Work Text:
He is reading to you.
His husky accent vibrated against your ear, reminding you of a cat purring. His arm encases you wholly but in a loose caring warm way. His thumb brushes against your skin and you are very tempted to purr like a cat now.
Your legs are all over him – actually, you are all over him. But he allows it because neither of you can’t remember when the last time you were like this, or you had been allowed to do this.
He is always away thinking he is saving the world. You are always here, living your life, trying to tell yourself (and believe it) that you don’t miss him that much.
He told you, when he asked you to marry him several years ago, that it was going to be hard, that he would not be a good husband that he would not give you what you deserved.
He told you the consequences and you said yes anyway.
Because somehow you knew that he would always come back to you, even if it was the last thing he did.
He could go to every corner of this earth, swim in every sea, get lost in every jungle, or almost die in every desert, and he would always come back.
Because he made a vow, and you knew promises were sacred for him.
He was a man of his word.
His chest vibrates against your ear with each syllable he speaks, you can see the veins in the arm that is holding the book, and you can also see the faint scars he has there. Scars you have traced too many times, the faint smell of cigars invades your nostrils at the same time the faint smell of gum does.
A gentle breeze squeezes through the semi-open window, making you shiver a little. Unconsciously, you hold onto him tighter.
He stops the reading suddenly and you feel his head moving over yours. His beard scratches against your forehead for a second.
“Ya alrigh’, luv?”
You hum in answer, blinking heavily against his green shirt.
He then uses the arm around you to brush your back.
“Ya cold”.
Is not a question.
“A little”, you mumble.
He rolls his eyes (you don’t have to see him to know) before he puts down the book on the bed and moves to grab the covers you pushed to the side when you threw yourself in bed with him.
You make a sound to complain, and he chuckles slightly.
“Hush, I’m jast gettin’ the covers”, and he keeps his arm around you while he grabs the cover with the other.
In a second, the blanket is covering you almost completely, while you still hold onto him.
“There, yar warm now”, and you exhale contently, while he returns to the book.
He starts reading again and your eyes start getting heavier with each passing second.
He is lulling you to sleep without knowing it and you are fighting it, trying to stay awake, trying to enjoy this moment because he will be gone in the blink of an eye and then you will be alone again until his next leave.
It was unfair and total torture, but you knew that when you said yes, you knew that when you signed the damn paper when you let him put the ring on your finger and you put yours in his.
You just wished this moment didn’t end.
That it could last forever and ever.
That fate wasn’t that cruel.
But then again, fate was not at fault for your decisions.
“Jonathan”, you suddenly called, making him stop immediately.
You never use his full name. Is usually John here and there. Jonathan is usually reserved for when you are angry, for when he is in trouble, or as a warning.
You feel him tense under you and you know that he is surprised.
He leaves the book in the bed again and moves his head to look down at you.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want this moment to end”.
There is a brief second of silence. A hollow silence in which you can hear the breeze entering through the window again.
Slowly you move your head until you can see him.
You can see the man, not the soldier. With his blue eyes and his beard, with his laugh lines around his eyes, the freckles after serving half a life under the sun, the faint scars that his facial hair couldn’t hide.
You could feel the dog tags under his shirt. A perpetual reminder that he was not yours, that he was your husband, but this country took it from you.
It wasn’t his fault per se. He had made a life out of it way before he met you. Way before he dropped the question. He had warned you, that it was going to be hard, that you may not like it, that you may hate him afterward, but you said yes anyway, and you decided to take it further.
Now you can’t get it off from him, as much as he can’t get you out of here.
“It doesn’t need to end if you don’t want it to”, his husky voice says, softly, against your hairline, while his hands caress you like you are sacred and heavenly.
“It will end eventually. You will leave, and you may not return”.
“When have I not returned to you?”
You stay quiet because the answer is never.
He always returns, doesn’t matter how much he takes, he always returns.
And he knows it.
“There’s always a first thing for everything”.
“Not for this. I made a promise, a vow, I will always return to you, even if I’m not alive”.
You let your head go and close your eyes on his chest again.
He tightens his hold on you like it is physically possible to be closer to you.
“Stop worryin’ about the future, darlin’”.
“Says the soldier who does shit because of the future”.
“I do it for the present, so no one else must do it. We have talked about this before. You can be honest with me”.
“I don’t want you to leave, I want you to stay. Fuck the King and country, I want my husband to stay with me more than two weeks a year”.
He chuckles. He is the first English you have met who doesn’t get offended at someone insulting his King.
“I wished I could stay with you every day of my life too”.
And you know that there is a but hanging in the air.
There is always a but hanging on the sentences about this topic.
He wants to stay but can’t.
You want to be with him, but you can’t leave this life.
Life is full of buts.
And you are the ones who put them there.
Why did you even marry in the first place?
He was pretty clear from the beginning; he told you things like they were black and white.
And you still said yes.
Why you said yes?
Because you loved him?
He didn’t promise you castles or gold. He promised you exactly what you were getting.
And you said yes anyway.
You open your eyes to look at your hand in his chest, the one that has your wedding ring hanging from a finger like a death sentence.
He reads your mind or something.
He reads your thoughts like they were writing on your skin.
He takes your hand with his.
“It can end if you want to”.
“I don’t want it to end”.
“Then why you are overthinking it?”
“I’m just – “, you stop, his fingers intertwined with yours. “I want to be selfish for once”.
“Then let’s be selfish”.
You look at him again, at his face, at his blue eyes that wrinkle all over it when he smiles like he is doing at that moment.
He pushes some of your curls away from your face. He caresses your face like he always does before leaving, like he is making sure his hand can memorize it in case is the last time he sees you.
His thumb brushes with your lips and for a moment you think you know why you said yes years ago, why the two of you married, why the wait was torture but seeing him at your door was sweeter than sugar.
It was for selfish reasons too.
“I love you, no matter what you choose”, he simply says and there it was.
That’s the reason why you love him.
Because no matter what you decide or do, he will be somewhere cheering you up.
Because he will always return to you because he was a man of his word and will always keep it.
“Fuck is hard to choose anything when you are looking at me like that”, he breaks in a laugh then, and you try not to follow him on that abyss, but you end up falling, willingly.
“Then don’t choose anything, don’t think, just for a while. Just, enjoy the moment. Don’t let it end”.
You swallow the lump in your throat and use a finger to trace the bridge of his nose.
He closes his eyes for a moment and when he opens them you can’t describe what you find.
You’re a god, gracing a mortal with its eternal touch.
He smiles again and you think you made a decision, that it has been made from a long time ago.
“Let’s enjoy the moment then”.
And before he can respond, you are closing the distance between the two of you.
“Can I kiss you?”
“I have always been yours, darlin’”, he says, like it was a vow.