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The first day, it was a sleepless night. Of course it was, how could peaceful rest ever find him now? And so Keegan shut himself out on the narrow balcony, leaning on the railing as he overlooked the quiet base. Such “luxurious” accommodations were rare to come across during times such as these, and of course you’d jumped at the opportunity for a taste of classic American life before the war. There were a lot of things you missed from before the war, actually.
Messy thoughts consumed him as Keegan puffed a cloud of smoke into the chilled night air.
“These things’ll kill you,” you used to say, plucking the cigarette from his fingers and cushioning it between your lips anyway.
He’d only ever offer an amused huff and shake of his head in response.
“There’s worse ways to die, I think,” he’d add on the occasion.
Some two weeks later, the rest of the team began to take notice. Merrick pulled him aside one day, a couple hours before their next mission briefing.
“I think you should take an extended leave,” he’d said, voice low. “I’m concerned, Keegan. The entire team is.”
Stubborn as he was – a trait he guessed he’d learned from you– Keegan only returned a curt response.
“I’m fine.”
And in the end, he appeared to be.
Appeared.
It was during that mission in which you first came back to him, your presence a feigning warmth beside his prone body. It was a subtle entrance, gentle and quiet, a gaping difference from when you first intruded on his war-mongered life like an electrifying buzz.
But Keegan supposed this is what he’d asked for. But not what he wanted. Not what he meant .
He’d heard your breathing first, slow and paced like it always was when you were focused, scoped in on a target. He’d subconsciously matched his own breathing patterns to that of your ghost, mirroring your finger on the trigger as the barrels of your rifles followed the chaos of men darting between trees.
“Eyes on the prize, Serg.”
Even in death, you’d still done what Keegan had engraved in you since early training: you took your picking of the flock, released your final exhale, and held your breath, squeezing the trigger ever so slightly as you followed a particular figure until the recoil snapped you an inch backwards and your prey, far below your perch, a couple feet until gravity pulled the soldier back down into its hard earth.
“Bullseye.”
Though you were there, Keegan was sure of it, he’d taken all the credit and pats on the back from the other Ghosts during the return home.
By three months, it was like you’d never left. Keegan of course knew you weren’t there; not really. No , you were much too unanimated –too macabre–, hiding yourself in shadow and solitude, not at all the kind of girl you lived as. But as the saying goes, better to be in bad company than alone , no?
On days when a cigarette wasn’t propped between his pointer and index, or the nights were too cold to spend out on the balcony alone, he’d simply sit on the edge of the bed, idly staring through the windows, tightly gripping the soft, grey blanket you’d left behind. Much like now.
You hated the cold. You hated being cold. You weren’t as tolerant to it as you were to the heat. You couldn’t sleep, couldn’t focus on nothing more than how damn cold you were as shivers racked your body. Keegan, on the other hand, didn’t mind it as much – the cold or your instinctive draw to his warmth, subconsciously seeking his body in the depths of sleep for comfort.
Nothing ever changes. Your touch came next.
Your cold hands, as soft and bold as the moonlight kissing his face, slide up Keegan’s back, snaking around his neck and settling into a loose hug as your nose nuzzles his cheek.
You preferred the heat. But even you had your limits. On hot summer nights, when the cicadas incessantly buzzed in the dark and hundreds of fans working overtime throughout the barracks steadily hummed, you’d strip from your typical sleepwear. Instead, you’d opt for more practical attire, wearing nothing but one of his t-shirts and a pair of comfy panties.
“I can breathe more this way,” was always your reasoning. “I spend up to weeks wearing the same pair of suffocating, dirty old jeans. So what if I don’t wanna wear pants in my own damn bed? Shoot me.”
It was also your preferred clothing after more intimate nights as well. By the time dawn came, you were far too exhausted, stuck in your euphoric after-haze, to bother worrying about being properly decent. It wasn’t as if you hadn’t just spent the night exposed and vulnerable with your lover anyway, whining into his ear and clawing at his back, each swallowing the other’s moans with needy kisses.
There were a lot of things Keegan missed, too.
Your fleeting touches always whispered against his skin while his back was turned before it was gone again. You always disappeared before he’d even have time to process, time to turn round and brush the back of his hand against your cheek. To touch you, feel you – hell, even just see you fully, out of shadow and in the light you’d always embodied and shined into his own little world.
Tonight was the first night you’d ever lingered since. It made Keegan wonder if the gun casted aside on the bed made the difference.
Why?
Why make him stay? To keep fighting or to keep suffering? Or did you simply just not want him with you?
He wouldn’t hold it against you if that were the case. He could endure a thousand lifetimes of torture and still never deserve your forgiveness.
Then came your voice.
Keegan could never be sure of the kind of effect you’d always had on him, damning him to throw away all resolve and sense of duty, but it’d never waver, no matter how long he’d be away from you.
“I wish you'd stayed.”
“I wish I’d stayed too.”
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