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The first word that came to mind when Carlos thought about her was hot.
Not really hot in a sense of appearances (even though she was quite attractive), but hot. It didn't make much sense to him how she was practically a walking furnace. She radiated heat. Her skin burned against his, fingers searing every inch of his skin as her lips branded his neck. It was all he could do not to melt in her touch, burying his face in her hair as she familiarized herself with the scars on his body, though he was sure she had memorized them by now.
"Damn it," he breathed when his name fell from her lips. Hot fingertips burned bruises against his upper arms where she had begun gripping him too hard, but he didn't mind. Sometimes, it was nice to have injuries from something other than a battlefield.
One of her legs bent around his, unbelievably warm against his outer thigh as she panted beneath him. He pushed his knee outward, spreading her legs further. She cried out when he pressed his lips to her shoulder, hot breath against his skin. "Carlos, please...I-I'm..."
She couldn't finish her sentence, but she didn't need to. With what little energy Carlos was clinging to, he quickened his pace and hushed her whines with his own lips. When her orgasm came, the moan was muffled against his skin and her fingers had gave one last squeeze before finally releasing the pressure and relaxing at her side. Though she could hardly muster the strength for it, she wrapped her arms around his neck and tilted her head. It wasn't long until Carlos unraveled, hips stuttering as his semen spilled out of her and onto her once-clean sheets that had long been covered in questionable stains, but that didn't matter because there was no one that needed to question them.
He didn't need directions to her bathroom, nor did she need to offer a place in her bed for him. He just knew, so once he had gently cleaned her up, he took his place at her side and laid there until sleep finally took over.
Even with her, though, sleep never lasted long. Sometimes there were nightmares. Sometimes there weren't. He would have been a fool to think this would change just because she was near, so he decided sleeping with her was better than being alone.
He always woke up before. It wasn't really something he ever chose to do, it just happened naturally. Still, he supposed it was a good thing. If she was asleep, he wouldn't have to see her disappointment when he left.
At least, that was what had happened the previous times. Today, it seemed life had other plans for him, because when he tried to sit up, her arm tightened around his waist.
"Don't go," she asked tiredly, voice laced with sleep and eyes still closed. Carlos sighed.
"I have to go. You know that." She made a sound of disagreement.
"Why? Why can't you stay?"
Another sigh as her handprint burned itself into his skin. She had a way of doing that to him - making him feel her touch even when they weren't together. "I can't stay. You're too hot."
For a long time, there was silence. Carlos might have even thought she had gone back to sleep, but her breathing was too heavy and her grasp on him was still too deliberate. "You have to leave...because I'm too-"
"That's not how I meant it." He groaned in frustration, swiping at his face with the hand that wasn't on her back. "You're hot to the touch. You're warm." It wasn't even nine in the morning, but Carlos released his third sigh of the day. "You're too comfortable. If I stay, I'll never leave."
"Then don't leave. If you want to stay, you should stay." Possibly one of the most difficult debates he had ever been involved in.
"If I stay, I'm just gonna end up hurting you in the end."
Carlos had thought about staying more times than he could even count. In fact, he probably thought about it nearly every day of his life, of the things he could be doing with her, of the kind of life they would live together. Inevitably, all those daydreams ended up with her being hurt.
Carlos talked a lot. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, just a fact. Sometimes, though, his mouth ran away with him. He would say something he shouldn't have, or he would respond in a way he hadn't meant to. At times, he really wondered if he had any actual control over his mouth. She never seemed to mind, even when he thought he had been rude or offended her. What if one day he took it too far? What if he said something to her that he didn't mean, something that hurt her? He didn't want to risk it.
He could die at any moment - this was a fact. Carlos lived and breathed on the battlefield, looking people in the eyes through a scope. He took the front line and pulled the trigger, and he would get shot at in retaliation. Carlos lived that way knowing that he was never guaranteed to come back. He couldn't do that to her. He wouldn't do that to her. How could he look her in the eyes and promise he would stay when the odds were stacked so high against him? If he was going to die on the battlefield, he would prefer to do it without leaving her behind.
He spent extended periods away from home. Not that he necessarily had a home of his own, just a few motels around that he slept in whenever he felt too weak to reach out to her. At times, he would be gone for weeks - those were the good, short trips. More often than not, though, he would be gone for months at a time. Before he met her, there had even been a call that lasted a year and a half. He imagined her, alone in her bed every night, not knowing if he would even make it out alive.
Carlos was not going to risk hurting her.
The sentence made her scoff, though. She raised herself onto her elbows and hovered over him, meeting his gaze with narrowed eyes. "You think you're going to hurt me?" When he nodded, she could only shake her head and chew the inside of her cheek.
It took her a moment to speak, but she did not look up when she did it. "Do you want to know what hurts, Carlos? It hurts when I wake up in the morning, hoping against all hope that you're still here, just to find the other half of my bed empty. It hurts when I spend every second of every day thinking about you and if you're okay and if you're dead." Her lip quivered, and when a tear fell onto Carlos' chest, it seemed to boil his skin.
Her brow furrowed and she squeezed her eyes shut as if to hold back the tears, but she couldn't. "And it fucking hurts knowing that I've made room for you in my life, in my heart - in my fucking house! I bought a bigger bed so you and I could both fit in it. A-And a nicer couch so we could watch movies together. And every time you leave all I can think about is when you're gonna come back and that hurts."
Despite all her efforts not to, she began to cry in earnest, moving away and turning her head so he couldn't see. She was no longer holding him. Carlos was free to leave, as he had done so many times before.
So why couldn't he do it now?
She hiccuped a sob when he sat up next to her, taking her in his arms and letting her tears run down his torso. She was shaking, trembling as his hand gently rubbed her back in an attempt to soothe her. When she realized he wasn't leaving yet, she had managed to calm her sobs, though she couldn't get herself to stop crying yet.
He pressed a kiss to her temple and she relaxed in his hold, arms falling to her sides and breaths finally beginning to even out.
"Sorry," he muttered into her hair, holding himself back from shivering when hot fingers link through his own. "I didn't mean to make you cry."
She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "It's not your fault, I cry at everything."
"No, it was my fault." He squeezed her hand in his own. "Does it really hurt that bad? When I leave?"
Unable to speak, she only nodded into his chest, free hand tracing the scars that littered his skin.
"Alright."
She pulled herself from his grasp, watery eyes gazing up into his own. "'Alright?'" she repeated. "'Alright' what?"
"'Alright' as in 'alright, I'll stay.'" Her lungs filled with air, shoulders tensing as if preparing for the punch line.
"You'll stay?"
He quirked a brow, shrugging and breaking eye contact. "Unless you suddenly want me to leave, then-"
Quicker than a blink, she had lunged up to throw her arms around his neck, sending him back into the mattress with the force of it. Air escaped his lungs in a forced wheeze, which she tried to apologize for. He rolled over to his side, arms taking their place at her waist as her fingers threaded through his hair (he had always loved when she did that).
"You mean that? That you'll stay?" She seemed confused, doubtful.
"Does this look like the face of a man who would lie to you?" He tried to seal it with a charismatic grin, but she pursed her lips and once more narrowed her eyes.
"I dunno, it kinda reminds me of my brother's old drug dealer."
"Oh, so that's what I am to you? 'Drug dealer?'"
"I never said that, I'm just saying I've been lied to before."
A quick kiss, feather light and barely even an actual touch, before his grip pulled her against his chest once more, wrapping the blanket snugly around her back. "Well, I promise I'm not lying." She hummed in response then softly yawned soon after. "Go back to sleep, you need to rest."
Her fingers tightened around his hips, scorching and inviting all at once. "And you'll be here when I wake up?" A breath like a puff of steam on his chest.
"I'll be here."