Disclaimer: Don't own anything. The song is One Blood by Terrence Jay.
Author's Note: Watched Green Street Hooligans again. Love that movie and I was struck by the last fight. Seriously, if you get a chance to watch that movie, watch it. It is absolutely worth it.
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"What your master loved, at his core, was the brotherhood of war. He thirsted for the camaraderie of men risking all to come through for each other."-Wolf (Shadow's Edge)
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In the far away fires
Where the hills forever burn
At the feet of our heroes
We try hard to learn
No mercy to the enemy. That's what they were taught growing up. They'd fought this whole war with those five words in mind. But now, the fighting has all been called to a halt and they're stumbling away from each other, some too exhausted to stand and others leaning heavily on their comrades.
None of them think about the fact that they're leaving their backs to the enemy. Even their instincts are tired of this war. No one is going to stab the other side (Because there is no other side anymore. They're not united in terms of politics or some other kind of nonsense. They're all just soldiers now, soldiers with too much blood on their hands and too many dead friends)
But the lesson is lost there
In the smoke and the mud
That we are one flesh, one breath, one life, one blood
The thoughts do cross some of their minds, adrenaline still running strong through them, that perhaps they should kill the not-other side, the not-enemies, just as a precaution. But then they remember their lessons (No mercy, never any mercy) and they don't.
Because killing them is much more merciful than letting them live with this blood on their hands, the shattered memories in broken minds.
I stood by the river
That ran red with shame
She was scrubbing her hands desperately, trying to get the blood off of them. Her hands are stinging with pain and are rubbed raw, but she keeps at it because she can still see it, dammit and why did these sorts of things have to happen anyway?
Warm hands grab her wrists firmly (There are no cold hands anymore. Not even doctors have them because it's hard to keep your hands cold when you have blood on them) She looks up at the familiar not-face, seeing the haunted dark gray eye, the other hidden by his headband.
"It's not there." He says, his words slightly muffled by the mask and his voice hoarse. She doesn't need to be a medic to know that it's from screaming himself awake at night.
She doesn't have to ask what he means.
"I'm a medic." She says, the words scraping against her raw throat. "I never wanted to kill people." People, friends, potential friends, friends-turned-enemy-turned-nothing.
He doesn't know what more to say—he's never been very good with words—so he simply says, "No one did."
I stood in the killing fields
Where death had no name
There are people scattered all across the battlefield. Some were searching for the bodies of dead friends, most were simple staring. Staring at all the dead, at the living standing like lonely, fragile monuments to it all.
"It wasn't supposed to be like this." Is what's echoed across hollow trenches and blood-stained ground.
I stood with my brothers
And away it fled
And we were one flesh, one breath, one life, one blood
They recognize each other when they walk across the fields, their steps, usually so silent, squishing as they walked in blood and other fluids. How can they not? They know the faces of almost-killers, of almost-victims.
But now, no one is much of anything to anyone else. They're all ghosts, specters of a war that, when the next generation heard about it, would be little more than myth and history lessons. He holds out a box of smokes to the person next to him (He doesn't know whether the man was once enemy or ally, but he supposes it doesn't matter anymore) who accepts gratefully and holds up a lighter between them.
Then I felt to the ground
Tasted ashes on my tongue
Thinking that only the dead
Are forever young
When he staggers into his apartment, the one he shares with a dead man (It'll be the next day that the survivors—such a loose term, survivors—find new roommates because they can see the dead in glimpses and the living are as well as dead) he almost doesn't recognize the person in the mirror.
Dark circles beneath his eyes, dirt and blood covering in him in thick layers that he's sure will take a little while to get completely off. He's thin, terribly so. After an hour underneath the shower's harsh spray, the water having long since gone cold (He's sure that all the soldiers returning home are doing much the same thing as he is) he brushes his teeth for ten minutes. He can't taste the blood anymore, but the ashes are still there, so he keeps at it.
Then he feels the cough burning in the back of his throat and the taste of ashes and blood mingle together and he's sure he'll never be free of it.
There was peace in the twilight
And for a moment among
He presses his nose into her vibrant hair and the scent of tree oil and sea salt engulfs him. It's the first time since this war began that he can't smell blood and he wishes he could stay there forever. He knows it won't last, it never does, but he can feel her here and she's alright. She'd fought as hard as every other soldier had and he knows that there will be new scars and new nightmares, but thinks they can overcome that.
They've survived this long, hadn't they?
It was a world without danger
A world without war
The peace is tentative and fragile. The hospital cafeterias are full of soldiers that had started all of this on opposite sides and they know that they've killed each other's friends and brothers and mothers. They're hesitant to sit, not sure whether they belong, whether they ever will.
But there are forced friendly smiles and awkward conversations over terrible hospital food. They trade Jell-O for chocolate pudding and play quiet games of poker (No one plays War. Not ever again.) They don't speak much—any story is too painful to speak of right now—but they find that they don't need to. They understand each other just fine.
And I will take all your suffering
It will do any good
Cause we are one flesh, one breath, one life, one blood