Work Text:
bullets in the dark
shooting through my hesitating heart
we were never gonna go far '
cause i'm no good at loving
someone as good as you
it was meant to be a temporary arrangement.
just a distraction, something that could take his mind off his true purpose here in the fleet.
you had been convenient.
his assistant. his aide de camp.
safe, someone outside ever's control. someone who does not know what's going on. someone innocent, just a lowly fleet officer unfortunate enough to be assigned to him.
he should have stopped by then, should have kept his distance.
he should have not reciprocated the kiss you initiated during one of the drinking parties the other officers arranged.
but he can't seem to keep his distance from you.
he can't seem to stop himself from responding to the plushness of your lips, to the apple flavored gloss that you are too fond of wearing, to the warmth of your body pressed against his.
he should have stopped after one night. he should have declined the invitations that followed.
he made a rule to only oblige the other officers once a month but after that night, after telling himself so many times to stop, he finds himself coming back.
there was something special about you.
something special that somehow keeps the nightmares at bay on nights he lets you stay over, your breathing steady beside him in the dark.
something special that sometimes lets him pretend a life of normalcy.
a life without ever's shadow. without the fleet.
a life of not needing to protect his adoptive sister.
a life where there is only you and him, tangled in sheets that smelled like your shampoo.
but it was not this life.
this could never be this life.
wish you made me stay
wish you didn't let me run away
guess you knew that i would never change
'cause i'm no good at lying
to someone as good as you
you seem to understand though.
despite the obvious feelings that you have for him.
despite the obvious love in your subtle actions, in the way you would leave his favorite coffee on his desk without being asked, in how you would squeeze his hand twice under the table during briefings when you noticed his jaw clenching.
despite the hope in your eyes, the hope that lived stubbornly every time you looked at him, you understand why he cannot name your relationship anything.
you don't ask questions, even when your things started to fill his apartment or his in yours.
you don't demand answers even when your toothbrush appeared next to his, when your books started filling his shelves, when your clothes started filling half of his wardrobe and his jacket became a permanent fixture in yours.
you seem to understand his silence, his secrecy in the things that he does in the dead of night when he thought you were sleeping.
you don't ask about the nightmares that plague him, about the nightmares that made him wake up choking on screams he wouldn't let escape.
you are simply giving yourself to him as he would take you.
and he took and took and took until he felt hollowed out with guilt.
you make yourself available when he needs you outside your work at the fleet.
when he gets rough in bed, lost in something dark and desperate, you let him.
you hold him after as tears and apologies leave his lips.
"it's okay," you would whisper. "i got you. i'm here."
but he knew you shouldn't be.
he feels guilty with every lie, every text he ignores.
guilty when you would brighten seeing him in the halls and he would force himself to nod curtly, pretending those weren't the same lips he had kissed raw the night before.
guilty when you would laugh at something another officer said and he would feel that sick, possessive twist in his gut, because he had no right to feel possessive over something he refused to claim.
he wishes he could give something back, but he does not want you to be part of his already troublesome and dangerous life.
in another life maybe.
in another life, he would keep you.
he would marry you.
he would give you everything you deserved and more.
but not this one.
never this one.
when he finally reunites with his little sister after she and the hunter association tried to infiltrate the fleet, he makes up his mind to end it.
his heart and mind quarrel.
he does not want to let you go.
not really.
but he was only one man.
his little sister will always be his priority.
he cannot protect the two of you.
it's not that he doesn't try to find a way.
he lies awake for weeks, running through scenarios, contingencies, plans within plans, but every path leads to the same conclusion.
eventually, ever will notice you.
eventually, they will realize what you mean to him.
and eventually, they will use you to make him comply.
or worse, they will simply just eliminate you.
better to break your heart now.
better to have you reassigned far away where you will be safe, where you will hate him but live.
better that than to be forced to choose between you and mei.
better that than watching you die because of him, because he was selfish enough to keep you close.
better not see you again than be put into a spot where he chooses mei over you and see you suffer because of ever.
he cannot live a life like that, no.
no he can't.
he won't.
so he makes the call, pulls strings, arranges your transfer.
and then he has to tell you.
he remembers the unshed tears you fight when he tells you about your reassignment, about the end of you and him.
remembers how you stood in his apartment, the apartment that had become partly yours, with your arms wrapped around yourself.
"when?" your voice barely a whisper.
"two weeks."
you nodded.
you just nodded, like he only told you about a schedule change instead of ripping your heart out.
he knows you want to say something, to fight, to ask why, to ask what you had done wrong, to ask if any of it had been real.
he wants to tell you you did nothing wrong, that you had been perfect, too perfect, too good.
too everything he did not deserve.
he wanted to tell you that yes, it had been real, more real than anything else in his godforsaken life.
but he can't.
he already made up his mind.
and caleb xia always saw his missions through.
even when the mission was breaking both your hearts.
"okay," you said finally, and that one word hurt worse than if you had screamed at him. "okay."
when you turned to leave, and he almost, almost, called you back.
he almost told you the truth.
he almost begged you to stay despite knowing it would doom you.
but he didn't.
the door closed.
within three days, all your things disappear from his apartment.
he comes home to find a box outside his door.
his hoodie you had stolen, his dog tags you had worn tucked under your shirt, the book he had been reading to you on lazy sunday mornings, a photo strip from that stupid booth you had dragged him to where you were laughing and he was almost smiling.
no note.
nothing.
you had erased yourself from his life as quickly and quietly as you had once fit into it, and that hurt most of all, that you made it easy for him.
that you didn't fight.
why did you not fight?
why did you just let him go?
your absence is breaking him.
breaking him in ways the nightmares and the experiments never could.
your ghost is in his apartment.
in every nook and cranny, despite the lack of your things there.
he sees you curled on his couch with a book.
he hears your laugh echoing from the kitchen.
he smells your perfume on the pillows even after he already washed them three times.
he finds one of your hair ties on the bathroom counter and has to brace himself against the sink, breathing hard, his reflection staring back with hollowed eyes.
your absence makes it hard for him to breathe.
at night, the nightmares return with a vengeance, he wakes up gasping, his hand automatically seeks the side of the bed you favor, seeking warmth that isn't there.
he wishes that he could still feel you there, seeking the soft reassurance of your breathing, the way you would sleepily curl into him and murmur "i'm here, i'm here," until he could breathe again.
but you're not here.
you are gone, and he has no one to blame but himself.
work becomes unbearable.
he sees you in every aide who hands him reports.
he hears your voice in every status update.
the coffee on his desk tastes wrong because it's not from you, made exactly how he likes it even though he never told you, you just knew.
mei notices.
of course she does.
"you look terrible," she says bluntly one evening she stayed over, finding him sitting in the dark, staring at that photo strip he keeps in his desk drawer.
"i'm fine."
"you are not." she sits beside him, her expression softening as she sees the photo strip he is holding. "this is about your assistant, isn't it? the one who was transferred."
he doesn't answer, which is answer enough.
"caleb... did you love her?"
the question punches the air from his lungs.
love.
such a simple word for something that feels like it's killing him.
did he love you?
does he love you?
"it doesn't matter," he says finally.
"of course it matters—"
"no." his voice comes out harsher than intended. "it doesn't. she's safe now. that's what matters."
mei looks at him with pity, and he can't stand it.
he can't stand the reflection of his own misery in his sister's eyes.
"you can't protect everyone by pushing them away," she says quietly.
but he can try.
he has to try.
even if it destroys him.
three months later, he's in a different city for a classified operation when he sees her.
just a glimpse, a woman with your hair turning a corner in the station marketplace.
his heart stops.
his feet move before his brain catches up, pushing through the crowd, desperate and pathetic and not caring who sees.
but when he reaches the corner, it's not you.
of course it's not you.
you are in a different place now, safe from ever's reach, probably hating him, probably healing, probably learning to smile at someone new who isn't broken and lying and too cowardly to choose you.
he leans against the wall, breathing hard, feeling like he's been shot.
this is what he wanted.
this was his choice.
so why does it feel like dying?
i tried, i tried to love you
i swear i tried
but how can i love you
if you're not here?
late at night, when everything is quiet and mei is asleep and there's no one to see him fall apart, caleb lets himself remember.
he remembers the first time you fell asleep on his couch during late-night mission planning, your head on his shoulder, completely trusting.
he remembers the morning you made him breakfast and he realized no one had done that for him ever since the explosion and his death.
he remembers you patching up his split knuckles after a training incident, your touch so gentle he wanted to weep.
he remembers every time you looked at him like he hung the stars, like he was someone worth loving instead of a weapon pretending to be a man.
he tried.
he tried to love you the way you deserved.
but how can you love someone when you have already decided to let them go?
how can you hold on when you know your grip will only drag them down with you?
it's breaking me
i'm not just losing you
i'm losing what you saw in me
the worst part is not losing you.
the worst part is losing the version of himself that existed in your eyes.
the man you saw when you looked at him, someone good, someone worthy, someone capable of being loved.
without you, he's just what he has always been.
a soldier, a weapon, a man with blood on his hands and lies in his mouth.
you made him believe he could be more.
and he threw it away.
why'd you let me let you go?
some nights, when the guilt and longing become too much, he imagines calling you. imagines begging you to come back.
imagines telling you everything.
about ever, about his sister, about the impossible position he's in and letting you decide if he's worth the risk.
but he never does.
because you deserve better than a love that comes with conditions.
better than someone who will always choose duty over you.
better than a man who's too broken to love you the way you loved him—completely, without reservation, without fear.
so he lives with the ghost of you.
he lives with the memory of what he had and what he destroyed.
he lives with the question that haunts him every single day.
why did you let me let you go?
why didn't you fight for us when i was too much of a coward to fight for myself?
but deep down, he knows the answer.
you let him go because you loved him enough to respect his choice.
even when that choice broke both your hearts.
even when that choice was the biggest mistake of his life.
and now all he has are regrets, and an empty apartment, and the phantom feeling of your hand in his that he will carry until his last breath.
caleb xia wishes and wishes for a lot of things.
he wishes he could go back to that first kiss and walk away.
he wishes he'd never learned what it felt like to sleep beside you.
he wishes he had been strong enough to keep his distance from the start.
he wishes he had been brave enough to keep you.
but most of all, god, most of all, he wishes he had not let you go.