Work Text:
The bullets emerged from his back, blood shooting out to form wings of carnage. They were gone with the wind, iron droplets falling beside brass shells. A war would not stop over the death of one man, but for a moment, the raging battlefield felt silent. More than that, It felt empty. Every other soldier was a blur against the center piece that was Smitty Ryker.
A third, final hit to the shoulder sent him flying onto the ground. In the mere seconds it took Desmond to reach him, he'd propped himself against a rock and kept shooting, angling his rifle every-which way. To him, the war wasn't over until every enemy lay at his feet, or he by theirs.
Fleets shot at the ridge, cannon after cannon storming the cliff. By this point, neither Doss nor Ryker could tell which side of the war it came from. The screaming of men and boys alike melded into a horrifying cacophony. Booming explosions shook the ground in an almost-divine call, like the last trumpet ending misery through misery. A message from heaven, easily mistakable for one born of hell. Desmond is sure that if he were blind, he’d have thought this to be the rapture. But he isn’t, and this is no act of god. The field strewn with corpses, both walking and limp, all came about by the hands of man.
He’s not sure when his knees made contact with the hard dirt; Collapsed by Smitty's side, he moved to address the wounds without a second thought. Healing became instinct, stunned paralysis could not hold a candle to the learned tendency of help first, ask later. Even if the questions were his own to answer.
His hands bore down, applying pressure as if it were his life that depended on it. The blood stayed persistent, oozing through his fingers. It refused to clot or slow, an angry red painting the both of them.
“Doss.” The hoarse whisper from Ryker went unnoticed. “Private Doss.” He then forced out louder.
“We- we can still fix this, I just gotta get you down from here-” Desmond's rambling died down in volume alone, words tumbling like barrels off a hill. Or, perhaps he was simply drowned out by the ongoing battle. Either way, it didn’t matter. Words don’t patch wounds, just as wars don’t solve conflicts. Empty comforts won't stitch you up, and dead men won’t bring peace. Yet, they point fingers. My voice did not cut you. My gun did not shoot first. Always someone else’s knife, someone else’s soldier, something else that hurt first. A caricature of help; A monster that parodies itself.
Soon enough, his voice broke through once again, “The other medics, they- they can help you.” He had the hope of a young boy, with the eyes of a kicked dog.
“Or they can help someone with a real chance.” The words were accompanied by a wet cough. Smitty sounded resigned; His mind was anything but. Beneath all his fear, he knew he couldn’t pull the medic away. He couldn’t let someone else die just because he was scared to. Doing this alone, well, it’d be the one selfless thing he ever did.
But he was a selfish man, and his kindness ran thin like a drying river. Doss was comfort, a kind voice, a warmth, a heartbeat. He wanted to grab onto Desmond with both of his trembling, bloodied arms and beg the other soldier to just save him. To take him away from this hellish field and carry him down somewhere quiet, press a soaked loincloth onto his head and gently wipe away the grime as he lay there, taking in the other man’s scent.
He was asking for a miracle–but maybe somewhere along the way, his wires got crossed, and he began seeing Desmond as God.
It could’ve happened as he watched Desmond in battle, running from one man to another—wound to wound, corpse to corpse—tying tourniquets like they were shoelaces. Maybe it was just knowing the man did so without a single weapon on him. Or, did it start before the fighting? Was it when Doss stood up to his superiors? When he sat in a cold, damp cell, and fought the army’s court in an uphill battle, all for the right to not bear arms? Really, who’s to say it wasn’t just weeks after meeting him, back when he’d taken that beating for being an outcast—the one Smitty did so little to stop—and yet, refused to give up a single comrade.
Ryker never pinpointed what brought about the feeling, and now he never would. All he could think to do was press Doss to his chest, and use all the energy he had left to focus on the others pulse, on the one thing here that still felt alive.
He remembers coming across these thoughts once before. It was the night prior, as the two took refuge in a foxhole along the cliff's edge. The dirt felt coarse beneath his fingers, nothing like the soft soils of South Carolina. Even their training base at Fort Jackson could hold the same comfort as a home when compared to the battlefront. The sun hid from them, casting a veil of darkness as if to protect them the only way it knew how.
They slept in shifts–drifted was a better word, flowing in and out of consciousness. The mind numbing fear would sooner swallow you whole than allow a moment of rest. Every whistle and groan lit fire to his skin; raised the hairs on his neck and singed them. Japanese soldiers could storm them at any second. One or a billion, it wouldn’t matter if they caught him off guard. His brain was a nervous dog circling its cage. Exhausted mutt that he is, he walked the same path, thoughts looping into oblivion–hungering for an escape.
Then, he and Doss started talking. It was a distraction, a glass of water amidst a maze of hot sand. He spoke without thinking, words flowing out in his newfound comfort.
Suddenly, Smitty offered up his gun. It happened on reflex, something he'd never thought to say before came so naturally now. In his own strange way, it proved how much he'd started to care about the boy, to himself at least. When he entered the battlefield, he did not pull at the cross ‘round his neck. As he fell to the ground, he checked not for his helmet, but his rifle. Even now, as he lay bleeding, he lets his arm rest against the weapon just to feel it there. Left ammunitionless, jammed, and smoking, but a weapon nonetheless.
Desmond declined that night of course, but to think Ryker could give something like that away–amidst a war no less–well, Doss must’ve been one hell of a friend. And he was. For the first time since the battle began, Smitty found himself laughing.
“I don’t eat meat.” Doss stated simply, and Smitty paused scraping at his rations to laugh at the words.
“Of course you don't.” Doss took no offense at the gibe, giving a huff as he flipped through his laughably-small bible. He paused, lingering on a picture nestled between the pages. Ryker craned his neck to catch a glimpse. Hoping this wasn’t of Desmond's mother, he spoke again. “That's one heck of a dame.” Doss cracked up, a real laugh this time. Smitty liked seeing him soften up; He’s sure he can count on one hand the number of times Desmond smiled in their three years of training. “You know you’re fighting out of your weight class with that don’t you?”
“Yes I do,” his head shook and he spoke with a fondness usually reserved for his faith, “don’t tell her that.”
“She'd be much more happy with a man like me anyway.”
“Yeah ‘ntil she got to know you!”
“I’m an asshole sometimes-”
“Sometimes?”
“Yeah alright, alright.”
Their banter was easy. It felt just like kidding with the boys back home, and Ryker got to thinking that maybe they weren’t so different. Even now, the idea of it made him chuckle. New York state's very own city-borough-Smitty, buddy-buddy with a country hick. Doss had an accent that almost felt liquid, pouring like the honeys of Virginia. He drawled his words and told people he was “worn slap out,” while Ryker gabbled and groaned. The two were like day and night; but that night, they were both just evening.
Ryker felt his body grow limp, darkness fraying the edges of his vision. The muffled clamour that was once Desmond's voice brought him back to reality again, reminding him that the ridges assault was more than an imagined ringing in his ears.
Growing up, he heard that before you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. But then…why were his recollections all so recent? Maybe you only start remembering from the point you truly began living. His brain didn’t have the energy to make sense of that, distracted by the ache in his muscles. He coughed up frothy blood. The world became a mass of colors as Desmond kept working above him. Even the air against his skin felt agonizing, and he’s half-sure he was shivering up a storm, but there was something peaceful about letting go after fighting for so long. Soon enough, there wasn’t any color either. Then feeling, and finally, sound.