Rian frowned, stroking his thumb along the edge of Damon’s hand. “They sent you overseas when you were that young?”
“Anyone fit to move got shipped where we were needed.” Damon’s shrug was diffident—but his eyes were far away, as if he was seeing hot cloudless skies and choking pale sand. “And young blood was cheap meat to throw at a mission to extract just three guys; all they had left. Khalaji, Arcones, don’t remember the last guy’s name.” His fingers tightened idly on Rian’s. “All I knew was we had no business being out there. None of us. Even fresh meat like me could tell that; we didn’t fucking belong there. But...” His mouth tightened. “We thought we’d swept the area before we went in...but we missed one. IED hidden inside a hollow brick in a wall, pressure trigger on the easiest walkway through some ruins.” He let out a bitter snort. “I don’t know how every last one of us survived. Some of us worse off than others, but we lived. And I knew damned well I wasn’t gonna get that lucky again.”
That same clutching, hurt feeling hit Rian; the same feeling he’d had when he’d first noticed that viscerally deep scar below Damon’s ear, and realized how close the world had come to never having a Damon Louis in it again; never having a Coach Louis, never having a Mr. Louis, never having a frustrating asshole who just made Rian want to rip his own hair out, and then for some reason come back and do it again.
And he wondered if, if it had happened that way...
If some days, as he wandered the halls, Rian would pause and listen to the ghosts haunting the spires of Albin Academy, and feel as if there was a fundamental absence in who should be here.
“But you did get that lucky,” he murmured.
“Yeah. I just got away with this.” Damon moved their clasped hands until their twined knuckles touched the scar under his ear...then down, to one of the ones starting on his shoulder. “And this. And this. And this.” Over and over again, guiding Rian’s hand to one scar after another...before stopping, clasping Rian’s hand against Damon’s chest while dark brown eyes watched him thoughtfully. “Spent months in the hospital recovering from blood loss and trying not to move enough to rip my damn stitches and cause more than surface tissue damage. Didn’t take more than a week of being confined to bed rest to know I was out, soon as my tour was up.”
“So the soldier becomes the football coach.” Rian smoothed his hand against Damon’s chest, flattening his fingers and spreading them under Damon’s palm, soaking his warmth into Rian’s skin. “What made you get into the military in the first place?”
“Just seemed like what everyone thought I should do. I was good at football in high school. Not much else. Didn’t know where I belonged, so figured I could try to belong in the Navy. Band of brothers and all that crap you hear.” He grunted derisively. “It’s horse shit. I wanted to goddamned well build things, Rian. Whether it was people, or just something I made with my own damned hands. Not kill people just to take what they built.” That distant look in Damon’s eyes cleared, then, finally fully focusing on Rian, the tight line of his lips relaxing to a self-deprecating smile. “In case you haven’t figured out, I got issues with people taking things that ain’t rightly theirs.”
That shouldn’t have hit like a spear to the chest.
But wasn’t that what Rian had done?
Taken Damon’s warmth, his comfort, when they didn’t belong to him—without thinking about Damon’s feelings at all?
He didn’t even know Damon well enough to know what spending the night together meant to him. If it was something casual, or if he was someone who needed emotional investment to even be able to touch someone, kiss them, be with them. Or if it was somewhere in between, where he could be casual but this wasn’t, or maybe it was a moment of impulse for him too, and now he was just as caught and lost as Rian in wondering just...just...
Where they went now.
If they talked to each other, if they felt anything, if those feelings were mutual.
Or if they just wrote it off.
One night that served a purpose; a balm on wounds that were no longer so raw and vulnerable this morning, the bleeding effectively stanched when they had just...just...
Used each other.
Or maybe you just used him.
Rian’s chest felt it was crushing in, some fist cracking his ribs and pulverizing them until they collapsed on themselves, and he swallowed thickly, turning his face away and hiding it in his arm, as if he could keep Damon from noticing. As if he could hide this sudden whiplash of emotion that cracked through his sleepy morning contentment and left it in tatters, his heart sinking with the weight of...
Of just how fucking thoughtless he was.
So thoughtless that he didn’t deserve to ask Damon for anything.
He couldn’t stop the harsh sound that hitched in his throat—which meant there was no way to prevent the way Damon’s arm abruptly went hard and tense against him, and a rough, worried growl rose in Damon’s throat. His hand splayed against Rian’s back, broad, protective.
“Oh—oh, fuck,” Damon said, words tumbling just a little too quickly. “Are you hurt? Did I hurt you? I knew this was a bad idea, I’m sorry, I—”
I knew this was a bad idea.
Rian squeezed his eyes shut, breathing in deep.
Fuck.
That just cemented it.
He was a lousy, selfish piece of shit.
Plain and simple.
But he wasn’t going to make Damon deal with that, wasn’t going to make Damon comfort him or ease his thoughts or reassure him about anything. He could deal with his feelings himself; he’d already spilled too many all over Damon and left Damon apologizing constantly for being a jackass as if Rian wasn’t always antagonizing him.
Well.
They antagonized each other, but...
Rian could at least not put Damon in the awkward position of dealing with him now.
Especially if that was how Damon felt.
This was a bad idea.
Okay. Okay, Rian could accept that and not...not...be terrible about it.
He could.
So he gathered himself together, breathing in again and again until his knotted chest started to loosen, blinking his stinging eyes until he was sure they were clear, before he lifted his head from its hiding place against his arm and tried to offer a reassuring smile.
“No—no, I’m fine. It... I wasn’t hurt.” He searched over Damon’s face—his features drawn tight with creased lines of concern, lips parted. “Were you?”
“No.” Damon shook his head slowly, looking at Rian as if he’d grown a pair of horns. “Not hurt. Just...you know. That was a little sudden. Us fucking.”