Wash Out

by L. A. Witt

  The first drawing was a set of dog tags. Though it was black and white, there was no question in my mind that the dark smears were meant to be blood. The engraved letters and numbers were clear enough to read. LANCE CORPORAL NGUYEN THOMAS.

  After that, a rifle plunged muzzle-first into the ground, a pair of boots arranged neatly in front of it, and a battered helmet—complete with a photo of three kids tucked into the band—balanced on top.

  Stomach twisting, I turned the page again. The next few were similar—obvious homages to people he’d lost—but then they started getting steadily darker. And steadily more violent. Scenes of combat that weren’t filled with the usual hard-faced badasses. They were badasses, shooting and shouting and having each other’s backs, but . . . their faces. Every last one of them was full of fear. Bone-deep, childlike fear. Because that was what they looked like—kids. Even the more grizzled guys with lines on their faces, even with smears of blood on their uniforms and rifles in their hands, their eyes were . . . Holy fuck, they were all kids. Terrified and determined and young.

  One was a Marine sitting against a broken concrete barrier, rifle against his chest while the whole world seemed to be exploding behind him. Another Marine was beside him, slumped over and obviously dead. The man who was still alive seemed to be caught in a moment of trying to pull himself together. His eyes were closed, his lips twisted, and a single tear was cutting through the dirt on his cheek.

  Men huddled on military cots with shadows closing in on them. A soldier kneeling on broken concrete next to a dead child, his own pistol against his temple. My mouth went dry when I realized the name-tape on his uniform read NGUYEN.

  There was a scene with explosions and chaos in the background. In the foreground, there was a soldier and someone who could’ve been a villager or an insurgent. At first glance, I thought they were grappling. As I looked closer, though, I realized they were taking cover together. Closer, the soldier was covering the villager with his body. Closer still, the villager might’ve been trying to do the same to the soldier. And then they were fighting again.

  I blinked a few times, trying to make sense of what was happening in the image. I genuinely couldn’t decide if they were fighting, or who was protecting who, or what the hell was going on. It made me dizzy. My throat tightened and my eyes burned with the threat of tears as I imagined Logan living through the hell he’d put on these pages. What if he hadn’t come home? What if he’d killed himself like so many soldiers eventually did?

  I cleared my throat, lowered the sketchbook, and met Logan’s gaze. “Why am I looking at this?”

  Logan pulled in a deep breath. “That’s the shit I live with every day. That’s what I see when I sleep.” He swallowed hard, like it took some serious work. “It’s . . .” Logan’s shoulders sagged. He combed shaky fingers through his hair. “Turn to the last one.”

  My guilty conscience was already on fire, and the back of my throat was sour with bile. Chewing my lip, though, I dropped my gaze to the book again. Then I carefully thumbed through the pages until I found the last used one.

  And my heart stopped.

  The man in camouflage wasn’t scared. He was fierce and determined, running full speed into battle, completely unaware of the Reaper Drone bearing down on him from behind. Or the enemies creeping out of the shadows. Or the bullet that was microseconds away from tearing through his neck.

  I couldn’t look away.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Because the man in the drawing was me.

  My throat tried to close. “What the fuck is this?”

  “That’s what I’ve seen every time I’ve tried to sleep lately,” he said so quietly I barely heard him. “It’s what I was dreaming about last night.” He cleared his throat, and this time spoke more clearly. “This is why I said what I did.”

  My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I couldn’t stop staring at the drawing while he went on.

  “It’s not that I want to downplay what you lost. And I am sorry about that. Honestly, I am. It’s just that I really care about you, and the thought of you going through all that scares me. Especially since what the SEALs deal with is ten times worse. The thought of . . .”

  I met his gaze just in time to see him drop his to the book in my hand, and he continued.

  “Even thinking hypothetically about you being there for any of that. Going through any of it . . .” He shook his head. “I know that trident meant a hell of a lot to you, but you mean the world to me, and one of the few things that makes my nightmares and flashbacks bearable is knowing you don’t have to suffer through them too. It’s hell, and it’s inhumane, and I don’t want anyone going through it, but especially not the man I love.”

  I blinked, my lips parting. The sketchbook almost slid out of my suddenly damp hands.

  He swallowed again. “I love you, Casey. I want you to do whatever job makes you happy. If that means going to combat or . . .” He waved a hand. “I’m just scared of something happening to you. I’m sorry I belittled what you lost, but I won’t apologize for being glad you might never have the nightmares I do.” He showed his palms. “That’s all it is. I swear. I just . . .” His voice broke, and he avoided my gaze as he wiped at his eyes. “I’m sorry. I . . .”

  “Hey. Come here.” I put the sketchbook aside and wrapped my arms around him, and we buried our faces against each other’s necks.

  “It’s taken me seven years to pull myself out of the hole three combat tours put me into,” he whispered unsteadily. “And I’d rather go through every one of those tours again than have you go through one.”

  I held him tighter. “I understand.” None of this changed how much it hurt to let go of my dream, but it was like I’d had a glimpse inside his head. Between that and everything Commander Fraser had said to me, I got it. Maybe I had sort of understood it before, but today . . . Fuck. Those wounds had looked brutal before, but now I understood they went all the way to the bone. Deeper than that. If it tore me up this bad to realize what hell he’d seen and how much he’d lost, then how could I not understand? Just thinking about him doing another tour made me want to cry and beg him not to go.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I get it. And the part I wanted to say before is that I fucked up, and I’m sorry. I lost my shit and threw you out when you’d just had a bad flashback, and I spent the rest of the night worried you were going to get yourself killed, and—” I almost choked on my voice, and held him tighter as I struggled to hold on to my composure. “I am so sorry, Logan.”

  He said nothing, but he didn’t push me away.

  Still, I needed him to understand what had happened and why. I made myself let him go so I could look in his eyes. Wringing my hands in front of me, I said, “I had a talk with Commander Fraser today. About us.”

  Logan stiffened. “What?”

  “I mean, mostly about me. And how I flipped out at you when I just roll my eyes at everyone else.”

  He cocked his head.

  Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself. “The bottom line is I resented you. It wasn’t fair to you, and it was stupid of me, but I hated that . . .” I paused, searching for the words, and tried again. “Whenever you had one of those episodes, I caught myself wondering if I could live like that. And when I was already freaking out over not being able to get my trident, and worrying about who I am, it made me think . . . maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a SEAL after all.”

  Logan’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

  I swallowed hard. “Maybe I couldn’t have handled it. Watching you when the PTSD hit like that, it just kept making me question if I could have ever been a SEAL after all.” I paused, trying to clear the lump out of my throat, but didn’t get very far. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, and I sure as shit shouldn’t have thrown you out. I was just freaking out and resenting you because I . . .” My voice wavered, but I managed to quietly finish: “Because I don’t know who the fuck I am anymore.”

  He star
ed at me for a moment, lips parted and eyes wide. My heart pounded. I thought my stomach was going to launch itself right up my throat. Had I just made things worse?

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered uselessly. “The other night was—”

  “Come here.” He gathered me in his arms, and I almost broke as I wrapped mine around him. For a long time, neither of us spoke. I wasn’t sure what to say, and anyway, I was too shaky and too shocked to articulate anything.

  Finally, I exhaled against his neck. “I love you, Logan.” My voice shook and was barely audible, but he squeezed me tighter, so he must have heard me.

  “I love you too.” He stroked my hair and kissed my temple. “I never meant to minimize what happened to you.”

  “I know.” I pulled back and met his eyes. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t figure out my own shit enough to . . .” I sighed again. “Just . . . I’m sorry. For everything.”

  “Me too.”

  “No, don’t. I screwed up. Not you.”

  Logan shook his head. “No, I did too. We both did. Question is, where do we go from here?”

  I gulped. “That’s the complicated part, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” He cupped my face. “This isn’t going to be easy. We’ve both still got . . .” He hesitated. “The thing is, I’m struggling with wars I wasn’t prepared to fight. You’re grieving the soldier you were supposed to be. That doesn’t mean we can’t be there for each other, you know? But it might make things . . .”

  “Hard?”

  “Yeah. It’s gonna be a long road. I should have dealt with this years ago, but I just started a few months ago. There’s a lot to sort through, and—”

  “And I’ve got a lot of shit I need to work through too.” I lifted my chin and kissed him. “We can make it work, though. Now that it’s all out in the open. If we cut each other some slack.”

  Logan nodded. The tip of his tongue darted across his lower lip. “Yeah, I think we can.”

  “I know we can.” My heart sped up a little as I held his gaze, and I grinned cautiously. “You know, all this started while we were in bed the other night. We could always pick up there and give it a different ending.”

  Logan grinned too, but with a lot more certainty. “Don’t get too many do-overs like that, do we?”

  “No, we don’t.” I took his hand. “You in?”

  “I’m in.”

  We didn’t waste any time. As soon as we were in Casey’s bedroom, we stripped out of our clothes and got into his bed. Not ten minutes ago, I’d still been scared shitless that he was out of my reach, and now he was under me, dragging his hands over my skin as his tongue teased mine. I still had enough awareness to be careful of his leg, but beyond that, my consciousness was dedicated to turning us on and getting us off.

  You’re here, I tried to say with my hands and my mouth. And I want you to feel as good as I do.

  Casey rolled me onto my back and straddled me. He broke the kiss and gazed down at me, blue eyes on fire with lust. “I won’t lie,” he whispered. “There has been one silver lining to being stuck on light duty.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” His grin slowly came to life. “You.”

  I blinked. “Are—”

  He cut me off with a kiss, and I didn’t question him any further. No, he wasn’t kidding. Not if that deep, hungry kiss was any indication. We were here, and he meant it as much as I did.

  I slid my hands down his back to grip his gorgeous ass. Then back up to his shoulders. All over him. I couldn’t get enough of him. Couldn’t touch him enough. The relief was right up there with how I felt after I’d finished a nightmare-induced drawing. The danger had passed. The panic was over. Everything was out in the open, and I was safe and okay, and . . .

  And Casey was here. He was holding on as tight as I was, kissing me in a way that erased any worries I had that his heart wasn’t really in it. It was. So was mine. God, so was mine.

  He shivered as he found a steady rhythm, our hips moving together as if we were fucking. Like it often was, his body was slightly off-center on top of mine, keeping the weight off his bad leg, and that was weirdly comforting. It was just that much more emphatically Casey. Someday his leg wouldn’t need the shift in balance, and I got a dizzying thrill out of the thought of being here long enough to experience that.

  Because I’m not going anywhere.

  Except he’ll have to—

  No. Don’t have to think about that right now. We’re both here. That’s what’s important.

  I was so light-headed and relieved, I almost wanted to cry just from the overwhelming barrage of feelings. I kind of wanted us to fuck, and I kind of wanted to blow him, but the first option meant stopping for condoms and lube and prep, and the second meant I had to stop kissing him, and I . . . Christ, I didn’t want to stop. Not now.

  I kneaded his ass as he thrust against me, and Casey moaned.

  “I love you,” he murmured against my lips. “God, Logan, I love you.”

  “I love you too.” I held him tighter. “I’m—”

  He kissed me hungrily, almost like he could taste the apology coming and didn’t want to let it. He rocked against me, rubbing our dicks together. The friction was as mind-blowing as it was addictive. I could think of a million ways I wanted him tonight, but it all boiled down to this—tangled up, touching and kissing. The rest was just details. He was here, and I was here, and condoms and lube and whatever else could wait until I’d thoroughly convinced every inch of my body that he wasn’t going anywhere.

  The kisses got more demanding. We held on tighter. Rubbed faster. Groped harder. Hot breaths came in sharp huffs between soft groans and barely intelligible swearing. My heart pounded and my hands slid across sweaty skin, and . . . oh yeah, this was perfect. So good. So, so good.

  Casey shuddered, a choked sound caught between our lips, and his thrusts were suddenly slick with cum. “Oh God, Logan . . .” He broke the kiss, letting his head fall next to mine, and shuddered as he breathed my name in my ear.

  I gripped the back of his neck and thrust against him, and in seconds, I was coming too, adding my own semen to the mix as we both shook and jerked and gasped in between trying and failing to kiss. “Jesus, Casey.” I arched under him. “Fuck . . .”

  He collapsed on top of me, and I relaxed under him. I didn’t think I’d ever been more blissed out than I was right now, beneath his body with my own still humming from the force of my orgasm. And that was to say nothing of the relief that we were even here. That we’d fixed our relationship. How had I not broken this beyond repair?

  Eventually, Casey lifted himself off me. We mopped up the cum with a couple of tissues, then curled up close under the covers.

  For ages, I just lay there and held him, letting his warmth soak into my skin. All the way here, I’d been running through every possible outcome, and the majority had been worst-case scenarios. This one had been a long shot, but here we were. He got it. He’d heard me—really heard me—and now . . .

  I stroked his short hair and kissed the top of his head. I was almost afraid to say anything in case it threw us off again. How many times had my mouth gotten away from me and screwed up something good? I didn’t dare let it happen again.

  When Casey spoke, what he said wasn’t something I wanted to hear: “You know I could still go to combat, right?”

  My gut clenched and I closed my eyes. Apparently we were going to think about this now. Exhaling, I nodded. “Yeah. I know.”

  He found my hand and laced our fingers together. “How is that going to work? With you trying to stay sober and all?”

  I met his gaze. “You’re worried about me like you’re worried about your brother.”

  “I can’t not be, baby. I know how much it hurts you to think about something happening to me. I don’t want to be the reason . . .”

  “You won’t be.” I kissed him softly. “I’ve got my therapist and people who support me. And I was never an addict like your brother is. I didn�
�t want the booze—just something to drown out the demons.”

  “There’s kind of a fine line between those, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe. But I’ll be okay.”

  “Even if I go to a war zone?”

  I couldn’t help shuddering. For a moment, I said nothing and just mulled over the question. Finally, I looked in his eyes and touched his face. “I’m not going to pretend anything about this is easy. All I can do is take it a day at a time, work with my therapist as best I can.” I paused. “Maybe now would be a good time to take her up on the antianxiety drugs she’s been nudging me toward.”

  Casey swallowed. “I don’t want you to have to be medicated just so you can be with me.”

  “I’m not. With as much as my head fell apart because of the inspection and thinking about you going to combat, maybe I need more help than I thought. I guess . . .” I laughed humorlessly. “I guess I’m starting to wonder if I need to be medicated to be with me.”

  His eyes widened. “Do you think it’ll help?”

  “It’s worth a try.”

  “But what if it doesn’t help?”

  “Then I’ll try something else. But PTSD and everything that comes with it? That’s part of my life. It’s my reality. I lost a lot of years to it, and I don’t want to lose you to it too.” I brought his hand up and pressed my lips to his knuckles. “Just be patient with me.”

  He studied me for a moment. “What if I get out?”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “I only have about two years left on my contract.”

  “I don’t want you getting out for me.”

  “I’m not. Now that being a SEAL is off the table . . .” He half shrugged. “There isn’t much left for me here.”

  “What will you do if you get out?”

  Casey met my gaze, and a soft, sad smile formed on his lips. “What will I do if I stay in? The career I wanted is gone. There’s nothing left for me in the Navy, but I’ve got the GI Bill and my VA benefits. That would be enough to get me on my feet once I’m out.”