Blood Makes Noise
Title: Blood Makes Noise
Characters: Jude/Max
Fandom: Across the Universe
Rating: R
Table: 1
Prompt: 8, Blood
Author's Note: This is entirely a product of imagination, and I do not own Jude Feeny, Max Carrigan, or any of the other characters depicted in the film Across the Universe.
Dear Jude,
There's a part of me that hates writing to you from here. I hate dragging you into this place, even if you're only there in my thoughts. I want to keep you safe in my mind and in my heart and not feel like I'm somehow bringing you here into this horror.
I don't know any other way to describe it. "Horror" doesn't feel like the right word, really. It's worse than anything you could ever see on a screen in a horror movie, worse than anything I could have conjured up in my twisted mind.
It's worse because it's real. This isn't something I'm seeing on a movie screen, or on a tv that I can just reach out and switch off. This is something that's playing out right in front in real life, living technicolor and sound effects.
Everything makes noise here -- everything from the blood rushing through my veins, the sound of guns firing, the roar of flames, the whine of planes flying overhead. And the screams of people dying. That's a sound I'll never get out of my head. Even the silence is full of sounds.
When I think of you being exposed to this, or having anything to do with in any way, I freak out. Thinking like that makes me want to go AWOL and get the hell back to you as quick as I can, and to hell with the consequences.
But I know I can't do that. I didn't ask for this war, I don't believe in it, and I don't want to be here. But I was drafted, and I've made a commitment.
Honestly, even though I don't believe in killing and I think this war is wrong, I also think what the enemy is doing is wrong too. They're slaughtering innocent people. We can't just stand back and let that keep on happening.
That preys on my conscience, Jude. I don't believe in being here, but I don't believe in letting people be victimized if we can do something to stop it, either. So I'm torn in two directions. The only direction I can see clearly is going home to you.
I pray for that every day. To be able to get the hell out of here and get back to you. To hold you and feel you in my arms and know that you're alive and real. I need that feeling more than I've ever needed anything in my whole life.
There are times when it's so bad that I don't want to think about you. If I do, then I feel like I'm somehow dragging you into this war, and that my thoughts about you will get mixed up with all the awful things that I see every day.
I don't want that to happen. I don't want to start dreaming about you in terms of blood and death and the horrors of war. I want to keep you pure and sacrosanct, and I know that if I think about you and use those thoughts as an escape from all this, they'll be tainted.
And then there are times when all I want is to hold you, and to hold on to my dreams and my thoughts of you to keep my sanity in a world that's gone completely crazy.
I'm not really sure what to do any more, to be perfectly honest. Sometimes I think I'm going nuts, just being without you and wondering if what we had together was real, or just some dream I've had in the middle of all this.
That's one of the worst things about being here. Reality and fantasy are starting to blend together in my mind, and sometimes I have to struggle to remember what it felt like to have you next to me and to feel you in my arms.
No, that's not the worst thing. The worst thing is the blood. There's so much of it, around me every day. I look at it sometimes, see how red it is, and I think that it's the color of life and that so much life is supposed to be inside people.
It's not supposed to be leaking all over the ground, running out of bodies that used to be alive. But I see it seeping out of wounds every day, and I feel like just looking at it is pushing me over some kind of line that I'll never be able to step back behind.
That blood makes noise. It drowns out everything else in the world when I see it seeping into the ground around the bodies of the dead -- bodies of people that sometimes I've helped to kill. It's like that blood is screaming out to me.
I wish this was a dream instead of my reality. But more and more, I feel like my life back at home was the dream, and that this is all I'll have for the rest of my life. Just sweat and darkness and gunfire and all the blood, all around me.
Then I snap back into some semblance of what's real, and I think about you. That's the only thing that's keeping me sane, knowing you're there waiting for me.
I look at my hands every day and realize that any time I look at them from now on, there's going to be blood on them. I can wash them over and over again, scrub them clean, but the blood will always be there, no matter how hard I try to wash it away.
Is that how you'll think of me, Jude? Will I get back home and find you again, and realize that you feel like I'm some kind of killer that you can't love any more? I'm terrified of that. I think about it all the time and I wonder if that's how you feel.
I know in my heart that you won't. I know that what you and me have between us is stronger than blood, stronger than this war, even stronger than life and death. And I'm trying to hang onto that knowledge as hard as I can until I can come back to you.
Wait for me, baby. I might not come back exactly the same guy who left, but I'll come back. I'm managing to hold on, through all the blood and everything else. I just hope you'll be able to hang on too, and still be there when all this is over.
Love always,
Max
Characters: Jude/Max
Fandom: Across the Universe
Rating: R
Table: 1
Prompt: 8, Blood
Author's Note: This is entirely a product of imagination, and I do not own Jude Feeny, Max Carrigan, or any of the other characters depicted in the film Across the Universe.
Dear Jude,
There's a part of me that hates writing to you from here. I hate dragging you into this place, even if you're only there in my thoughts. I want to keep you safe in my mind and in my heart and not feel like I'm somehow bringing you here into this horror.
I don't know any other way to describe it. "Horror" doesn't feel like the right word, really. It's worse than anything you could ever see on a screen in a horror movie, worse than anything I could have conjured up in my twisted mind.
It's worse because it's real. This isn't something I'm seeing on a movie screen, or on a tv that I can just reach out and switch off. This is something that's playing out right in front in real life, living technicolor and sound effects.
Everything makes noise here -- everything from the blood rushing through my veins, the sound of guns firing, the roar of flames, the whine of planes flying overhead. And the screams of people dying. That's a sound I'll never get out of my head. Even the silence is full of sounds.
When I think of you being exposed to this, or having anything to do with in any way, I freak out. Thinking like that makes me want to go AWOL and get the hell back to you as quick as I can, and to hell with the consequences.
But I know I can't do that. I didn't ask for this war, I don't believe in it, and I don't want to be here. But I was drafted, and I've made a commitment.
Honestly, even though I don't believe in killing and I think this war is wrong, I also think what the enemy is doing is wrong too. They're slaughtering innocent people. We can't just stand back and let that keep on happening.
That preys on my conscience, Jude. I don't believe in being here, but I don't believe in letting people be victimized if we can do something to stop it, either. So I'm torn in two directions. The only direction I can see clearly is going home to you.
I pray for that every day. To be able to get the hell out of here and get back to you. To hold you and feel you in my arms and know that you're alive and real. I need that feeling more than I've ever needed anything in my whole life.
There are times when it's so bad that I don't want to think about you. If I do, then I feel like I'm somehow dragging you into this war, and that my thoughts about you will get mixed up with all the awful things that I see every day.
I don't want that to happen. I don't want to start dreaming about you in terms of blood and death and the horrors of war. I want to keep you pure and sacrosanct, and I know that if I think about you and use those thoughts as an escape from all this, they'll be tainted.
And then there are times when all I want is to hold you, and to hold on to my dreams and my thoughts of you to keep my sanity in a world that's gone completely crazy.
I'm not really sure what to do any more, to be perfectly honest. Sometimes I think I'm going nuts, just being without you and wondering if what we had together was real, or just some dream I've had in the middle of all this.
That's one of the worst things about being here. Reality and fantasy are starting to blend together in my mind, and sometimes I have to struggle to remember what it felt like to have you next to me and to feel you in my arms.
No, that's not the worst thing. The worst thing is the blood. There's so much of it, around me every day. I look at it sometimes, see how red it is, and I think that it's the color of life and that so much life is supposed to be inside people.
It's not supposed to be leaking all over the ground, running out of bodies that used to be alive. But I see it seeping out of wounds every day, and I feel like just looking at it is pushing me over some kind of line that I'll never be able to step back behind.
That blood makes noise. It drowns out everything else in the world when I see it seeping into the ground around the bodies of the dead -- bodies of people that sometimes I've helped to kill. It's like that blood is screaming out to me.
I wish this was a dream instead of my reality. But more and more, I feel like my life back at home was the dream, and that this is all I'll have for the rest of my life. Just sweat and darkness and gunfire and all the blood, all around me.
Then I snap back into some semblance of what's real, and I think about you. That's the only thing that's keeping me sane, knowing you're there waiting for me.
I look at my hands every day and realize that any time I look at them from now on, there's going to be blood on them. I can wash them over and over again, scrub them clean, but the blood will always be there, no matter how hard I try to wash it away.
Is that how you'll think of me, Jude? Will I get back home and find you again, and realize that you feel like I'm some kind of killer that you can't love any more? I'm terrified of that. I think about it all the time and I wonder if that's how you feel.
I know in my heart that you won't. I know that what you and me have between us is stronger than blood, stronger than this war, even stronger than life and death. And I'm trying to hang onto that knowledge as hard as I can until I can come back to you.
Wait for me, baby. I might not come back exactly the same guy who left, but I'll come back. I'm managing to hold on, through all the blood and everything else. I just hope you'll be able to hang on too, and still be there when all this is over.
Love always,
Max