for some reason i can't explain
i know saint peter won't call my name
nothing that lives, lives forever - an immortal soldier!alton more au
(1.1k of snippets from my old guard(ish) au where alton more is old, too old, and has been living and fighting far longer than anyone should. full description/other thoughts at the bottom. tw: blood, violence, mentions of death)
Alton clicked the lighter closed, running a thumb over the silver case. The night was warm, sticky in a way that he never could get used to. He sucked in a breath from the cheap cigarette, letting his head fall back against the rough side of the barracks.
It was quiet. Typically, there would be no end to the commotion coming from the small building, one of many that littered Camp Toccoa. The wall of sound was ever-present, no matter if it was shouting or laughing or snoring. But whatever the cause, there was always noise.
No matter if it was a blanket of noise he knew well, unchanging except for the language and the scenery. Soldiers are soldiers, and some things are a constant. It could almost be comforting, if it didn’t also mean that the need for soldiers was a constant as well.
However, tonight was a Saturday, and it was one of the few weekends that Sobel had allowed Easy the use of their weekend passes. Almost every man in the company had jumped at the chance to get off base, to travel home if they could and spend time with loved ones. The ones with farther-flung hometowns had spirited off to Atlanta, happy to spend their time drinking and dancing and fucking instead of slogging through another run, three miles up, three miles down.
Normally, Alton would have joined them in their carousing - it was easier to pass the time with the effortless camaraderie built during a training camp than bored and alone.
But today had been a bad day. The sound of swords and the shift of sand beneath his feet followed him out of his nightmares, the humid summer of Georgia morphing itself into the baking, dry heat of the desert.
His shouts must have been real, because when a hand came to shake him out of his dream, the first face he saw was not that of a grouchy NCO, but of a blood-caked Saracen, eyes alight with righteous fury.
Alton didn’t think. He had grabbed the knife from under his pillow, an old thing that had been sharpened more times than he could begin to count, and was on the man in less than a breath, pressing the blade into the side of his neck. The familiar thrum of blood beat against his fingertips, the grit of sand scratched his gums. He knew what he had to do, had done it a thousand times, a thousand thousand times, what was a little more bloodshed spilled across his feet-
Alton had blinked, and came to himself in a rush.
Instead of an unnamed Saracen, the ashen face of Johnny Martin stared up at him, eyes wide behind the knife.
Alton drew back his hand, retreating almost as quick as he had lunged earlier. He mumbled a quick curse and apology as he stepped out of arm’s reach from the man. It wasn’t until Martin’s eyes widened even farther that Alton realized his tongue was slipping out Arabic of all things.
Usually, Alton was better about remembering himself, who he was almost as important as where he was. But for whatever reason, his demons had decided to catch up with him that night.
After a quick smile and some quip about the Krauts in his dreams, he managed to wave an only-slightly-mollified Martin off. The shorter man apparently hadn’t forgotten it though, if his watchful eyes during chow that morning were anything to go by.
Alton was just glad that no one else was awake to see it, at least. That was the last thing he needed.
And so, instead of joining in on a weekend of broads and booze, Alton found himself waving away the invitation by an eager Smokey and bemused Alley. When the horde made their way out of the barracks, fantasizing in bawdy terms about their planned misadventures, he felt like he could breathe easy.
Fucking finally.
~~
Alton took another drag from the cigarette. He watched the smoke curl, up and up until it faded into nothing amongst the darkening sky.
The lighter was a welcome weight in his hand, grounding him to this time, this life.
The design was worn by now, details barely visible after a half century of worrying. It still managed to amaze him, sometimes, what people could do with the smallest of canvases. Alton didn’t feel the same wonder however, wasn’t as mesmerized by the beauty man could create as he once was.
But in the quiet moments, he could still appreciate the time some French craftsman took to transform a hunk of metal into a small token carried around by a dead man.
Luz had spied the lighter one weekend, and laughed at him for using something so old-fashioned. Alton just shrugged, not caring to admit that he was still getting used to having a light at his fingertips. It wasn’t all that long ago when he was still lighting a pipe with a flintlock pistol, and not so long before that when he would carry around a flint and steel.
Time was passing all the more quickly these days, technologies changing and advancing, and everyone was obsessed with needing things to be quicker, cheaper, simpler. Alton scoffed. He could hardly find it in him to care.
He glanced down at the lighter in his hand, shifting it back and forth in a practiced motion and watched as the light skittered across the sides.
It had shown flowers, once. A veritable garden of carnations, daffodils, and lilies of the valley, with leaves spilling across the front panel onto the back. They represent good fortune, he was told. Good fortune, luck, and hope.
When the merchant described it to him, eyes ablaze with a passion known only to those with wares to sell, Alton didn’t try to hide the snort that escaped his throat.
Fortune and Luck had abandoned him long ago, and hadn’t returned since waking up in a battlefield abandoned by all but the dead, sword in his chest and blood in his mouth.
And what the fuck was Alton supposed to do with hope?
It was the quote on the back that had caught his eye, all those years ago in a street market in Reims. The beveled edges had faded with time, the familiar letters Alton traced were more memory by now than any physical mark. Une vie honorable est une vie éternelle.
An honorable life is an eternal life.
Alton couldn’t help but stare at the message, both then and now. He hated that goddamn word. Immortal. Unending. Eternal.
They were such flowery words, used by people who craved what they couldn’t have, what they shouldn’t. The romanticized idea of the everlasting, the fountain of youth, the gift of life! Alton was sick of it.
This wasn’t life. He was a fucking dead man walking.
And he sure as hell didn’t do anything honorable to deserve it.
months ago, while thinking about the absolute insanity of the almost...cavalier? attitude we see alton more have over the course of the series, an idea hit my brain: what if there was a reason nothing seemed to phase him - not panzers, not being a breath away from a car wreck, not bastogne, not speirs?
what if this wasn't his first war?
that thought spiraled me into a minor insanity that is this: my immortal soldier!alton more au, loosely inspired by the movie the old guard (2020). the idea is that, once upon a time, there was a soldier in a land many centuries ago. one day, he died in battle. and then, he woke up. and then he died. and then he woke up.
over, and over. drawn to countless battles, conflicts, and wars, each one etching itself into the core of his soul. a never-ending cycle...until one sweltering summer, where he found himself at a training camp at the foot of a mountain.
anyways.
at some point, i plan on writing this as a full story, but that is admittedly a long ways away. however, in celebration of alton more's birthday today, i wanted to post my favorite scene that i've written for this au! it's set sometime at the beginning of the story, in the early days of camp toccoa. mostly, it's just a character study of this version of alton more.
hope you enjoyed! and of course - happy birthday alton more!
(song insp.)
taglist: @sweetxvanixlla @coco-bean-1218 @bucky32557038ww2 @georgieluz @samwinchesterslostshoe @xxluckystrike @next-autopsy @ronald-speirs @land-sh @ronsparky @panzershrike-pretz @theredrenard @kyellin
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Yeehaw we gettin tagged by @whump-me (tyyyy) and posting 7 snippets from our writing (or wips but i am a wipless bastard atm 🤪) and i have decided to do some Silly Castys Moments (and also some Erebus stuff ig 🙄)
Warning for some gore probably it’s Nemi writing so yk but I’ll try to keep the really bad stuff outta here (there also some armputation and guy going crazy and starving to death over and over you know the drill)
1. Local silly guy does in fact regret it very much
“I don’t really want you, per se, but a certain…friend of yours.” Castys stiffened, and he heard a faint laugh. “I think you know who I’m talking about.”
“I really don’t. I’ve got a lot of friends, you know, and-” something slammed into the metal above him, cutting him off.
“Don’t play dumb with me; you know exactly who I’m talking about, and you’d better tell me where I can find him or I’ll make you regret it.”
“Please, do your worst. I already regret so many damn things so I don’t think another one on the pile will do much to me, to be honest,” Castys mused, wiggling against his bonds slightly.
2. The worst fmk in existence gets you stabbed
“Hey, guys, fuck, marry, kill for rice, pasta, and bread, go. I think for me, I gotta say fuck bread, marry rice, kill pasta. Don’t get me wrong, I love some noodles, some noods, but, like, man. Have you ever just, like, had some bread? Insane. I would fuck bread. I don’t wanna fuck anything, but boy I would fuck the bread. And rice, man, she’s so dependable, she’s always there for you. What I would want in a spouse if I wanted anything in a spouse. This game wasn’t really designed for me, and yet, here I am. So, c’mon, what’s it from you two? You’ve gotta have-Hey, Danny boy, got an opinion you’d like to share?” Castys smiled up at the man now standing in front of him.
Daniel rolled his eyes before putting his asshole face back on. “Just do something useful for once and hold this for me, vermin,” he said with a smile, lifting Castys’s shirt and gently sliding the knife he was holding into his abdomen. Castys just sighed, way too used to being stabbed to really care much about this.
3. Ripping your arm off but it’s a Phineas and Ferb reference (this one is probably the most gory of all the snippets fyi but it’s not too bad)
Sensing his chance, Castys grabbed the manacled wrist of his shredded arm with his good hand, bit down on the gag, and pulled. He couldn’t give up, couldn’t stop, not after enduring this much, he could feel his flesh tearing, sending out sparks of agony unlike anything he’d ever known, and he had to keep pulling, pulling and jerking and tearing and twisting and praying, praying that he could rip it off before he drowned again, which, hey, kind of a weird thing to want, not that he hadn’t had to amputate his own limbs before, but weird that it was happening again, and honestly, this hurt way more than the other times, but wasn’t that always the case-and fuck there was no way he was going to be able to just snap his bones like this, and he needed it to be completely severed, and there was no time, wedge it against the rocks and pull pull pull until there was a snap and a burst of unholy agony, so intense it almost smothered the relief, so fierce it made him forget he was drowning up until the moment his oxygen-starved brain lost consciousness.
4. Lmaoooo bitches trapped in a cell for like 200 years
Every three days. Thirst. Weakness. Dizziness. Death. Was it three days? Is that how long you could last without water? He tried to count, but the numbers got lost in the haze all too easily. There was no way to mark the stone, to keep track outside of his head, the blood wasn’t being washed off him anymore. He had nothing, nothing at all, just here and himself and the unyielding stone. The square of sunlight would move across the cell, the only motion to break the constancy of everything else. It was the same day repeated over and over and over and over and over and it was the same just the same nothing ever changed, ever, ever, it was the same-
Something wasn’t the same. The leather muzzle that had kept him silent for so long had been slowly rotting, and it finally fell off. For a moment he simply stared at it lying there on the ground, broken, dying, fading away. He opened his mouth for the first time in decades. And he screamed, because that thing got to rot away and disappear and he wouldn’t, he would always be here, hungry and thirsty and alone and trapped and alive and it wasn’t fair, not at all, and he screamed because it had been so long since he was able, he cried because it was all he could do.
5. Erebus’s iconic sit down protest ✨ (it does not accomplish anything in the end)
“You are coming with me. As of today you are my property, so you will do as I say. Resistance will only make things more difficult for you. So you will walk, or you will be dragged. Your choice.” Erebus initially felt a bolt of fear shoot through him, but looking down at her scrawny frame, he realized that she likely couldn’t carry out her threat.
Dragged? He’d like to see her try.
Erebus sat down on the ground and looked expectantly up at Neteri, one eyebrow raised. She huffed and narrowed her eyes. Planting her feet firmly on the ground, she tugged on the chain as hard as she could, but it did little more than make him lean forward. She sighed. “Okay, you have a point there.”
6. More Erebus and Neteri shenanigans because she’s right he’s being a drama queen
“You can’t just do that! That’s-you can’t just amputate my arm!”
“See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d freak out.”
“Of-of course I’m freaking out! You want to cut off one of my limbs, for Drottkia’s sake!”
“I mean, yeah, but I’m going to give you a new one right away. So at the end of the day you’ll have the same number of arms you started with. It’s honestly not worth getting that worked up about.”
7. New phobia alert!! (warning for centipede on guy)
He felt it, it was on him, dozens of little legs pitter-pattering across his skin, crawling on him. “G-get it off. Neteri, please, please get it off.” It tickled the back of his neck, around the base of the section of skin she’d replaced. “What’s it doing Neteri plea-” she clamped a hand over his mouth, her thumb rubbing against his cheek as he whimpered.
“Shh, shh, you’re okay Erebus. I’m just seeing if it can connect to you, I promise I’ll take it off when I’m done.” Connect to him?! What-what did that mean-oh it had stopped crawling around it was just sitting there it was on his back what was it going to do to him what did connecting mean was it-Erebus felt a momentary pinch at the base of his neck, and suddenly his limbs starting moving, wriggling in the restraints all on their own. Neteri removed her hand from his mouth and looked down at him expectantly, her other hand still gripping his tightly even as his fingers twitched uncontrollably. “Are you doing that?”
“N-no I-I’m not moving I’m not doing that why are they doing that I can’t stop it is it doing that to me make it stop make it let go please-” Tears were streaming from Erebus’s eyes but he didn’t care he just wanted that thing off he wanted it gone he wanted control of his own body back he’d always had that even when he was tied up and strapped down he’d always had that-
And there we go hope that either a fun time on memory lane or at least made you laugh a little
Taggin uhhhh @galaxywhump @yet-another-heathen and @painsandconfusion (mainly because i know you will want to read the Castys content 💕)
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