Author's Notes: I haven't written anything in a long while, so I thought I'd start off with some song-inspired short stories (this one's for Metro Station's "Now That We're Done"). I kind of have a sort of headcanon for how the BSAA is set up, so bare with me. Rated M for adult themes; nothing explicit. Just a poetic little number...

"Everybody get down," I command; running through impossible drills, running through implausible drills. My men are prepared for situations most people can't even comprehend. What surprises me is the lack of any resistance; the motion is like a wave as every man hits the ground.

After all this time, after everything, my lieutenant sticks out like a sore thumb. I expect him of all people to be a fraction of a mora behind everyone else, but no, he's at the top of his game like always. He really was born for this. He's worked so hard. I cringe, because maybe, after all this time, I don't really know him at all.

Piers…

After pressing a softer-than-air kiss to Jill's lips and running my fingers ever so briskly across her cheek, she makes her way out of my office, swaying her hips in a sultry way that I just can't help but stare at. When she leaves, Piers enters, obediently waiting by the door. Even if the thought of Piers seeing us together passes my mind, I feel no remorse; the tingle of her lips in the day lingers, and his in the night. Piers knows everything about my work with the famous Jill Valentine; a certain perk to being such an intimate lover of the legendary Captain Chris Redfield is that I tend to run my mouth on occasion.

Maybe I've made it too obvious. Fuck…

"She's just a friend," I lamely retort.

"Yeah," Piers agrees through tight lips. The stiffness in his stature and demeanor tell me everything I've feared.

"I love you," Piers says. Our limbs are tangled into absurd positions, our sweat-slicked chests pressed together. Usually it won't be until I leave or Piers leaves that I start to think about Jill. But things are different now, my doubts premature; I think about the ring I just put on her finger this afternoon. Despite the pride I hold so damn dear in almost everything I do, I can't look into his eyes.

The heat of his body feels so much more passionate, so much more intense, than my own. Mine just feels cold when I pull away from him to get dressed. My back is to him and as I'm zipping up my pants I'm whispering "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over like a damn song on repeat, when, really, I'm just sorry that I can't keep them both.

His stance is perfect, his finger on the trigger pristine. He's as still as a statue; he pinches an eye shut and squeezes off a shot. Something inside my chest fills with pride…and longing. The way his legs are stretched out, I can just reminisce; I know every muscle by memory, how soft, how taut, exactly how to make them tremble beneath me. Those lips that are always so smooth, the prickly feeling of his jaw after I've woken up with him in my arms.

I praise him as I do my other soldiers, with a slight reaffirmation of his groom for command. But he's cold. I clap him on the shoulder but his eyes remain on the target despite all weapons having been put aside. I miss the warmth.

"Captain." My rank coming from his lips in that soft, hesitant, loyal voice of his has always excited me. Now, it's like a ritual; every night, he calls. It's always around one in the morning; early enough to show he's tired of tossing and turning in bed, and late enough for the buzz to have softened the slur, but not the tenacious bite.

"I want you." And his voice is so sensual, so tempting of bygones, that I always end up hard on those cold, cold nights. And my phone gets all clammy against my ear as he whispers at me and my wrists start to ache.

"Yeah, yeah? You'd do that to me?" I'd rasp. "And how about…"

And when he's finally fall asleep, I'll listen to the sounds of his breathing and gentle snores and a part of me will feel so happy it's like I'm floating but mostly I'll just feel dead, dead.

Tonight is the same and yet different: Piers hasn't had a single drop of alcohol.

"I'll scream. When I'm alone, I scream. I barely even drink; something always holds me back. I just drink enough to take the edge off, you know. It kind of softens the edges, but not really. I just scream."

He says, "I just scream, I just scream, scream, scream," and then he's telling me how much he wants me again. And he laughs, even when my jokes are terrible, when they're not for the purpose of humor anymore and simply to fill the silence.

We can't end tonight like we always have; something keeps me against it, some moral wall. So I say, "I've got to get up at 0400. Yeah. Paperwork. Lots of paperwork. I'll see you bright and early at 0600."

And at that, our voices are cut off and as the light of my cell phone fades away I'm left in the lonely darkness of my room and I feel like I've let a part of myself get away.

My dreams this night are immersive and haunting. I'm banging on a see-through wall - a window? A door? - and on the other side is Piers. The flesh is peeling off his face, sliding down his neck, pooling at his collarbone until a jagged tear makes its way from his left shoulder to his abdomen, and the downward onslaught continues. When I open my mouth to scream, nothing comes out; I keep banging on that wall until I can't feel my hands anymore. My lungs start to fill up with water and I keep gasping for breath and my breath is fogging up the glass and all I can see is a faint red gleam from Piers' blood…and then I'm jolting awake. My knee hits the underside of my desk. What woke me up…?

Footsteps padding softly past my door… I check my watch: 0545. Everyone's probably on their way to breakfast. I'm ravenous and yet the foreboding sense at the pit of my stomach fills me to the point of nausea.

Choices. I've always been so precise, so sure in every decision I've had to make. I shouldn't get up, not now, of all times, not now. I can't stop my own feet as they drag me across my office. The doorknob is so cold and creaky in my hand, the hallway so bright. I square my shoulders, and I walk.

When I see Piers pulling away from a kiss with another man, every piece of sanity within me cracks. I see those eyes. I see that smile; when he can only see you in a room full of people, when he's laughing at those terrible jokes just to make you feel those butterflies in your stomach. I only know because that's how he used to look at me.

But I keep my eyes forward and keep walking. Does he see me? I don't know. I hear "I love you, I love you" playing over and over in my head and I can't tell if either of them actually even said it or if I'm going insane. When I've made it around the next corner, my fist flies through the wall. Wide-eyed miscellaneous military personnel scatter.

Somehow, in some way, this is "right." I think of Jill. I think of the family we'll have. But this other feeling. It isn't anything like I thought it'd be…

Piers… I'm breaking.