This one was originally posted to a one-shot prompt collection on AO3 exclusively, but since it's about Jay and Rhys, I'm putting it here. Beware the Angst.
Thanks for Reading, Fly High Aim Higher
~Spitfire out
Love. It was an innocent word mostly. Small, unassuming, no one would think much of the word being said, but love, real love, was something much more complex. Not necessarily complicated, but complex in the deepest meaning of the word. You think of rockets and space and circuitry and you consider it complex 'stuff' that you won't bother trying to understand, and then there's love, it's ten times as complex, and yet everyone in this world seems to want to understand it in its deepest meaning.
It was simple really, love was something that burned inside of Jay's heart every time he so much as glanced at that man. It was something that made him smile, for no reason other than he was happy just existing with this man. Jay loved Rhys and Rhys loved Jay. That was all there was to it, really, love is when someone or something makes you smile for no reason, makes you feel safe even in the direst of situations. Love was not something to be taken lightly, though, because life was short, and you had to spend that time with those you loved, lest they be taken from you by a cruel fate and a well-meant action.
That was how Jay had lost his love. A bullet that was meant for him had met its mark in Rhys' chest instead and suddenly Jay couldn't move, couldn't breathe, and couldn't think. Rhys was dead because of him. The only people he had ever loved where all dead. His parents, killed in a bombing in Afghanistan, and now Rhys, because of him, because he hadn't done anything to save the man he loved so deeply. Jay wanted to die in that moment, had fought hard to try to stay with Rhys; had hoped the enemy would put a bullet through him too, but it never happened. His team had pulled him back to the waiting helicopter. He hadn't even gotten to say good-bye.
Jay had cried and screamed his pain for three days until the day they buried an empty coffin and put up a headstone with Rhys' name on it. Jay had stood there, in the rain and in pained silence, for the entirety of the day and night.
He fell to his knees beside the grave and pulled a small velvet box and a note from his pocket. He had found these left on their bed, Rhys' 'just in case' letter; they both left their letters before every mission. The box, he hadn't quite expected, not until he read the letter. Rhys had wanted to ask Jay to marry him when they got back⦠only Rhys didn't make it back.
Jay held the unopened box and letter close to him for five years, when he finally gathered the courage to open it, and wear the ring Rhys had meant to give him in person. Jay would never love anyone else, he was too afraid. He didn't want to go through that pain again.
Love. Love was an evil, tainted, painful word. One that held vile and malicious intentions, set forth by the course of life. Something so innocent, so strong, so evil, had broken Jay down to a fragile shell of a man, too afraid to love again.
