The way his body twisted under yours was maddening.
He moved in all the right ways, made the right noises. His back arched against your stomach perfectly and it drove you crazy. You wanted more, naturally. You wanted more of him, no matter how much you received. He always gave you everything. He always obliged to every word you uttered into his ear and he satisfied every heated craving you had.
You loved him, didn't you? Surely. You knew it. You just couldn't say it.
So he said it for you.
"You love me, huh?" Was what he asked. You looked straight at him and smiled, kissing his forehead. He smiled back at you (it drove you crazy).
"I love you too, then."
You were loved by a bug.
Fancy that, eh?
He was possibly the best thing that ever happened to you. He saved you from becoming ensnared in the darkness your past threatened to drown you in. You swore to him that you would never let him go. He swore that he would never let a bullet touch you as long as he was still breathing. It was basically the same thing.
When it came time for you to split up with the captains, you felt no anxiety about it. You were with your bug, after all. Nothing went wrong when you were together.
The mission itself proceeded like most did—you lost a few friends. Still, you pressed on with your bug. He was a hard guy to kill, so why worry? He even told you so in the past. "My call-sign is what it is for a reason, Ghost."
His confidence was reassuring, to say the least.
The way down to the LZ was a whole new level of chaotic. At this point, you were pretty sure that your entire squad, save for your snipers and your bug, was dead. The area you were forced to run through was pegged for mortar fire, but that didn't faze you. You would be fine, and so would your bug.
That is, until you watched him get thrown into the ground by one too-accurate blast. You could have sworn your glasses started to frost over with the sudden drop in your body temperature.
You rushed over, picked him up, and handed him a gun. You started dragging him away from the haze of bullets and explosions and you did your damn best to put yourself between his downed figure and your pursuers. You proceeded to shout encouragement in his ears, telling him he would be alright and occasionally quieting your voice to admit to his wide, panicky eyes that you couldn't afford to lose him to something like this.
The dust cleared ahead and you finally wrapped an arm around your bug's waist, pulling him up to his feet and helping him along the way. When he reached for the general, you slid your arm off his body to let him go. You knew he was in safe hands now.
The crisp bang of a .44 Magnum muffled in his chest told you otherwise.
Your screams deafened your own ears. You turned your ACR on the general, but he planted another two bullets into your chest this time and you fell back to lie beside your bug. You saw tears in his eyes, and you'd be damned if your heart stopped beating right there.
It was then that you realized he hadn't been breathing since he hit the ground.
You could tell he was trying with everything he had left to reach out for you. You saw him mouth your name, followed by three words that made your chest ache far more than it already did. You still couldn't say it back—the only consolation was that it was for a different reason this time.
Both of you were grabbed like rag dolls and thrown into a pit. You were already close enough to death to be left alone, you figured, because when the gasoline was being poured, it was drenching your bug and only sprinkling on you. He was in better shape than you, which you honestly tried to be grateful for. But when the general none-too-hurriedly flicked a cigar his way, there was no way you could be grateful for any of this. Not by the way the flames greedily sprouted up from the ground and consumed him.
You only had a sliver of consciousness left, and you wanted to spend it on Roach.
But the way his body twisted beside yours was maddening.