In battle most humans eye colour bounced between red and yellow. Flecks of steel gray could range from barely visible to great big splotches that Captain Watson privately thought made the notion of war even more alarming. Most soldiers didn't focus on the eyes, in fact, avoiding the contact was so habitual that John struggled upon returning to civilian life, he was quickly mistrusted and often shunned.
It was subconscious by most, the active effort to avoid eye to eye scenarios wasn't registered whilst they stood face to face, but there was something about John that most people found, uneasy. A lifetime of eye contact ran deep in the human psyche and as more people reacted to this avoidance so Johns own eyes became more and more marbled with the colours of loneliness and depression.
He had thrived in Afghanistan. Known as 'Three Continents Watson', he was one of the few soldiers whose eyes were emboldened by gray and merely sprinkled with the anger and fear of red and yellow. What stood out most, however, was the sparkling thread of purple ribbon that shot through his eyes and complimented the gray perfectly. Adrenaline, excitement. Whilst all soldiers eyes were a mixture of these colours, few thrived on purple and gray the way John did. He may have been a doctor, a damn good doctor, as he was often commended; but it was the flames that pumped through his veins at the sound of gunfire that ensured he kept throwing himself into the most dangerous missions, the heaviest auxiliary.
There were two sides to every battle. Fear and adrenaline. Excitement and loss. Anger. In medical school surgeons explained the clever piece of Darwinism that had evolved over the last few centuries. In the moments before death a humans eyes would turn entirely black, the allowance of privacy during those last emotional moments. History was illustrated and explicit with literature and art that proved that the past had not been quite so pleasant. Humans had become obsessed with final moments, entire lives dedicated to a flicker of emotion. Entire lives destroyed with the knowledge of the pain and horror they saw reflected in another's dying irises. It had been kinder, the surgeons explained, kinder to the human race and therefore natural that gradually blackness had taken over those moments, preventing others from sharing the final horrors.
Every human knew this, and as a doctor John had had lectures upon lectures of information on this topic, hours of learning thrust inside his head. He naively thought he understood, he agreed with evolution as doctors are prone to do. It was a kinder eventuality for all involved. Despite that, all that learning, all that knowledge, couldn't have prepared him for the first time he watched the blackness steal over someone's eyes.
Bill Murray was one of Johns closest friends in Afghanistan, he was the stereotypical soldier - the loud and laughing cliché. They had bonded quickly through training and the strong purple thread weaving its way through Bill's irises almost rivalled Johns own in its vivacity. The irony was that it had been a routine mission. Later John would reflect bitterly that danger had no sense of semantics. After all the ridiculous situations John and Bill had put themselves in together the relative safety of a surveillance trek had been the deciding factor. John had seen death before of course, he was a soldier and had been at war for over a year. The difference was that the nature of his missions didn't lend itself to long-living casualties. Usually death was mercifully quick, and John was disorientated enough to miss the event. Those he was close enough to save he always had done. Always. This earned him another nickname - Saviour Watson. Started as a joke by a man John had clashed with on several occasions it quickly evolved into something more genuine. Men started to request 'missions with Watson', knowing that if anyone could survive when a situation became unsurvivable it was Captain Watson.
John didn't register the explosion. His first clue was the feeling of blood in his mouth and a dull, sharp whistle in his ears. The blast had overturned the truck and John quickly became aware that he was upside down and uninjured for the most part.
His medical instincts had kicked in then and breathing hard he took stock of the situation. The filter of dust and noise impeded his awareness and his ears were still throwing him off course but he knew that of the four who had been in the truck with him two were missing. John knew the other two were dead without question, the reason he knew was obvious, he needed to look no further than their open eyes. He may have not needed to, but instinct is a funny thing. John was human, an extremely human human who could not prevent the call of the dead soldiers names. He had stumbled from the truck then; his need to find the other two overriding the base instinct to hide that lesser men would have heeded. His answer as to what happened to Corporal Perkins was given instantly, and quickly interrupted by a yelp of pain to his right.
Now in his bedsit in Central London John can always pinpoint the moment in his dreams where he wakes up, the sweating and shaking unbearable. Even as he had ran over to Bill and with unerring hands tried to close the wound in his friends stomach he knew; he could tell as the sand beneath them became spilled wine that there was nothing he could do. Murrays eyes met his and the colours clashed. The sickly orange hue sparkled with black for a moment before the colour took over completely and Bills heart thudded to a halt beneath hands that were unable to stop trying to close the gap.
It was the first mission he was a sole survivor of.
Bill Murray's death hadn't affected John. To clarify, Bill Murray's death hadn't affected John anymore than losing a friend normally would, if it were possible to quantify such a thing. It was only two years later in the godforsaken army bedsit that had become his home did he realise how haunted he was by Bills eyes. After his death he had seen countless others lose their lives. The black that stole across their vision in their final breaths had begun to hold a sick sort of fascination for John as he would work desperately to save them, pinpoint the exact moment when he realised he failed.
Armies had codes for years. Every single army personnel knew the crucial ones. there was one in particular that those wounded in action waited for the cry of. 825. Through the pain and the consciousness slipping away, they would sting for this number, hoping without hope to hear 825. It meant that they, in that moment at least, were not going to die. That their eyes had not yet flashed blackness across them.
John registered three things the moment he was shot. The blinding, searing white hot pain that enveloped his left shoulder, the thudding of his heart tripling in speed, and moments later the shout of a relieved commander.
"825! Waston, you're an 825."
Please God, let me live.