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Elias sat alone in his bedroom, it was dark out, had been for a long while, Logan and Hesh gone to bed hours ago, but he couldn’t sleep. He was tired, but his mind wouldn’t shut off, he couldn’t stop replaying that mission in his mind, wishing he’d done something differently. Maybe if he’d agreed with Merrick, Rorke might have reconsidered, might have agreed to retreat, or something like that, he didn’t know.
They’d been searching for him for weeks and hadn’t found any signs of him, not even a body. He wasn’t proud of how he reacted to getting pulled and Rorke being declared M.I.A, he’d almost punched Merrick as he and Ajax tried to get Elias onto the helicopter to leave.
He’d been angry that they wanted to leave without Rorke, pissed that they expected him to do the same, he hadn’t cared that they’d been looking for almost a month, didn’t care that tensions were rising, he couldn’t bare to leave without Rorke. But it wasn’t his call to make. So they left and once they got back, they all got put on leave for a few weeks.
During the day it was easier, having his boys to occupy his mind and time, but once they went to bed, it was harder, since he didn’t have any work to bury himself in, or anyone to talk to, he couldn’t ever work out, since the walls were thin and he’d defiantly end up waking his boys.
That only left two options, sleep, or lay awake thinking over that godforsaken mission, and sleep always evaded him. So every night he lay there, replaying that day in his mind, somehow still hoping that it was all a fucked-up dream, that he would wake from. Hoping he’d open his eyes to find he’d fallen asleep on the helicopter and that Rorke was fine, right by his side, where he was meant to be.
Elias looked to his bedside table, where a small velvet box sat near the edge. He let out a tired sigh as he reached out to pick it up. Flipping it open revealed a plain looking ring, its only embellishments being the letters E and G engraved on the inside of the band. He carefully took the ring from its plush setting and held it securely in his hand, not willing to let anything happen to it.
He’d had many conversations with Rorke about marriage, mostly hypotheticals about a future neither believed they’d ever get to see, but they were both certain that if the day ever came where they could get married, they would. Then gay marriage was legalised. At first it hadn’t felt real, years of wishing and hoping resulting in a dream that he could mistake for real life, but the day went on, and slowly, it began to feel real.
Elias had gone out to get a ring the next day. He’d wanted to ask Rorke immediately, but the Rorke had been so fixated on taking down the federation and Almagro, it didn’t feel like the right time. So he waited, started talking about retiring, laying the ground work to leave and let him marry Rorke without trouble. Rorke didn’t seem to notice what he was doing, but he hadn’t minded, he figured that he was just to focused on the federation, and they’d talk it out once they got back from Caracas.
The rest of the team seemed sad that they were going to lose Elias, a few comments about how hard it was going to be to find someone to fill Elias’s shoes and Ajax joked that they didn’t have to worry as there was no way Rorke would let Elias leave, but overall not much of a fuss was made, especially since everyone was getting prepared to head down to Caracas.
When they’d all climbed onto the helicopter to head out, Elias noticed that Rorke missing a glove, specifically the one on his left hand. The same hand that he had been staring at for weeks, the hand that he had spend hours fantasizing about having a ring on it, the hand he held onto for dear life, the hand he had to let go of, the hand that reached out to him as his love fell a hundred feet into the man-made river below.
He still wondered why Rorke decided to not wear his left glove that day, wished he’d asked, but at the time it had felt insignificant, especially since he was also only wearing one glove. And now all he had to hold onto was the very ring he wanted to forever live on that hand. The ring that represented his Love for Rorke, and the life he wanted to spend with him.
It felt cruel and unfair that he had spent so long believing such a thing could never happen and as soon as it had a chance to be real, it was ripped from him before he could even ask for it.
He couldn’t even truly grieve Rorke, not when he still had to pretend they were just teammates, and even at home he couldn’t say the truth as he still hadn’t told his boys that he was with someone new, or that that person was a man, or his teammate. The only place he could truly grieve was alone in his room while everyone else slept.
Though he refused to actually call it grieving, because to Elias, it meant implying Rorke was dead, and that wasn’t something he was willing to accept, not his Rorke, that man didn’t die, didn’t break. He was out there somewhere, Elias was sure of it.
But whether he was alive or not, didn’t change the fact that Rorke was missing, swept away in the rushing water Elias had dropped him into, and Elias missed and worried for him. He couldn’t even do anything about it until his leave was over. All he wanted was to have Rorke by his side once more.
He didn’t know how long he spent staring at the ring, trying to imagine it on Rorke’s hand, but eventually he grew tired. He knew he should put the ring back in it’s box so he wouldn’t lose it in his sleep, but the idea of putting the ring down brought a painful feeling to his chest, even if it’d only be a foot or so away on his bedside table.
So instead he took his dog tags from around his neck, opening the clasp and carefully threaded the ring onto the chain, before securing the chain around his neck once more. He held it close to his chest, silently promising to one day give that ring to Rorke, no matter how long it took.