A/N: More preseries! I wrote this forever ago and just never got around to doing final edits. Here it finally is. Please enjoy. :)
. . .
"So are you ever going to tell me what they're about?"
He roused from his half-sleep at her question, yawning as he tried and failed to open his eyes. He had been so close to sleep. He could still feel it, like a fog at the edges of his mind, just waiting to creep forward and take over fully.
"Tell you what what's about?" he wondered sleepily, eyes still closed, lips barely moving.
"Your tattoos," she answered.
A smile flickered on his face when he felt her lips on his shoulder. For a moment, he didn't answer, and simply let her kiss a ring around the USMC emblem inked onto his right bicep. When she grew impatient and scraped her teeth over his skin, he imagined she took the ink with her. In his mind, it stained her teeth black, and left his skin pure and bare. He opened his eyes.
"I thought the meaning of that one would be fairly obvious," he replied.
Her green eyes peered at him over the curve of his shoulder. She was lying on her side, squeezed in tight beside him on his one-person bunk. He had suggested that they go somewhere else, stay somewhere else, but she'd refused. Here is fine, she'd said, backing him towards the bed. She watched him now, and he watched her, watched the way those quick, wide eyes of hers skipped around his face and took in everything there was to see. Even after all this time, even after how they'd changed, he still wondered what she thought when she looked at him. He knew what he saw in the mirror—he felt he knew himself better now these days than he ever had in his life—but he could not begin to fathom what she saw.
He hoped her eyes were kind to him.
"When did you get it?" she asked. Her green eyes had fallen shut, and her mouth was on his skin again. Her lips were soft and warm as they kissed the center of the globe inked onto his arm.
He closed his eyes, too, and leaned back, nestling his head into the thin pillow behind them. A smile stretched across his face as he held the answer in, just for a moment, to imagine her reaction. "When did I get it?" he murmured finally. "Oh…" He let out a breath. "About a month after I joined up."
She burst into laughter, as he hoped she would. He had only begun hearing it recently, but already, he was addicted to the sound of her laugh. It was amazing, how such a carefree and joyous sound could come from someone usually so serious. Some days, he made it his job to hear that laugh, to give them both a moment of happiness.
"A month!" His flimsy bunk shook beneath them as she cackled. "You had to be still wet behind the ears after a month!"
"Oh, I know. And trust me, I was."
She grinned, propping her chin up on his shoulder. "I would've loved to have known you back then. Little new recruit… Still missing your hair, still wondering when you'd get your civvies back…" Her grin sharpened, turned shark-like. "I bet I would've scared the shit out of you."
"You do scare the shit out of me."
She pretended to pout. "Not anymore, certainly?"
"On your off days."
"Oh, honey, those are my on days."
He laughed at that, turning his head away. She watched him do so with a faint smile. He did that sometimes, she noticed. When their stolen moments alone like this got to be too nice, too normal, he'd turn his head away, tear his eyes from her, as if he needed a breather, or a reminder of real life outside of the little cocoon they made in private. She slung an arm over his middle, and pressed herself against him. She didn't want him reminding himself of anything but them right now.
It was quiet for a few seconds, until he turned back to her. He stared at her a moment, and she saw he was thinking on something. She waited, but he didn't end up saying anything. Still, she could sense an undercurrent of worry, of confusion, emanating from him. She did not want any of that—not here, not now—and so she leaned forward and kissed him.
He tensed a moment beneath the touch of her lips, not having expected it, but he quickly relaxed. He cupped a hand behind her neck, threading his fingers through her hair automatically, and kissed her back.
"Do you regret it?" she asked when they broke apart. She dipped her head down and pressed a kiss to his chest. "The tattoo, I mean. Tattoos."
He shook his head, glancing reflexively at his right arm. "I don't regret it, not either of them." He turned his arm, still between them, so he could see the eagle, globe, and anchor forever inked there on his bicep. She watched his face as the look in his eyes changed. The edges seem to tighten, to draw downward. "I knew the moment I joined up that I'd never leave the Marines." His voice was quiet, and she lowered her eyes, as if at a funeral and speaking to the bereaved.
"I'm sorry," she whispered after a moment of silence.
He shook his head. "Don't be." He reached for her chin, lifting it until her eyes rose to his. "There's no reason to have faith in something if it's blind faith. I'm glad I know about what's going on here behind the scenes. Really, I am. I joined up as a kid, I gave my life to this institution, but I never did any of that just so I'd be a dumb grunt, okay? If something's wrong, I want to know about it; I want to fix it." He held her eye. "I don't regret knowing, okay?"
"Okay," she whispered.
He stared at her. He knew what she sounded like when she was sure of herself.
"You don't believe me," he said.
She closed her eyes, refusing to respond. He wanted to push her, but he noticed she had grown still next to him. He waited, nervous, for her to get up and go without another word. She did that, sometimes, when they had conversations like this. She just up and left if things did not go her way. But this time, she stayed. He watched as she took a breath, watched as her chest rose and fell between them.
"I believe that I took the one thing you were certain about in life and ripped its foundation out from under you, that's what I believe."
He started to roll his eyes. "Oh, come on—"
"It's true," she replied, raising her voice over his. "I came in here and I threw your world into chaos." She pushed herself up off the bed, and lay propped up on an elbow beside him. "Look, I know we joke about it, but I'm aware of the consequences of my actions, okay? I know what I did when I came here to meet you and started all this. I know that I—"
"Good," he interrupted. "So you'll remember that there are your actions, and then there are my actions—two different things. I already had my suspicions about the Corps before you ever came along, remember? I had my fears, I had my own casualties, I…" He closed his eyes. "Look. I was a dead man long before you ever showed your face here and opened my eyes to the scope of this."
"That's not true," she whispered fiercely.
He spared her a weak smile. "Isn't it, though? I told you what happened to Sanderson. I told you—God, I've told you everything. You know my faith in the Corps was corroding before you even got here."
"I still sped it up."
He shrugged. "So you sliced through the wool over my eyes while I was still learning to unwrap it. It makes no difference now. What's done is done, and I know what I know."
She said nothing to that, simply looked away. He waited again for her to get up and leave him. But again, she stayed. He had not yet gotten used to this new manifestation of loyalty. Sometimes her presence here with him made his head spin.
"What about the other one, then?" she asked, changing tacks as she ran her hand along the inside of his arm, tracing the stiff tracks of his tendons through his skin. He let her tip his arm to the side, so it fell flat, his palm up. He stared down at the tree inked there on his inner right arm, the one with tall boughs reaching towards his wrist, and with deep roots diving towards the joint of his elbow.
"That one…" He watched as she brushed her fingers up and down its length, following the curves of the leaves and the tangles of the roots. "It's a long story," he said.
"I've got all the time in the world."
It was a lie—she would have to go soon, they both knew—but he smiled at the sound of it nonetheless. He liked the idea of having endless time with her. He liked the idea of them laying here in his bed, talking for hours, never leaving until hunger or thirst demanded it. And maybe even then, they'd still be lying here, wasting away together.
So he told her about the tattoo. He told her how he'd gotten it when he'd been just a kid—the day after his eighteenth birthday—and how he'd wanted something symbolic. He had not yet chosen his path in life—hadn't picked a college, hadn't found a place to live, hadn't decided what direction he wanted his life to go. He could feel the military waiting, could feel the weight of his ancestors pointing him towards it, but even there, he could not choose. What he really wanted was to follow after his grandfather and be a medic, to do some real good in the world, but he knew instinctively that he was not smart enough for medical school; science had never been his forte. He did not have the vision for the Air Force. That left the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the National Guard…
"I couldn't choose." He shook his head. "Even standing in that tattoo parlor, I couldn't choose. I went in and they asked me what I wanted, and I said I didn't know. One of the guys was sketching ideas in a notebook." He tipped his chin at the tree inked onto his arm. "I saw that when he was flipping through, and I said I'd take it. Didn't care how it looked; I just wanted something to change. And then later, when I got home, and my parents asked what I was going to do now that I was eighteen, I told them I was going to join the Marines."
She blinked. "Just like that?"
He shrugged at the skepticism in her tone. "Not quite just like that, but, essentially, yes. I did my research, of course. I talked with the recruiters. I looked at the qualifications. But at the end of the day, all I wanted was to go down the route that would change me the most. I wanted something that would help me become something bigger than what I was, and something better. The Marines is that. Was that," he corrected quietly, looking away.
"Is that," she replied, pulling him back. She held his face tight between her hands. "The Marines is that. You aren't gone yet."
"And once I am gone?"
"Once you are gone…" She watched him a moment. He could see her searching for the perfect words, agonizing over them. He didn't tell her not to bother. He wanted her to bother. He wanted her to make it all worth it. He didn't want this next phase to be as hopeless as the last one.
"Once you are gone," she continued, "then you'll really start becoming something better. You'll be making something better. The military, the whole entire country… They won't know your name, but one day they'll thank you. They'll live in a safer world because of you. They'll be alive because of you."
He stared at her for a long couple of seconds. He reached out a hand, and gently traced the rise and fall of her cheekbone. "You really believe that, don't you?"
"I do," she answered at once. She held his eye for a minute more before bending down to kiss the tree on his arm, and then the emblem on his bicep. "I believe that we can change things. You, and me, and whoever else we can convince. We can make what's wrong right."
He nodded, and let his gaze fall down to his arm, still between them. He watched as she ran her fingers along the length of the tattoo again. A smile flickered on his face as he watched her. He liked how she ran her fingers over his skin like that: so soft, it was almost ticklish.
He bent towards her, and pressed a chaste kiss to her shoulder.
"What about you?" he asked, pulling back. At the confusion on her face, he added with a smile, "C'mon. I know you've gotta have one or two tattoos of your own hidden around there somewhere."
She laughed. "You've seen me naked, remember? You know I don't have any tattoos."
"Yeah, but I still don't believe it. C'mon, Army girl. Don't tell me you don't have a little eagle hiding around there somewhere."
She laughed as he reached for her, and allowed his roaming hands for a minute before resting her chin on his chest and shaking her head. "No tattoos," she whispered.
"Goody two-shoes, huh?"
She rolled her eyes. "Hardly."
"So, what?" He reached a hand out, brushing her long hair back over her shoulder. It fell in a soft wave. He liked how it felt, feather-light, as it rested against his naked skin. "You scared of the pain or something?"
She raised her eyebrows. "Have you met me, Marine?"
He grinned. "What is it, then? Worried the tattoos won't look good once you're old and wrinkly?"
"Please, I'm never gonna get old and wrinkly."
"Mm, certainly not anytime soon."
She smiled briefly, and then glanced down, shrugging as she rested above him. "I just… I don't know if I could do it. The idea of doing something so permanent to yourself, to your skin… You'll have that forever…"
"Commitment issues?" he teased.
She laughed, picking up her head. "Well, now…" Her eyes danced with light as they meet his. "Wasn't that a clever segue? Is this the part where you drop to one knee?"
He held up his hands. "Hey. Don't even go there. I'm not saying we should buy a house and pop out a couple kids."
"You sure?"
He smirked. "Call me psychic, but you don't seem like the settle-down type to me."
"Oh yeah? And what type do I seem like to you?"
"You seem like the type that goes out in a blaze of glory."
She laughed at that, but he didn't smile.
Carefully, he reached a hand out to comb her hair behind her ear. His hand followed along the curve of her ear, and fingertips pulled on the lobe gently. "And who knows?" he murmured, his brown eyes holding hers. "Maybe I'll go with you."