George didn't even know how it happened.

One moment John was at his side, recounting the enemy's movements at their right flank to him, the next- the next, he was down, dropped to the mud like a bag of stones, and there was so much blood, he had only just been shot, but most of his shirt was already soaked; the boy watched the scarlet spread with a sense of disbelief before their gazes found each other.

George stood, blinked, stayed motionless as the world tilted on its axis. The battle was raging around them, but the gunshots and cannonfire faded to white noise.

He yelled at Lafayette to give them cover and fell to his knees next to John, wasted no more time in covering the boy's almost limp hand that laid over the hole in his stomach with his own, pressed down hard, made him wince and cry out, but, but that was good. Sounds were good. Sounds meant he still lived.

Lafayette turned and stared, just as George had, took half a step towards them–he would want to help his friend, George understood, but there was no time-

"Goddamnit, just keep them away from us!" he called, and the man shook himself, gave a firm nod of affirmation, and whirled back around.

That left George with John. John, currently losing way too much blood from a bullet-hole in his stomach, the flow so strong not even his added strength did anything to halt it, it just slipped through his fingers, warm and sticky and so much, and mixed with the mud he kneeled in.

"You'll be alright," he promised, breathless, his voice already cracked, and pressed down harder–John grunted, his face twisting with it, with the agony.

Then, he smiled. Hot tears burned along George's lashes, because his idiot boy always smiled, even when he didn't feel like it, if just to offer some comfort to someone else-

That was what he was doing. He wanted to comfort him.

"S-sir," he said, coughing, and little droplets of blood collected on his lower lip.

George shook his head. He didn't know at what. The situation as a whole, most likely.

"You will be alright, son," he repeated, and John's smile turned into a pained grimace, his tongue darted out to wet his lips–to take away the blood–and he rolled his head from side to side, slowly, the movement barely there at all.

"I- Sir, I'm- I won't- this is bad," he pressed out, and George's heart sank and sank and sank until it felt like it had dropped out of his chest entirely.

"No, love, you'll be just fine," he insisted, and he sounded desperate even to himself, but he couldn't- he couldn't consider any other option. He couldn't. John would be fine, like he always was.

John made a noise that sounded like choked laughter, and a trickle of blood the breadth of a hair formed from the corner of his mouth down to his jaw. George reached out to wipe it away, not able to face what it meant, and let his hand rest there, along the boy's jaw and just off his cheek. God, he was clammy, he was pale, he was losing so much blood-

"Sir. I've- I've been," he had to pause and catch his breath, and George stroked his thumb along his stubble and just kept the pressure on the wound. "I've been shot… a whole lot. I can tell- I- I know it's bad."

George shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut, forced himself to keep his tears at bay.

"You are stronger than this, John. You'll make it, as you always have. You'll live, you have to, there's no other way-"

"Sir," he said, faint, but it still halted George in his tracks. John ripped his eyes away from him, stared up into the overhung sky instead. "I- pl-please, I need you to tell Alex-"

Oh, fuck no. He was not speaking his last words right now, his last words would not be spoken for another few decades, and they would sure as hell not be spoken while he lay in a puddle of mud, out on a battlefield.

"Tell him yourself," he said, but John just repeated that weak imitation of a headshake.

"Can't," he croaked, eyes locking back onto George. "Sir. Tell him- tell him I love him. Please."

George chuckled, then–or so he thought. He realised it may have been a sob as the first tears dripped from his chin into the dirt.

"He knows, son. You know he does."

Another smile, this one more genuine–bloodier, too, and the sound George made when he saw all the blood on his boy's teeth was definitely a sob this time.

"I know. Just. I need him- need him to remember."

He was torn from their little bubble when a horse whinnied, too close, and he snapped his head around, in his mind already halfway on his feet and pistol cocked, but-

"John!"

His son. It was Alex, his boy who had just ridden at a breakneck-speed from one corner of the battle to the other, and-

God. He would never forgive him.

He slid to a halt next to them and dropped to his knees at John's other side. George pulled his hand back, just focused on applying pressure.

Alexander cupped his husband's cheeks, tears already falling after he had taken little more than a glance at the damage; he was devastated, and he looked like the world was ending right before his very eyes.

John, on the other hand, looked like he had just witnessed the first sunrise after a polar-night.

"Darling," he mumbled, and Alex forced a smile that only lasted for a second, gently stroked his thumbs over freckled cheeks–his freckles were stark, too stark against white skin, God, there was so much blood.

"Hey," he said, shaky and off. "John, my John, my love, you'll- you'll be fine, we can fix this-"

John coughed, and more blood dotted his lips. Alex watched, his breathing shallow, the flow of tears from his shattered eyes uninterrupted.

"Mh," John hummed, closed his eyes for a second–no, he didn't close them, they dropped shut on their own, but he forced them back open.

No.

No, not again.

This couldn't be happening, not again-

"Darling. I- love you. Love you. Always."

Alex bit his lip hard enough he drew blood, his features crumpling into a depth of hurt George had never wanted to see on his son.

"I know, my love. And I love you, you know that, right? I love you. I love you so much, John, always and forever."

John smiled, small and satisfied, and his eyes drooped closed again. It took him longer to open them than last time.

"Kiss me?"

Alexander sobbed, harsh and painful and so wrecked, as if the broken pieces of his heart had cut it up before it burst from his throat, and that sound, his face, the expression in his eyes, like the life was draining from them with every laboured breath John took–it would haunt George forever.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to John's, gentle, tender, like he clung to the sensation, as if he never wanted to let it go.

When he pulled away again, John hummed, his eyes sparking like they only did when he was about to crack an especially unfunny joke.

"Always wanted to- to die in your arms. Thought it would go a bit different."

"You're not dying," Alex responded immediately, but the way he said it–the way his voice shook, the way he couldn't stop crying, he knew it wasn't true.

He knew what was about to happen just as George did.

Just as John did.

The boy made another sound, this one quieter, more fatigued, but George couldn't think about what that meant, couldn't bring himself to confront it.

"Sir," he said, and he snapped his head up, shuffled closer.

"Yes, love?"

"Thank you. Thanks- for… everything. For Alex. For- for being my dad. Even though you didn't- didn't want to be."

Why not just stab him directly through his heart.

"Thank you for being my son," he said and reached out again, stroked his hand over the boy's hair. "Thank you for making my boy so happy."

George swallowed thickly and pressed a kiss to the boy's forehead, and John shot him another bloody smile before he turned back to Alex, raised his hand to his face and caressed his cheek, wiped at the tears, but they fell too fast for it to make any difference.

Alex covered that hand with one of his own, pressed it to his cheek, clung to it like it was his last tether to reality.

"You were… perfect, Alex. Thank you. I- I'll wait for you. Promise me- promise you'll take your time?"

"You're not dying," he whispered, raw–George had never heard his son sound like that, but- but then, he'd probably never hear him sound like that again, either. "You can't, John, you- you promised me."

He lifted his hand just long enough from John's pale cheek to indicate the golden wedding-band on his finger. "You promised. You said- said we'd have a whole life. You promised me a lifetime, John, you promised-"

"Sorry," he said, little more than a breath, but it silenced Alex like a slap to the face might have. "Sorry. Love you. Promise you will live. Please. I want- be happy, darling. For me."

"Don't leave me," he sobbed. "Please, John, don't leave me alone!"

"I'll- wait. For you. Promise me… promise you'll make me wait," he mumbled. The only sound louder than his son's heaving, broken sobs was the gunshot that went off somewhere–too close.

They- they wouldn't be able to stay much longer. They needed to get back behind their own lines.

George looked at John, at the wetness gathered on his lashes, at the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, he looked at his own hands, stained with his boy's blood; he looked at Alex, almost screaming in his hysterics.

They couldn't stay.

They would have to leave him.

Alex would never forgive him.

"Darling. Please. My- my last wish?"

"Yes!" he said, too loud, and clutched at the hand on his face, swept the lone tear that escaped from John's eye away with his thumb. "Yes. I promise, anything you want- I'll live, I'll make you wait, and I will see you again."

The boy smiled up at him as if that had been everything he'd ever wanted to hear, like he had found peace of mind in Alexander's distraught promises, and tugged on their hands that lay twined together against Alex's face.

"Kiss?"

Alex just nodded, let out a wet sound that was probably supposed to be a laugh, and connected their lips once more.

"I love you," he whispered when he moved back, and the small smile on John's face slipped.

His eyelids slid closed, his stretched out arm sagged and dropped, the only thing holding it up Alex's grip, his head rolled to the side.

"John?" Alex said, shook his limp hand, gently patted his cheek. "John, love, open your eyes."

George lifted his hands from the wound, slowly, and nudged his son's arm aside so he could press his fingers to the boy's pulse-point. There was nothing. He- he hadn't found the right spot.

He moved his fingers in silent, desperate search for a pulse, a heartbeat, however small, but- George knew. He knew there was nothing.

Nothing.

"He's gone," he said and almost startled at the way his voice sounded; too much like Alex's. Too raw. Too hurt.

"No," he said and pressed the limp hand in his grasp more firmly to his face, nuzzled into it, inhaled. "He'll wake. It'll be fine, Pa, you'll see-"

"We need to go," he forced off his tongue and got to his feet, all the while doing his best to ignore how sticky his hands were, shoved the why from the forefront of his mind.

"I'll see you," Alex said, and he didn't even turn to look at him; his gaze was fixed on John's face, so entirely devoid of emotion George struggled to recognise him for a moment.

"You are coming with me." He carefully stepped around John and scrubbed the tears from his face with his forearm–his coat-sleeve was dirty, and it probably got on his face. He didn't care.

Alexander didn't respond, just sat and clung to his husband's hand.

"Alexander."

"I'm not leaving him," he answered, and George… wished he could sigh. He couldn't. He didn't know if he would be able to do anything besides cry ever again.

"You promised him, dearheart. You promised him you would live."

"He broke his promise first," was the immediate response, and it felt like someone had stepped on the shattered beyond repair pieces of his heart.

"Come on," he mumbled and bent down, gently pried his son's stiff fingers off John's already slightly cool to the touch hand, grabbed him around the torso, and yanked him up.

"No," he said, quiet, and shook his head. He struggled against his hold, but not in earnest. Not like George knew he could struggle. "No, Papa, I can't leave him. We can't leave him, he needs us-"

George pressed his lips into a thin line and tuned his boy's ramblings out, as much as it pained him.

He needed to focus on getting them back to safety, he needed to make sure Alexander was safe and protected, he needed to make sure he would get help, he needed- needed to make sure he would heal, that he wouldn't fall apart, that he would keep his promise to John-

He needed-

He-

He had failed them.

George had lost another child.

He had failed.

Again.