seeming like hell. Every inch of his body aches dully and his head is throbbing so it takes him a moment to focus his eyes onto the figure standing next to his cot. Tom, he almost makes the mistake of saying out loud because the eyes staring at him are so blue. But he holds his tongue and Lieutenant Blake crouches down so that they’re at eye-level.
“I asked around, about Tom.” Blake says slowly, his face hard but not as pale as it was yesterday.
“Yeah?” He coughs, his dry throat clicking until the Lieutenant hands him a cup of water. He enjoys the cold feeling of it as he takes measured sips.
“Nobody knows him by name but they say that a passing company picked someone up on the outskirts of Écoust. A Lieutenant from Captain Smith’s company said they took ‘im to the nearest aid post.” Blake looks at him critically and hands him a letter. “I’ve arranged a transport for you. They’ll be taking you to the same aid post. It seems as though you need to be kept under observation due to your grievous head injuries. Hand this to the nurse at the door.”
He gapes, the blue of Blake’s eyes becoming brighter than he could have imagined the longer he keeps silent.
“You-” He starts and pulls up short, no other words leaving him.
“Lied? You’re quite right, lad.” Blake holds out a hand. “Up you go.”
He lets the other pull him upright, still trying to grasp with what he’s been told. “But.”
Blake rolls his eyes and in that moment he resembles Tom so much that it makes Schofield’s chest ache. “Disillusionment, mate. It’ll do you good to stop following orders down to a T. ‘Sides, I’m not letting this chance slip. Write back here once you find out if it’s him or some other poor soul.”
Lieutenant Blake leads him to a truck that’s loaded up with men in various states of injury, some of them out cold and some groaning in pain and conscious – all of them survivors. He allows Blake to get him settled into the truck and lets the man grip his face again.
“You’ll be fine, Lance Corporal. Take care of my baby brother, yeah?”
“Yes, Sir.” He nods automatically and Blake grins, patting his cheek.
And just like that, he’s alone again. Well, he’s not necessarily alone. But he is alone with his thoughts and feelings and the thunderstorm in his guts. He pulls out the tin with Tom’s rings, turning a few of them over before deciding, like the fool that he is, to put them on. It takes a bit of fiddling before he manages to find a finger for each one – his hands too bony, too thin, the rings keep slipping as the truck roars to life. He flinches as the vehicle starts moving and he almost loses one of them.
It’s a lengthy ride towards the outpost and he doesn’t know how Blake, if it even is Blake, survived the trip whilst bleeding out and on the verge of death with the reaper standing over him, his eyes dull and his lips pale –
They stop in a bombed out French town with a big enough school building that it could be repurposed as a hospital. He jumps out of the back of the truck, hands gripping the letter and eyes scanning the area for anyone that looks important. He notices the nurse at the door with a list checking everyone in that Blake had mentioned so he figures that this will be his best bet.
“Are you alright, solider? What are you doing here? You don’t look sick.” The short woman with the severe eyes looks at him warily and he thrusts the letter out like it’s a shield that can protect him from harm.
She opens it silently, reading over the brief contents – he doesn’t know what it says, he couldn’t bring himself to take a peek – and then looks up to where there’s a bandage wrapped around his head. She clicks her tongue, shaking her head. “Joe.”
Joe – Joseph Blake, Lieutenant, 2nd Devons, he looks just like me, Scho, just like me but older.
“Come on then, and don’t get in the way.” She hands the checklist off to another nurse and leads him through the halls into one of the repurposed classrooms filled with six beds, a blackboard mounted on the wall to the right of the door and tall windows lining the walls.
The nurse goes to the one in the room and they exchange words quietly. The nurse from the room looks a little bit put-upon as she rolls her eyes then casts Schofield a glare as well. He steps aside as she rushes out. A bit of shuffling later and another bed is wheeled into the room, presumably for him. He steps out of the way of the angry nurse and further into the room.
“He better come through on his promise or I swear-” The nurse from the door mutters as she grabs his wrist. She tugs him over to the new bed and sits him down. She shines some light into his eyes to check the dilation of his pupils and then sighs.
“You seem to be fine. From what Joe said, you seem to have had a concussion and have bled a bit. You’ve been patched up so, try not to cause a scene. I’m doing this as a favour to him so be good.” She warns sternly in a thick accent and pats her uniform down where it’d gotten ruffled. “If you need anything ask for either Anne or Mary. I’m Anne, nice to meet you Lance Corporal Schofield.”
With that she leaves. Everyone here seems to either be in a current state of frenzy and haste or dead to the world. He looks around. The men in the room all appear to be passed out or sleeping, most of them have large areas of their body bandaged and the man closest to the door is missing an arm. He winces and turns to look at the bed behind his back – then promptly pulls up short when his eyes meet the familiar round cheeks of Thomas Blake.
“Tom,” He gasps out, jumping out of bed and rushing to the other’s side. He doesn’t dare to touch, fearing that he’ll either wake him or make his state worse somehow. There’s a thick line of bandaging around his midriff but his cheeks aren’t as pale as they’d been back then. He takes a calculated risk and runs a finger over the knuckles of the other’s left hand. There’s nothing in the world he would want more in that moment than to hold the other’s hand and hug him firmly like he did on the nights that Tom woke up screaming from insistent nightmares.
“Blake,” He keeps his tears at bay successfully this time and instead looks around to try and find the nurse assigned to this room.
He waits patiently, standing as still as a statue next to Blake’s prone form, until the nurse from earlier returns. She startles as she meets his gaze and then crosses her arms over her chest. Her glare makes him feel younger than he is and his bottom lip wobbles with the urge to sob again. Her eyes soften as she approaches.
“Schofield, right?” She asks, guiding him away from Tom and onto his own bed.
He nods, fiddling with the bandage wrapped around his cut and then stitched together hand. “William Schofield. Anne said I should ask you if I needed anything.” He ventures a guess that she’s the aforementioned Mary.
She huffs, “That girl’s got too big of a heart to rival her small brain. Yes, the name’s Mary. What do you need, lad?”
“I’d like a pen and paper. His bother – Lieutenant Joseph Blake told me to write to him about Tom’s – Lance Corporal Blake’s state.” He manages to get through the sentence without bursting into tears like an infant.
She looks back at Blake’s body and frowns. “It’s a miracle he’s still breathing. With the damage he took...” She trails off with a shake of her head. “He’s stable. He’ll be out for a while, though. Were you there when they picked him up?”
He nods, wringing his hands together. “Me an’ him were sent to deliver a letter to the Second Devons to stop their planned attack.”
Her eyes widen momentarily and she hisses. “You boys! That was you?” She throws her hands up to the heavens like she’s cursing God himself. “Lord knows Erinmore is an idiot and Mackenzie is an even bigger one. It’s a miracle we’re not – well. I suppose it’s not a miracle but the work of two dedicated Lance Corporals then, that we’re not overflowing with men too wounded to make it longer than three days in here.”
“Um, you’re welcome?” He says uncertainly as the nurse speaks fast and loud, overrunning every and any thought that he might have had.
She shakes her head again, “You rest easy, lad. I’ll get Anne to send ‘im a letter in your stead. You look like you need some food in you. I’ll be back in a bit.” She pats his shoulder, pushing him to lie down and taking off his boots.
He looks to the side, observes and watches Blake’s figure until his eyes are stinging from not blinking nearly enough. Only when he’s certain that the other won’t disappear if he closes his eyes does he let himself turn away.
Will spends three days sitting in that bed, walking around the pale-blue coloured halls and staring at Tom, being afraid that the man would be gone the next time he returns to the room. He helps the nurses around as well. He helps Mary change sheets in the room, roll men over, change bandages, clean out bedpans, clean any and all trace of red off their prone bodies. She and Anne appreciate the efforts – or so they keep reassuring him. He’s not too certain. He thinks that the look in Mary’s brown eyes is a little too pitying to be entirely sincere and Anne’s temper is too short for idle words so she always leaves him with a brief good job, Corporal. He feels like a lost little lamb.
He’s in the middle of helping Mary turn one of the men to his side so that she can pull out the sheets beneath him when he hears a familiar groan from the corner of the room. He freezes, barely stopping himself from dropping the man he’s holding. His arms lock at the elbows and he knocks his knees together to stop his legs from walking over to the corner of the room where Blake is stirring.
“Schofield,” Mary calls. “William,” She tries again when he doesn’t respond and he shakes his head, focusing back on the task of holding the man up.
“Sorry, it’s just.” He shrugs helplessly and she nods.
“Let’s get this one done and then we’ll see if your friend’s awake, yeah?” She offers a compromise and he nods back eagerly.
Once done, he allows himself to hurry over to where Blake is lying. He still doesn’t touch, still afraid. He watches as Blake’s eyes flutter open, so blue and unfocused. The soldier frowns, a little crease forming and marring his smooth face – it makes Will smile.
“Am I dead then?” Blake croaks and Schofield shakes his head.
“That’d mean I was dead, too.” He looks over to Mary and finds her fiddling with something on the opposite side of the room, giving him a bit of privacy.
“How do I know you’re not an angel that took Scho’s shape?” Even back from the brink of death, Tom doesn’t seem to be able to stop yapping stupidities.
“Save your breath, Blake, still just plain ‘ol me.” He pats the other’s shoulder gently and Tom closes his eyes, face serene for just a moment before the soft lines of it become tense again.
“Hurts, Scho.” The younger admits and Schofield’s heart seizes in his chest. He looks towards Mary again, this time in alarm, and she’s already looking back.
“I’ll go get the doctor, you better be back in bed before he gets here.” She shoos him away from Tom’s side and checks the bandage to see if it’s bled through anywhere. Everything seems to be in order for now but as soon as Tom starts squirming Mary reaches down and smacks him gently on the forehead. “No moving. Stay still or you’ll bleed again.” With that, she storms out of the room, presumably in search of the nearest doctor.
“She’s downright terrifying.” Blake mumbles and Schofield sits onto his own bed with a chuckle.
“You don’t know the half of it.” He kicks off his boots and reclines back, head turned to the side and staring at Tom’s profile.
“Scho...” Blake trails off uncertainly and Will closes his eyes for a moment, happy that the next question he can answer with good news.
“Did – did you do it?” Blake looks him over with gentle eyes, so blue and so clear now. They flit over his body as if they’re expecting for something to be obviously wrong. They pause two times only – once on his hands and once on the bandage still around his head.
“I did it.” He smiles shyly, pleased, despite it all, that he hadn’t let the other down. “I’ll – I’ll tell you about it later, when it’s quiet again.” He checks the time and notices that it’s around noon. The doctor appears in the doorway below the clock, followed closely by Anne and Mary who both shoot him smiles that he cherishes more than either of them will ever probably know.
It’s rather sad that his only friends are the two nurses that had been burdened with him by the mercy of the brother of his remaining friend. But it’s even sadder when he realizes that these are the first friends he’s ever had. And Mary and Anne can’t even really be classified as his mates when he’s barely been here for longer than three days.
It doesn’t matter, though.
It doesn’t matter if they’re his friends or not. What matters is that they’re helping Tom and that Tom’s alright because of them, that they saved Tom’s life and by default given Schofield a piece of his own heart back in the process. So whether they know it or not, Schofield thinks of them as friends now.
The doctor does his standard checks and by the end of it, Blake is sleeping again – a nice dose of morpheme helping ferry him into dreamland. The doctor then leaves, followed by Anne who pats him on the shin in passing.
“He’s awake sooner than we thought he’d be.” Mary shakes her head with a chuckle. “The perks of being young and healthy. He’ll be alright, William, don’t worry.”
He hopes so. He hopes that Blake will make it through, that he’ll pull himself together and heal and then get a damn metal over the whole ordeal. He takes a deep breath and takes out the pen and paper Anne had brought him on the first day.
Lieutenant Blake, he starts and continues neatly, updating the older of the brothers on the younger’s state carefully.
He’ll be alright.
Blake is awake for dinner again and while he can’t have much, they force some liquids into him and Schofield has to watch as the other whines at him while he eats some bland chicken and potatoes. This is a luxury as far as they’re concerned and Will really does feel bad that he can’t share with Blake like he usually would.
“Doctor’s orders, stop whining.” He grumbles, looking away from the pleading gaze lest he give in.
“How come you get special portions? This is unfair.” Blake huffs like a petulant child with his round cheeks puffed out.
“Coz I haven’t been stabbed in the gut, yeah?” He raises an eyebrow and waves the knife in his hands at Tom’s bandages pointedly.
“Nobody else in the room gets special portions.” Tom points out and that’s fair. Then again.
“Most of the men in this room haven’t been awake for days, Blake. And the fella near the door just throws up anything they try to give ‘im.” He shrugs, putting the last bit of flavourless chicken into his mouth and setting the tray aside.
“I think it’s coz you’re friends with the nurses. Even the terrifying one likes you. Ruffled your hair and everything last time I saw her here.” Tom’s voice is weak in the semi-darkness and it’s for the better. The rest of the haphazard hospital wing that they’re in is dead silent anyway. He thinks that this is where the men with the wounds that are the most life-threatening have been placed. It’s probably why he’s allowed to be here as well, Anne must have been certain that he wouldn’t disturb anyone.
“She barely does, and it’s only because I help her with the room.” He rolls his eyes, twisting a little to the side to get the knot in his back to pop.
“You transferring to medical, then, Scho? Going to become a nurse, are ya?” Blake teases but it just earns him an unimpressed stare from Will.
“I’m doin’ it because it’s polite. And because I have to pay for my stay here somehow.” He picks at the edge of the bandage wrapped around his hand, the white cloth already flaying at the edges.
“What do you mean?” Tom tilts his head to the side, looking at him with furrowed brows.
“Your brother, he – he pulled some strings. I’m not nearly injured enough to be anywhere near this place.” He smiles as Blake’s chest heaves in and out heavily a couple of times before he has to make his breaths shallow again so that they don’t pull at his wound.
“What’s with the,” Tom points at the bandage on his hear weakly and Schofield’s almost forgotten it’s there entirely.
“Oh, uh, a minor head wound. Got it taken care of at the Second Devons camp.” He knows he’s sparse on the details and that Tom’s probably about to start asking for more but he can’t bring himself to remember his time with the Battalion without feeling the heat rushing to his cheeks at the way he’d acted. Realistically, he knows it’s normal. That it’s an entirely human reaction to losing someone you care about. It’s just that – it apparently had to be Tom’s brother he’d slobbered all over like a wailing babe, like a child waking from a nightmare. And that’s just plain embarrassing.
“Scho!” Tom croons, almost like he’s scolding a dog or an unruly cousin. It makes Will flinch a little, feeling like when Mary and Anne would look at him scornfully for trying to offer help when it’s really not needed. “How’d you manage that? It was a straight line to Écoust from that house!”
“Oh, it most certainly was not.” He shoots back, for once just as unruly as the previous child. The colours of youth bloom inside his chest and he realizes that he’s not nearly as old as he likes to let himself feel. If there were no war, if there was no threat of dying constantly hanging over their heads, he and Blake would be just a couple of mates, young lads that are out and about on their own looking for fun.
“Scho,” Softer this time, Blake’s voice somehow pale blue in tone, “What happened?”
He doesn’t want to talk. He doesn’t want to say all of the things unsaid. He doesn’t want to remember how lost and helpless he felt, how much of a coward he still thinks he is despite Blake being alive. He doesn’t want to do any of those things and yet he is a fool at heart that can never say no to Thomas Blake.
So he tells him. He tells him about the Hun in the building near the bridge, about rushing into danger like a man possessed and losing hours to his own recklessness. Tells him about the town of Écoust ablaze in tall flames and crumbling beneath his feet, about the woman in the basement and the pale babe in her arms. He stutters over the running and the jumping and the cork of dead soldiers in the river but goes over the song of the man singing in the forest in more detail. He speaks of the crowded trenches and of running across the battlefield, exhausted and delirious, still bleeding sluggishly. He can’t look Tom in the eye for that part, can’t help the feeling of shame overcoming him for being so stupid back then either. If he’d died then, then it would have all been over. But a trapped animal will chew through its own limbs in order to get away and he supposes that he’d almost done just that. He stops at meeting the older of the Brothers, though. He doesn’t – can’t bring himself to talk about how he’d broken down because that would mean spilling his guts even without being physically gutted and he’d rather be gutted than admit to what he feels. He’d rather have his entire world painted red and white than tell Tom the truth.
The older Blake probably knows.
No man cries that hard for his brother in arms. No man goes through such trouble just to keep a promise to a friend. No normal man carries such grief for someone who’s not their family.
“You’re a right idiot, Scho.” Tom says after everything. “You’re stupid but the bravest men usually are.” The other smiles at him then, holding out a hand and Will gets up as if enchanted, walking the two steps between their beds and taking the offered palm between two of his own, larger ones.
Tom’s thumb then rubs over the metal on his fingers and he’s suddenly reminded, very violently, of the fact that he’s carrying the other’s golden rings on him. He jerks back, looking down in alarm – he’d completely forgotten. The weight of them had become so grounding, so comforting that he’d let it slip his mind. It’s no wonder Tom had kept glancing at his hands the entire time he’d been awake.
“Shite, Tom!” He exclaims silently, not even aware of having used the other’s first name. “I’m sorry! I put them on not to lose them in the – and then I forgot, wait, here-” He starts taking them off, wiggles the one on his ring finger free when the other’s hand stops him.
“Hey,” Blake’s voice is like soft wool of the blankets he has at home, at his Sister’s house. They’re pink and worn but so comforting and so comfortable that he feels the texture of them as he remembers. “It’s alright. I would’a wanted you to keep ‘em if I – you know.” Tom mimics dying very poorly and a shudder of horror goes through Will’s entire frame.
“Blake.” He warns and Tom chuckles.
“Keep ‘em on until I’m better. Don’t want them catching on anything here with how clumsy I am.” The younger yawns and starts the slow motion of thumbing at the various ring’s on Schofield’s left hand again. “You met my brother, then. What’d I tell you, just like me but older?”
He scoffs, shaking his head, still a little unsure of where he stands but no longer panicking to get the rings off. “Not quite.”
“Aw, how come?” Tom’s pout really shouldn’t be as endearing as it is but Schofield’s entire chest vibrates with how cute he finds it.
“Not as pretty.”
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, there he goes again. Maybe Blake was never the reckless one of them two. Maybe Schofield was the hidden wild card all along. He holds his breath, wide eyes meeting Tom’s. The other doesn’t seem to be able to form words. His mouth is open and his cheeks are proper pink now but he’s silent for probably the first time since Schofield’s known him.
And yes, he means it, he knows he does. Even with his trauma and the wound on his head, he could see how handsome Lieutenant Joseph Blake was but he didn’t have any of the colours that make up Thomas Blake. He wasn’t Thomas Blake and in Schofield’s mind could never rival Thomas Blake. He wishes he could eat his words, though. He should have kept his stupid mouth shut like he had so far.
He knows he’s bent, has always know it in a way. His sister knows it, too, but she’s never once faulted him for it.
The heart wants what the heart wants, Will, she’s always told him. S’ why I gave mine to that bastard that left us. She’d tacked on at the end but it never undermined the truth of the statement in his mind. He was lucky to have her, to have her support and kind words. But not everybody was like his sister, not everybody would accept him – pretty much nobody would and if they knew then he’d have already been dead. So his philosophy had always been zero friends is better than a couple of friends who would potentially get him killed or kill him themselves.
And now is the moment of truth where he finds out if Blake is the latter. He can’t imagine it, though. Blake has never had much of a stomach for violence, avoided it when he could even if they were in the middle of a war. However, that doesn’t mean the other can’t turn him into the authorities and wash his hands clean of the guilt.
Blake’s throat clicks as he swallows, dry and parched and Will can only stare in terrified silence. Tom’s hand tightens around his, grip surprisingly strong for someone so physically weak and in need of rest.
“Scho.” It feels like thorns dragging across his skin, tiny little cuts welling up with blood.
He winces, “I’m sorry, I – that was stupid. I was trying to make a joke and you know I’m not the funnyman of the two of us and-”
Blake tugs on his hand, stopping the ramble that was about to foam out of his mouth as if he were a rabid cur. He tries again. “I can leave. You’ll never see me again, I promise.”
“Scho,” Soft pink wool again, “Will” Even softer this time, a rose petal on the pads of his fingertips.
“I’m sorry.” He feels tears gathering behind his eyes. He had to ruin it. He’d finally gotten the other back and he had to go and bite his own leg off anyway.
“Idiot.” Blake mumbles sleepily and tugs him closer.
Confused and weak, he follows until Blake’s right hand has dragged his left all the way next to his head, leaving him effectively hovering over the other. He feels his stomach clench with too many emotions to count and sort through them, too many questions on his mind and too many possible outcomes of whatever this is.
“I wasn’t ever going to tell you this because it was stupid and mostly because I wasn’t sure I’d even be alive to remember but.” Tom’s smile is gentle and sweet, stretching his lips and lovely. “I was okay with dying as long as you were the last sight id get to see before i kicked it. Even if you are an ugly crier.”
“Tom,” He chokes a little on the laugh. “Tom, what?”
“Come on, now.” The other rolls his eyes. “You can’t tell me you haven’t suspected it with the way I’ve been following you around like a lost pup. You’re my best friend, Will, but you’re so much more to me, too.” Blake, brave and reckless and so damned sweet admits in a low voice, making sure his tone doesn’t echo.
His breath hitches and his face scrunches up at the pain of it in his chest. He fights the urge to rub a hand over where his heart is practically beating out of his ribcage. “If you’re taking the piss, Tom, I swear to God-”
Blake’s other hand comes up, gentle at the side of his face. “I’d never lie to you, Will, not about this.”
He wishes he had the words to say how much this means to him – just knowing that he’s not alone in whatever this hell-escaped feeling is. But he was never the one that spun tales and talked big and even Blake doesn’t seem to be willing to tell this tale. So he does the next, logical, reckless thing and dips down.
He kisses Lance Corporal Thomas Blake five days after he’d thought the man had died. He kisses him like nothing else matters, like there is no war and like they can’t get killed just for entertaining the idea of loving another man. He kisses him like it’s not a perversion but the sweetest sin known to mankind. And he lets Blake kiss him back just as lovingly.
Neither of them say it in words but they both know. They know that what matters now is surviving the war and hoping for a better future. Neither of them says it but when Blake takes back his rings, he leaves Will the one on his ring finger.
A golden yellow promise, gleaming like the sun when the skies are clear and blue.