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Sixty-seven days ago. Two months it’s been, approximately nine whole weeks. Estimating around ninety-five thousand minutes and over five million seconds.
It’s been sixty-seven days since.. You know. You always wake up feeling like it happened sixty-seven seconds ago instead. Your eyes flutter open and you take a breath, inhaling a certain kind of heavy and thick into your lungs. Your chest expands uncomfortably in the morning, your ribs squeezing your lungs a bit tighter than before. Accompanied with the tightness of your chest is this tingling feeling, so slight it’s almost like background noise, just like how the past few weeks have felt. They’ve flown by in a flash, but at the same time, are oh so slow.
Sometimes, you wake up expecting to see him standing over your sleeping form to wake you up after staying up a tad bit too late because he insisted you do so. So he wasn’t lonely because ‘The LT denied me’, in his words. Sometimes, your eyes are sick and twisted towards you. Your eyes are faster than your brain and you see him. You see his shadow so thick you’re convinced until you reach upwards, your fingers pushing through the dark smoke that enters your lungs after you’ve blinked.
You’re sure the others have noticed the toll it’s taken, despite your efforts to hide. You know they’re hurting in their ways, too. Being in a tightly packed task force like this, you’re bound to know each other's tells. Part of you wonders who is hurting the most. Is it Gaz? The man who’s been the most logical out of all five four of you. Is it Ghost? The enigma of your group? He’s always been quiet, hard to read. Harder since.. Everything. Maybe it’s Price. He’s the one who actually saw, really. The one who watched him…
…
You feel something in your throat bubble, so you push the thought away.
Then you come back to it. Maybe it’s you who’s hurting most, being his lover. The person he insisted that was his other half he had been looking for. Maybe that’s you being hopeful and cheesy; maybe it’s you being selfish. You aren’t sure. Honestly, you aren’t sure what you should be feeling, nor are you sure how your teammates should be reacting. There’s five stages of grief and everyone’s path looks different.
Denial – you aren’t sure who you think denial is at first. Symptoms are fear, avoidance. What happened, you can’t avoid it. Not really when he was so integral to the team. Is. He never stopped being. After a few days of people watching, you’ve decided it’s you. You wanted to put it onto someone else at first, maybe Gaz—perhaps Ghost. They’re still.. Living. Going through the motions, at least. But you had to look at yourself late at night, around two forty-five am to ask, “are they the one’s waking up thinking he’s standing over them?”
No. They are not. It’s you. Of course it’s you.
Next—anger. You debated this one, of course it was tied between Ghost and Price but after Shepherd died, of course the Captain took that title with no question. There is a major difference between peaking into the gym, watching Ghost gasp for air after a night full of boxing and then hearing through Laswell the General has been killed. Major difference, indeed. It’s not often your Captain loses his cool and when he does, it’s for good reason. He deserved it, you only wish Price was more cruel.
Bargaining? It’s a no brainer, you decided as soon as you thought of it. Gaz. None of the men cry much, but it wasn’t a surprise when you found Gaz sitting on the steps outside of the temporary base, smoking a cigarette with misty eyes paired with a lost look. A look where he wasn’t completely there; lost somewhere, maybe in thought, maybe back in that moment. In the moment where he had to ignore his mutilated body to focus on the bomb. On the fact that Makarov was getting away. He lit a second cigarette.
Maybe it doesn’t quite fit him, but Ghost was the last one to decide for. Depression is what you ended up assigning him. There’s not many words for how you could describe him. Ghost’s been flighty, quiet yet hostile. He never means to snap at any of you of course, you all know it. You can tell from the heavy, long look he gives you after snarling at you like a cornered dog. He’s just sad and scared, something you can understand on a deeper level. With him, it feels like beckoning a wolf with bits of meat—a wolf who isn’t afraid to bare his teeth. You’re willing to get bit.
Then… what’s left?
Oh, yeah.
Acceptance. Left for the one who is forever missing.
In a way, it feels wrong. You know he’ll never be able to move on like the rest of the world can. It feels even worse when you realize only a select amount of people will know about his death—the world won’t know who he is. Work in the dark to serve the light, hm? What a fucked world. After spreading his ashes across the hills, it feels like he’s become one with the Earth. Maybe that’s his form of acceptance; going back to what housed him. The green roots and blue skies. The rain that pours down over the ruined cities you’re crawling through, the beautiful stars and planets above you during a late night in God knows where. You see him everywhere.
You hope God is taking care of him, as you rub your fingers over his cross necklace. The last thing you have left of him; his dog tags sitting in a memorial on base. You may or may not believe, but Johnny sure did. And you know, somewhere deep down, he’s alright.