#keep my man locked up fr hope he dies but he did not commit THOSE crimes

[deadgirlsam]

it is a little sad how much everyone seems to overlook john in favor of writing him off as a heartless abuser .... he is an abuser and a terrible father obviously! but he's also a character within a story, and i feel like refusing to engage with his character past that or wondering why he is the way he is or acknowledging the fact he loves his kids kind of kills your ability to read sam and (especially) dean properly too

[damn-daemon]

Prologue for The Pity of War

I’m not sure when I’ll write more, but the prologue was really calling to me, so I’ve decided to post it on here and get a reaction from everyone. This story is something I’ll probably write a few chapters of before I do anything with it. 

The prologue takes place during WWI. I don’t claim to know everything about it, but I certainly try. 

Above all, I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. -Wilfred Owen

 Prologue

They called him ‘the blue-eyed soldier.’ Said that he came into the field hospital thick with filth and grim like all the others. It made the hue of his eyes stand out, as bright as the sky and haunting. His uniform was tattered, the leather of his boots rotting, and there were no distinguishing marks on him, the insignia having peeled from his jacket and the orderlies having yet to collect his name.

But the eyes, they told her. You’ll know him by the eyes. 

Ruth Coleman had listened to their gossip and shook her head quietly. She hadn’t approved of their whispered judgements, but far bet it from her to stop them. They all had their ways of getting by, and little acts reminiscent of their old lives were what kept their grip of reality from slipping away. She liked to draw, when she could. A sketch of a flower or a drying sheet caught on the breeze.

But never their faces.

It would not have been hard to do so, those faces so clearly engraved upon her memory that in her mind’s eye, she could touch them and know how coarse the skin was beneath her fingers. But one day, Ruth thought, those faces might finally fade, and to commit them to paper was just another way to draw out the agony.

She’d been sketching a bird she spied earlier in the evening, her efforts dimly lit by a lantern close to empty. It had been strange, seeing the little creature. Aside from the war horses and the rats that plagued the cooks, Ruth had seen no sign of other animals. They were the intelligent ones, fleeing the war while man charged ever onward. But a flash of yellow had caught her eye, and there it was, perched on a rotting fence post. It called out once before taking to wing, in search of kinder surroundings, but that moment had resonated within her; it reminded Ruth of things she did not think of anymore, of before and the life she dared not dream to have again.

There was only the present in war, the ever plodding, colorless present.

A flash of light had caught her attention, or so her mind believed. The officers insisted they could not see the illumination rounds from where they were stationed, but Ruth had become well acquainted with lies. Lies to keep the peace, lies to ease the pain, lies to assuage the fear of a young woman so far from home. Perhaps one day, she would appreciate those little lies, but for the time being, they made her feel like a child again, unable to control her emotions, so the truth was kept from her, dictated by those who knew better.

Whatever the light had been, the front or her imagination, it led Ruth to a small figure walking toward her.

Her name was Mary. She was slight of frame, with gold locks the soldiers loved. How they begged her to remove that head scarf. One offered five quid to touch just one of her curls.

“Bed three is expected,” she said quietly. “I’d have stayed to do it myself but…”

Ruth shut her journal. “It’s alright, Mary. Go get some sleep. I’ll see you at dawn.”

He had been from Cardiff, the boy who passed, no older than eighteen. She’d known many boys who had lied about their age, as young as fifteen. They fought and died the same as the rest, although sometimes she wondered if they weren’t a touch braver than the others. They knew so little about the world, about themselves, and yet they were a world away from home, bleeding out on fields that they might have never seen had there been no war.

The orderlies did not take the dead at night, for fear of disturbing the wounded and what little sleep they received, but Ruth would not leave him in such a state. It was her job, and her honor.

She closed his distant, dark eyes and saw to it that his clothes and bandages were not caught on anything. Quietly, Ruth covered his body with a thick, green blanket, from head to toe, and placed his boots on his legs. She’d taken one of his tags, and saw to it that his personal effects – of which there were not many, a letter, a picture, a broken watch – were placed in a small basket that would remain in her possession until the morning. Desperate soldiers tended to steal whatever they could, but none should have need for a small photograph of a young woman with dark hair and bright eyes.

Ruth crossed herself and said a small prayer. She’d stopped believing that God listened ages ago, but felt compelled to act nonetheless.

It was as she finished, that she heard the sound: the quiet whimpers of a man trapped in his dreams.

Sometimes, that was all it was. The man would fidget, his breathing would even out, and there wouldn’t be another peep from him until the sun broke over the horizon. But other times, they were not so lucky. They would thrash about and call out, screaming as if they were at war right then and there. It would wake the others, sometimes triggering their own dangerous episodes. Men had been hurt this way; men had died this way.

When the first thrash came, Ruth dropped the basket and fell to her knees before the man’s bed. She threw her arms upon him, hoping to keep him as still as possible, as she began to speak into his ear.

“You’re not in the trenches,” she spoke quickly, her arms struggling to keep his down. Most of the men were stronger than her, doubly so when they believed their lives in danger. “Listen to my voice. You’re safe. You’re safe here.”

He threw her off then, hard and violently. Unable to catch herself in time, Ruth felt her forehead slam onto the frame of the next bed over. Her eyes felt crossed, and the world spun briefly.

As she sat there on the ground, momentarily stunned, Ruth noticed the bed creak.

The soldier occupying the bed she’d hit had stood up, and was using his body weight and free arm – the left having been tightly wrapped in a sling – to hold the frantic man down. She heard his deep voice saying something, calm and authoritative, but it seemed to have no effect.

Shaking her head, Ruth returned to action, grabbing both sides of the poor man’s face as her elbows held down his shoulders. Her new assistant was practically straddling the bed, holding the soldier’s legs down with his own as his right arm struggled with the two their patient possessed.

“Listen to me. Listen to me,” Ruth spoke, her voice as sweet as she could make it be. “Everything is fine. You’re alright, soldier. Look at me. Look at me.”

“His name is Danny,” the man behind her said.

“Look at me, Danny,” Ruth continued, caressing the poor man’s face. His skin was so thick with sweat, and hot to the touch. “Danny, listen to me and open your eyes.”

He did so then, wide, frightened pupils staring up at her like she wasn’t there. But she could see them slowly coming back into focus, awareness pulling at the edge of his mind. He was out of danger. Now it was time to bring him home.

“There you are,” she said softly, running her hand over him again. “Everything is fine now, Danny, alright? Everything is fine.”

His breathing slowed, eyes looking about the tent, reacquainting himself with his surroundings. Then they focused back on her.

“Oh God, did I do that to you?”

It was only then that Ruth felt the warmth alongside her eye, the pulsing just above her brow. She doubted the cut was large, but the head always bled the most and longest. There was no doubt in her mind that it looked worse than it was.

“Don’t worry about that, Danny,” she said, attempting a smile. “I’m a nurse. I can handle it, I promise. You just get some rest.”

She stood then, pulling her head scarf from her dark curls.

“You’ll be alright now, Danny,” she heard the other soldier say.

“Thanks, Tommy.”

Ruth watched the other man stand as she bunched up her scarf and raised it to her head.

“Allow me,” he said, hand outreached. She could make out the blisters on his palm. “I’m no doctor, ma’am, but I can see that wound better than you.”

She acquiesced, handing the bunched cloth over rather than make another scene. They had undoubtedly woken up a few of the other soldiers, but they were very good at pretending they weren’t listening.

As the man pressed the cloth against her brow, Ruth got a good look at him. His face was thin with high cheekbones, his hair shaved at the sides like many soldiers hoping to prevent lice, and his eyes…

They were right. She did know ‘the blue-eyed soldier’ by them.

Her hand reached up, grabbing the cloth from him and placing pressure of her own. “You should go back to sleep, soldier. You just got in today, from what I’ve heard.”

He nodded slowly, settling back onto his bed.

“I want to thank you, ma’am,” he said, looking up at her. Most soldiers tended to look away when they spoke, perhaps at their hands or something else just to the left or right of her, but this man looked directly at her, with no hesitation or sign of moving away. “He’s a friend from back home.”

“I should be the one thanking you,” she admitted, never a fan of praise herself. “You’re a good friend to him.”

Now he did look away, to Danny, who had already fallen asleep again.

“I don’t know about that.”

“What’s your name, soldier?” she asked, hoping to avoid him slipping into melancholy as most soldiers were prone to do.

“Sergeant Thomas Shelby, Small Heath Rifles, ma’am.”

“Well, Sergeant Shelby, I’d offer to shake your hand, but my right one is occupied, as is your left one. I’m afraid it would make for an awkward affair.”

He nodded. “So it would, ma’am.”

The rest of the night was blessedly quiet, allowing Ruth to see to the wound she had received. In the morning, the orderlies took away the boy from Cardiff and replaced him with another wounded soldier from some other town nowhere near where they were. She watched the affair quietly, as did Thomas Shelby and his blue eyes.

Before she turned in, Ruth returned to his bedside and held out her right hand.

“I believe I owe you this, Sergeant Shelby.”

There was a ghost of a smile on his face when his hand took hers, his grip strong, callouses like sandpaper against her skin.

That was the first of seven days Ruth Coleman knew Thomas Shelby during the Battle of the Somme.

Seven days was all it took for neither to ever forget about the other.