The Mafia's Bride and Groom's (fxmxmxm)

Valentine's Special

This is set during Will's first year away, so it's the first Valentine's Day the Helgrim's have spent apart from each other ;) xoxo Happy Eat Shit and Die Day <3 

Will takes a heavy ragged breath as he finally makes it to his bunk. He's been helping with grunt work for three days now and the bed is practically screaming, yelling and howling at him to finally stop and sit down and rest. Sleep seems like a daydream that he can't quite touch, and just the thought of sitting down and taking his boots off is like a bullet ricocheting through his ragged body. 

He's not here right now. Physically he is, but mentally he is somewhere far far away. He's sitting in white sand, on a beach he's never seen before. And there's two people playing in the water with a third sitting behind him, running nimble fingers through his short hair. 

Will opens his dark eyes slowly, and the room comes back blurry and stuffy and draining, and all he wants is to be on that made-up beach that's behind his eyes. All he wants is to be alone. 

"Reed," a voice calls from the curtains of the tent. Beckard strides in with a box in his hands and a backpack looped over his shoulders. "Woah," Beckard stops next to the bed and gives an apologetic smile when he sees Will go incredibly still, "sorry, I didn't mean startle you. You're not being called back out, I just have a package for you. It arrived a day ago but the instructions were to give it to you today. Happy Valentine's bud."

Will takes the box and nods once. He's not sure if he can speak, his mouth is so dry and his entire body is exhausted. He can hardly stand but Beckard can't tell. The others can never tell when Will isn't feeling good but Will can take care of himself. He's funny like that. 

Beckard says something else that Will can't hear over the low ringing in his ears, and a moment later Will is alone in the tent and he doesn't remember when Beckard left. The box is weightless in his hands, but maybe that's because he can't feel anything past his shoulders.

Will sits, slowly, down down down, onto the canvas floor of the tent. He undoes his boots with shaky hands, takes off his heavy vest and layers of clothes, until he's sitting on the floor in just his pants. 

It's late afternoon, the sun sending warm sheets of light into the already musty tent, and the world is loud and chaotic outside of the tan canvas. He is alone.

But when Will slowly opens his box, the world around him falls away. 

Happy Valentine's Day! are the first words sprawled across the inside of the box. Will opens it further and there's not much inside but it's enough to make his lips twitch upwards a bit. To almost put a smile on his face. 

He reached for the letter first. 

Happy Valentines Day baby! 

We miss you so much. Angel and Lucy pretend like they don't, but this box was actually Lucifer's idea, so I'm calling bull shit on him. We couldn't agree on one present to get you, between Angel sending you a sex toy and Lucifer sending you a car, so we decided we would all send you some small things you can keep in your jacket while you're gone. You better hurry up and win the war or something cause the longer you wait the more gifts I have stacked up from birthdays and Christmas and Columbus day- you get the picture. 

We miss you, baby. Love you. 

L. A. N. 

He closes the letter softly and sets it aside. He reaches in and finds a note from Nya, a poem that's written on one of her old lab reports, so it's covered in biology equations and chemical stains. The edge is ripped off, the opposite corner is charred and missing.