Side By Side

20 (The End)

Warnings:
-Mentions of everything that happened

Clay's POV

~ A Few Hours Later ~

Opening my eyes was really difficult. I blinked a few times and breathed in, having a bad pain shot through my stomach. I vaguely remembered being shot and I genuinely had no idea how I survived this.

~~~

It took me a while to fully wake up and a nurse walked up to me. She smiled shortly and did something with the bags attached to my IV. 'How are you feeling?'

'My stomach hurts,' I whispered. 'What happened again?'

'You were shot in your stomach. The bullet went straight into your stomach and you're incredibly lucky that it didn't hit any organs. Your rib blocked the bullet and saved your life. Your rib was completely crushed so next to your wound, we also did anything we could to fix your rib.'

'Sapnap, where is he?'

'He's in the hospital too, but he's still sleeping,' she smiled. 'He stayed with you the whole time and the medic realised later that he couldn't walk anymore. He was brought here an hour after you.'

'Can I see him?' I whispered with a hoarse voice. 'Please?'

'I'll bring him to you as soon as he wakes up.'

~~~

An hour after the conversation with the nurse, she came back while driving Sapnap closer to me in his bed. She put his bed down next to mine since we just laid in a row with soldiers who were wounded during war.

'Clay,' he whispered as he reached out his hand to me. 'I thought you were dead...'

I smiled shortly and reached out my hand too to hold his. 'I'm alive, I just have a lot of pain,' I whispered, swallowing a gross taste in my mouth. 'And you?'

He chuckled from the pain and rolled his eyes. 'Four broken ribs and my spine is fractured.'

'Sapnap...' I started as I held his hand tightly. 'You know... this is it for me. It has been enough and I don't think I'll be returning to the army anymore after this. This was enough.'

He nodded heavily and breathed out. 'Me neither... I want to rest now. In peace.'

~ One Year Later ~

'Sergeant?' a girl around the age of seventeen asked me with a shy smile.

'What's up?' I asked with a smile.

'I fell down while walking through the river and I kept going, but I have a lot of pain in my hip, sergeant.'

'Medic!' I shouted so the medic would come to check on her. The medic walked up to us and nodded.

'She fell down today, can you check if she's okay?'

He nodded and started moving her, asking where and when it hurt. She didn't want to show her pain, but the medic noticed when she had pain. 'You've stretched your muscles, but you can just keep going.'

She nodded heavily. 'I will, sir. Thank you, sergeant.'

'Hey, did you eat already?'

'No, sergeant,' she answered.

'Eat something and rest until the next training,' I smiled as I gently pushed her to the man who was making food.

I turned around and walked up to Sapnap who was sitting down with the other sergeants. 'Sap, can we walk around for a second?'

He nodded and stood up with a smile, coming with me to walk around the area.

'Who would have ever thought this would happen. Sapnap and Clay, the two new sergeants in the army boot camp...'

Sapnap smiled brightly and nodded as we kept walking. 'Who would have even thought we'd still be alive?'

Right after I was shot in my stomach and Sapnap broke his ribs and fractured his spine, we decided that that was it for us. We didn't want to return to the army anymore and our bodies were too weak to.

I recovered after three months from the shot in my stomach. I experienced a lot of pain and nausea and eventually they fed me through a tube that went straight to my intestines since I couldn't eat and lost a lot of weight.

We were brought back to America and I stayed in bed for weeks with a tube and people who took care of me. I started to get nightmares again and eventually Sapnap, who was also recovering from his injuries, moved to my room and we stayed together at night.

When I finally recovered, I went back to therapy and got medication to calm down while working on the trauma. Sapnap and I were doing better after a few months and we started talking about our future.

We didn't completely want to stop with anything that had to do with the army and we went back to the boot camp area to see if we would be allowed to train the recruits and help them become real soldiers. No more war, just helping people with a dream.

We were accepted and we were called sergeants by all the recruits. Sapnap and I genuinely loved this work and we were really happy that we could be involved but didn't have to fight anymore.

We were away from home from time to time, but we were more at home than at the boot camp since that was only ten weeks every half a year.

Ever since I joined the army, they started allowing anyone from the LGBTQIA+ and they also allowed girls and women. Multiple women, and three young girls, passed all the tests and served in the army now.

Sapnap visited his parents in jail and I got onto the news with him again. I enjoyed it so much that I knew my classmates saw that and realised I was so much stronger than them. Sapnap yelled at his parents too and they stopped talking in the end because they knew Sapnap actually proved them wrong in every aspect.

I grabbed my phone very shortly as I saw a message from George.

George
We just watched the news and the enemy has been defeated which means the allies won the war and no one has to live in fear anymore! I got my Jewish ID back too, I'm ready to live freely again

You
I'm so glad <3 I love you and Karl. I'll be home in two weeks, so make sure to be prepared!

George
Can't wait <3

I put my phone away and sighed as I wrapped my arm around Sapnap's shoulders. I loved my life so much now. The war was over, we were free.

George and Karl visited us every week when we were at home. George was adopted by Karl's dad but we all called each other brothers and family. I'd never been closer to anyone than them and my parents often went out with Karl's dad.

I looked at Sapnap and leaned in to press a kiss on his cheek. 'I love you, Sap. I told you we'd fight together till the end... side by side.'

He smiled brightly and ruffled my hair up as he turned around. 'We are twenty-one and nineteen and we went through so much already. I'm so happy I met you and that we fought together. You never left my side.'

'I promised you that. I promised to fight side by side and to never let go of you, George, Karl and our parents. We are all one big family...'

He hugged me tightly, knowing we would never separate from each other.

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