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It started as a small rumble.
Just a small rumble past the kitchen window, sending pricks and needles beneath his skin and ripping his eyes toward the darkened heavens.
It was only a rumble, and he had pushed that tightening grip in his chest back down to a loose hold. Hands that seemed to have a split-second delay to his commands continued to wash dishes, water running quietly and letting his mind focus instead on the dull tap of metal.
It'd only been a small, small rumble, and yet, when the bellowing of thunder finally struck down into lightening, miles and miles away--surely--Mickey couldn't remember when he'd transitioned from silently tidying his kitchen to lying flat on the tiled floor, hands clasped over the back of his head and nose pressed to the ground.
A tremor wracked through his body, one that was ever-present but worsened tenfold now.
It was fucking thunder.
That's all it was, and yet he was on the brink of scrambling for his gun in the drawer and shooting up to those cursed skies, because how *dare* it taunt and toy with him? How dare it prey upon weaknesses he'd spent decades of his life digging, and digging, and digging until he reached bedrock so that he could bury them?
Despite the urges rising in his throat like bile to scream, to kick, to fight as if his life and his pride depended on it, a grim chill washed it down as a tsunami. That rage clawed at the depths to resurface, and it fell limp entirely when another crack touched down overhead. He
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pressed his back to the dirt wall, free hand frantically stilling the rumble of his helmet, other hand pulling his M40 flush to his chest. For a moment, he wondered if he himself were flailing about, all on his own decision, but it took no time to realize that it wasn't him, but the earth around him.
A stifled scream choked through the air beside him, but it was stopped short. Far too short. He couldn't bear to watch the man drop, swallowing back ash and bile as he spun on his knees and leveled his weapon.
It felt as if no time had passed (or maybe a lifetime had passed, instead) before he was hunkered down again, hands plagued with an unshakable tremor reloading.
There was an indiscernible fit of screaming to his right, just past the mangled corpse but deafening even over shared gunfire, through crackles and pops of explosives. Deafening to the point he couldn't pick word from screeching. Not that it'd matter. Not right now, anyway. Not that anyone was listening over the stifled mourning of lost comrades, and the sobbing for their mothers as if they were toddlers awoken by a nightmare (not that he could say it was much different), and the pleading for their lives, and the desperate attempt to not give a shit about anything and drowning it with morbid jokes or ironic battle cries. All of it was pointless, he thought.
Startled from his thoughts, a hand on his shoulder, maybe, he couldn't tell--he didn't have time to tell--he swung the butt of his Remington and connected it with the jaw of-
Of- . . . Shit.
"Fuck-" his voice came out weaker than he'd anticipated, making himself cringe. He watched his comrade hold a gloved hand to his mouth, groaning past the blossoming ache and spitting out a glob of dusty blood. "Fuck, I- . . . Shit, I'm-I'm-"
"The hell are you thinking?!" The broken voice scolded, throwing oil onto the suffocating fire in his chest.
That was a question he couldn't answer, but it was the only thing he managed to decipher before the man's voice faded behind gunfire.
Others were looking, and now focusing back in, he was looking at the rest of them, too. A panic settled on some of their faces, some of them hardened on nodded. He followed the latter half, sure as hell not daring to question him after the stunt he'd just pulled. Whatever it was, he'd follow along. He'd get there one way or another. And when the man shouted some sort of unheard command, his battalion split in two, one running (as best they could whilst crouched) toward one end of the trench, his half running toward the other.
Able to get his wits about him just enough to realize he should get the fuck out of position, he followed, M40 held to his chest like a teddy. Someone was yelling at him--no, multiple people were--hands motioning and beckoning. Were he in a better state, he might've barked that he was coming, hold up a damn minute, but that urge never came to fruition, never even had a chance to leave his head.
The ground settled beneath him. Or, no- behind him. And it was so subtle, he was baffled he noticed. So insignificant, at first. Then a pop. For what felt like minutes, he thought it was just another gunshot, from a comrade, from the men across the field, he didn't know. He didn't care, he just needed to get across the trench.
Yet, he was stuck.
No. No, not stuck. He felt no blood-soaked soil beneath his knees. He saw no impatient battalion ushering him forward. And despite that, despite honing and understanding that fact, he didn't know where the fuck he was.
Mickey would've freely admitted his embarrassment when he opened his eyes, realizing now that, no, he wasn't dead and ascending (descending, maybe) to his fate, he had simply just shut his eyes.
Except, it wasn't as simple as that. Unless the foliage of trees typically laid at the roots and the heavens and earth had simply decided to change colour palettes for a day, it was far from simple.
It didn't stay like that, and he could at least gladly say he hadn't entirely lost his mind. When the world seemed to sort itself back into its usual order again, he had to take a pause and consider if it was simply an out-of-body experience. But when a few of the others from before had encircled him, forcing him to realize he was on his back, he only then realized he wasn't even crawling anymore. It was fucking bizarre, and there was no other way he could directly put it.
His hands batted at the ones trying to place themselves on his person, his other arm trembling beneath his own weight as he pushed himself upright. It was odd, he thought, because he could distinctly feel a lack of weight. Somewhat. It was odd, but the pieces fell together when his gaze traveled down to a- . . . Well. Lack of a leg.
There were people speaking, and he had only half a mind to keep himself from screaming at them to stop, because it was useless, he couldn't hear shit out here, and he had a lot more important needs to tend to than their directions that he already knew.
Still, despite that, it took him what felt like days, must've been only seconds, to look away from the mangled mess at his thigh. Bone, he knew even beneath the charred flesh and meat and the sizzling blood, stuck out from the stump of his thigh. Intrusively, he thought back to a few nights prior when they'd hunted down some animal he didn't know, skewered it, and ate well for the first night in weeks. Meat fried and sizzling, falling from its bone and back into the fire, lightheartedly mourning the loss of a couple extra bites of food. Bile rose, but he forced it back down. That fucking fire. That fucking fire is what got them into this damn mess. If they'd not been seen, if they'd only held out, if they'd-
A scream, somewhere, and this time he decided to shoot that shit down, but he couldn't. He couldn't, because his throat was already occupied, was already in-use, and it took even longer to realize that it was him screaming. Even longer for the pain to finally settle, sharp and jagged and burning.
It wasn't something he could describe. Not in a million years, not with all the world's descriptors in his wheelhouse, not anything. As if the bomb had crawled under his skin and claimed home there, threatening to rip apart every inch of him as the pain festered and festered and festered into something that closed his throat entirely, shut down his mind and put itself on autopilot.
Part of it, the back of his mind announced itself, maybe wasn't just the pain. Not even the fact he'd lost his leg, it wasn't going to magically grow back, and he'd be like this for the rest of his life. It was mourning, he quickly realized, his career and everything he'd spent his life working toward. His career was done. A snap of his fingers. A flash of a grenade. And like that, he was done.
And like that-
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Mickey shot up from his position on the floor, hand grasping at the fabric over his chest. The barrier didn't stop his nails from digging beneath his skin and drawing blood, small patches blossoming over the fabric. His other hand, he quickly realized, had subconsciously been digging the heel of his palm just above where his prosthetic sat.
God, his throat hurt. His chest hurt. And for a moment, he considered that he was dying this time.
He knew, somewhere, that wasn't true. The amount of times he'd gone through this exact scenario in even the past month wasn't something he could easily forget, and certainly not something he didn't come back from. All the same, an irrational part of his consciousness that tried disguising itself as rational nearly had him convinced enough to pull his phone and call- . . . Call someone. He didn't know who.
Didn't have to think on it too long either before he realized that was ridiculous.
And despite how much of a fucking wuss he felt like, he thought back to those breathing techniques that--dammit--did help. In . . . Out . . . Counting slowly.
Eventually his voice would steady. His hands would loosen their grips and the tremor would even out to what they were usually.
And what he funnily enough found comforting, an ache in his back from the position he'd been sitting in. Beside himself, he laughed. Looked up to the window above the sink, the sky still overcast, but not so gloomy.
And, hell.
What a start to his morning.