The five important numbers of my life.

Chapter Title: 20.
Author: Darkling Willow
Pairing: Non
Rating: NC – 17. I'm giving it such a high rating, just because of language, and to cover my own behind.
Archive: Yes, please.

Feedback: Yes thank you very much. An author can only improve with criticism.

Disclaimer: This is an original work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

Authors Notes: This is just a long "stream of conscience" type of story, where a young man reflects over his life, and the one thing he misses the most.
Alright this story isn't really an AU/AR story, but there are things in it that have never happened in real life, but hey it's a story.
I do not know anything about the military, or its ranks, weaponry, or how life on a base is. I'm just making stuff up here, for your enjoyment.
My only intention here is to write a silly little piece of angsty prose, for others to enjoy.
No offense is meant by this story, to anyone in military service or anyone who has loved ones in service.
I (the author) live in a country that has no military and therefore have no idea how it works.
But I do have a great deal of respect for those who do serve their country.


Summary: Together.
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20.
I come home without telling anyone, for some reason I just want to come home to a normal house, just walk in and everyone would be doing their regular everyday things, there would be no welcome home party, or anything like that.

As I walk through the door Mori comes flying down the staircase, and nearly slams me to the floor, his dark eyes flowing in tears, and his voice screaming my name into my ear.
The rest of the family comes rushing out of every corner of the house, and I get a huge welcome.

My brother Levi has become a single father for the second time.
He’d been expecting his second child when I left for the military, but the woman had walked out when the baby was only four months old.

So, now he’s a single father of a four year old girl, and an eighteen month old boy, at only twenty-three himself, and he's moved back in with our mum and stepdad.
His twin brother has started speaking to him again, and he’s got a girlfriend up in Manchester, where he’s playing professional football.

Mori’s got another boyfriend, Elam is engaged to a girl, my sister who’s nineteen has a boyfriend, they live together on campus at the college.
My younger brother, which mum had with my stepdad, is seventeen and has a girl, while our younger sister is pining over some boy, I tell her fifteen is too young, but she only laughs and reminds me of how old I was when I fell for you.

Thankfully my two youngest siblings are still too young, although fourteen year old Malachi is convinced he’ll never get over the girl he met in France last summer, and Aieshya has started wearing lipgloss, at twelve years.
I tell her she’s growing up too fast.
Mum says it’s Mori’s fault because he gave her a tube of lipgloss last year.

I’ve been home for three days, when my family is getting ready to sit down to dinner, my real father is here, Elam’s father is here, as well as both the twins, Mori and their father with his wife and kids, and a few of my so-called uncles and aunts, (who are really only friends of my parents), the doorbell rings, and mum shouts for me to get it, because I’m midway between the dining room and the kitchen.
There is a whole lot of commotion in the house, a lot of laughing and yelling, and calling back and forth, shouted conversations between rooms, and the doorbell rings again.
I grab the knob, yelling something over my shoulder at my father and my uncle Jason, Elam’s father, and turn around to see you.

You stand there, in your civilian clothes, a soft smile on your face, like you were expecting to see my mother or stepfather, or one of my siblings, but you see me.

My mother bemoaned the shattered milk pitcher, that I had been carrying, for a few months, but all I could see, hear, feel was you.

I don’t realize you’re real until you shout my name into my ear, your strong, muscular arms wrap around my back, and for a few moments I can’t breathe.
Then I start crying, my tears melting into your skin, your name moaning out of my chest, my heart racing with happiness, our lips meet again after more than a year and a half, and I die a thousand happy deaths.

“I love you, I love you, I love you”,

I moan between gasping kisses, my feet leaving the floor as my legs wrap around your waist, and we’re halfway to the stairs when a loud

“ahem”

from the dining room interrupts us, looking around we meet my father’s green eyes, and my mother insists we eat before we go to bed.
Well, she’s never been accused of being very subtle, my mother.

As we eat, hands roaming under the table, hearts racing with happiness and horniness, you polite as ever, answering all of our questions, I answering all of your questions, we can’t take our eyes of each other and all I can think about is how grown up you are.

We don’t fall asleep until the sun’s coming up again, the sheets a mess, our sweatsoaked bodies shaking with fatigue, muscles cramping and spasming, and I know I won’t be able to sit down for a week.
As we fall asleep we talk about going away for a week, to your parents cabin in the Highlands, when we wake up again just after lunch there is a silent agreement between us as I pack my bag, and we leave despite our families protests.

After 6 days at the cabin we return, and decide to tell your parents first.
Your father doesn’t react, your mother tries to hide her tears, but both say it’s your life, they can’t tell you how to live it.
We leave feeling disappointed, and I can see your mind analyzing the situation until you’re about ready to bail on the whole thing.

When we tell my family my mother starts crying, jumping up around my neck, squeezing both of us until it’s hard to breathe, she’s so happy.
My stepfather, my brothers and sisters, all hug you and congratulate both of us, my father looking slightly disappointed in me, makes you promise that you’ll make me happy.
When you swear your life on it, he hugs you tightly and says we have his blessing.

My mother nearly has a nervous breakdown planning a wedding in less than two weeks, but it’s perfect.
Your family does come, and somehow they seem to accept us a little more when they see how happy we are, and how supportive my extended family is.
It does sometimes come in handy having a million aunts and uncles, even if they aren’t really related to you by blood.

We have our honeymoon in my bedroom, my mother even going so far as to bring us breakfast, lunch and dinner to our room, and only a week and a half later you’ve shipped out again.
I leave a week later, this time to a new location, a new base, and four weeks later you arrive to take over your new post.

We get a room in the so-called “castration wing” of the barracks, it’s called that because it’s just a part of our barracks that’s been sectioned off to give married couples a little more privacy.
The walls are plywood so the privacy isn’t all that much, but we don’t complain, the military has been bending over backwards to let us serve together, and be together. Maybe loving each other wasn’t the only reason we got married.

The only downside to it all is that we’re not in the same unit, you’re unit A and I’m unit B, it’s the only thing we can’t share, for simple reasons really.

If we get caught in an engagement with the enemy the risk is we’d be too preoccupied with the safety of each other that we’d endanger the rest of our unit. It makes perfect sense, but at the same time it’s frustrating being left behind, or even worse, being out on a mission knowing that you’re somewhere out there too, and I don’t know what’s happening, if you’re alright, if you’re in danger. But we both manage it, and I get to see you almost every night.

We get scared five times.
You twice because of a roadside bomb and because one night my unit doesn’t report in when it’s supposed to, but I get through it with only a few scrapes.
I get a fright once because your unit gets some action at what was supposed to be an abandoned location, second when there is some breakdown in communication, and one of my friends tells me you’ve been killed in action, third when the car you’re supposed to be in is blown up by an enemy RPG only a mile from our base, but you had given your seat to a rookie who’d twisted his ankle badly.
You beat yourself up about it for almost a week, but finally accept the fact that we’re all just casualties of war.
We all chose to be here, and with that choice come very big consequences.
We deal with it the only way we know how, by loving each other that much more and with that much more passion, whenever we get the chance.