Gunslinger

He promised Matt he wouldn’t watch the news while he was gone. That he wouldn’t see all the chaos that was going on, the dead soldiers, the fighting…yet here he is, sitting in front of his TV chewing on a fingernail and watching the coverage of the latest bomb blast in Iraq.

Hundreds dead, including nine soldiers.

The vision they’re showing is horrific. There’s smoke, debris, children screaming and crying, devastated family members wailing over their loved ones dead bodies. They’re also showing the tanks travelling down roads near where the bomb went off and Syn can’t help but hold his breath.

He doesn’t wanna think that Matt might be one of the nine soldiers that died in the blast, but he knows it’s a possibility. He’s known it was a possibility since he found out Matt was in the army. He hates it when he says goodbye at the airport when Matt gets deployed, because he knows theres a chance his boyfriend might not come back. That he might die protecting his country, and it makes him feel sick to the stomach.

“Don’t go.” comes mumbled from his sternum and Matt chuckles uneasily.

“I have to Syn.” he tells the slightly shorter man.

“I know you do, but I don’t want you to.” he replies and wraps his arms tighter around his boyfriend.

They both hate this part of him being a soldier. Matt always makes sure they’re at the airport waaaaay before he needs to be, because he knows that the goodbye can take as long as an hour depending where he’s being deployed to and for how long.

“I’m not leaving you anytime soon.” he assures his currently sooky boyfriend.

“But you are.” the other man pouts and looks up at him with a frown.

“You know what I mean Syn.” he tells him and reaches to push his boyfriends hair back under his beanie.

“I don’t want you to come back hurt like last time.” the brunette pouts and his hand goes to the almost exact place his scar is.

He’d ended up in the line of fire at some point during his last deployment…and had got shot in the shoulder. It wasn’t anything serious…just a ‘graze’ in the scheme of things, but when Syn found out, the other man had nearly had a heart attack.

“I’ll be fine, I promise.” he assures, even though both men know in the back of their minds, that one day, he wont come home.

“But what if you’re not fine!” Syn cries and goes back to squeezing Matt’s waist as hard as he can and nuzzling his cheek into his chest.

He knows he’s being kinda dramatic and a huge girl, but Matt knows it makes him feel a little bit better about the whole situation, so he lets him be as dramatic as he needs.

***
The TV’s on mute.

He’s scared that if he has the sound on he’ll hear them mention Lieutenant Matthew Charles Sanders if he does. His phone keeps vibrating on the table in front of him, but he knows its just his friends telling him not to turn on the news.

Ooops?...

He’s suddenly startled by a loud and slightly obnoxious ringing noise and it takes him half a second to realise its his laptop, that’s been sitting with the CNN homepage open on it, and it’s an incoming Skype call.

His heart skips a beat when he pulls the technology onto his lap and sees Matt’s name and his smiling profile picture on the screen. He takes a breath and accepts the call, sighing loudly when he sees his boyfriends slightly pixelated face flood the screen.

“Hey. Are you watching the news?” Matt asks him and his eyes bug a little.

“No…” he says half guiltily.

“You’re a liar.” his boyfriend chuckles and it makes him feel so much better. “Look, I cant stay on, but I wanted to let you know real quick that I’m okay, and that I love you.” he says and Syn cracks a smile.

“I love you too.”

“Turn the news off, quit worrying and go outside or something ok?” Matt tells him and he nods.

“I will. Might go bug Jimmy or something.”

“Sounds like a plan. I gotta go babe, but I’ll call you again in a couple of days ok?” he says and all of a sudden Syn feels sad again.

“I’ll be here.” Syn tells him and they say good bye and he ends the call.

Notes