Transpicuous

/tranˈspikyo͞oəs/

adjective

easily understood; lucid

My body felt warm as the covers lied on top of mine and Luke's scarcely clothed bodies. His beautiful frame was tangled with mine like ivy. Our legs were intertwined, his arms were wrapped around my waist holding me unimaginably close to his body, his head was nudged in the small crevice of my neck while mine leaned back against his shoulder, and my arms traced gentle strokes up and down his muscular arms.

A groan emitted from his mouth as he shifted closer to me. "Good morning love," he whispered softly, his gruff and tired morning voice bringing joy to all parts of my body.

"Good morning to you too," I mumbled, sinking into his chest as my body relaxed in his.

A content sigh came from his lips before they found their way to my shoulder, causing my body to respond to the fire like heat he was spreading across my body. "As much as I would love to stay here and kiss every inch of your beautiful body," he mumbled as he continued to kiss me lightly before losing contact with me, "we have to get up and go to the meeting."

I groaned in protest, trying to grip his body close to mine. "Can't we miss this one?" I asked, finding every excuse in my mind as to why we shouldn't attend.

This was the meeting to plan the raid of the Central Office. Since our plans at the East Wing had failed in our last raid, we had decided to carry out the plan and search Central Office for the third strike of the campaign, but internally I knew that this wouldn't be over after this raid.

"Baby, you know that I need to go on this raid," he mumbled into my hair, placing chaste kisses throughout my waves. "And I'm assuming that you will want to go since I am going."

I nodded into his chest, agreeing with his thoughts. My emotions were haywire from the night before and how his lips moved on mine. The fire burning through my veins wouldn't extinguish under his touch as my mind filled with so many thoughts of how I may not see him after this raid.

Inside, I knew my nervousness was unnecessary as Luke had been on so many raids before and never seemed to get injured. The same wave of over-protectiveness that I knew filled Luke anytime I left on a raid, flooded through me as my heart rate went against my wishes and sped up as I laid in Luke's arms.

"You know that being nervous is a normal thing right?" he asked, chuckling slightly at the increased beating in my chest.

I sighed deeply as I traced patterns on his muscular chest. "I'm just scared, I guess," I told him softly, noticing the way his eyebrows perked up at the revelation.

"Why? I won't let anything happen to you. You don't even have to go Melissa, you can stay here and-"

I cut him off, knowing that he took my words in the wrong way, "Luke, it's not myself I am scared for." His eyebrows furrowed deeper as he couldn't follow before they shot up in alarm, realizing my true feeling on the matter.

"You're scared for me?" he asked incredulously and sighed when I nodded my head in confirmation. "Melissa," he began gently, kissing the corner of my mouth before holding his gaze with mine, "I will be fine."

"How do you know that?" I asked him, getting slightly irritated at his attitude toward this situation. He sighed, noticing my irritation before getting out of the covers and searching for his clothes.

"I've been on these raids so many times that it's like second nature to me." I huffed in response, still not buying his excuse. "Melissa, I have been on a total of over two hundred raids since I got here," he told me, grabbing my face to make my wide eyes meet his.

I struggled to take in the information he's telling me. Two hundred? That would mean that he had to have started going on these raids as soon as he got to the colony, but he was only thirteen. Surely, they wouldn't send a grieving thirteen year old boy to go on a raid without any formal training in the field.

"You were only thirteen when you arrived at the colony though," I finally got out, shocked by the new information. "Y-you went on raids that young?"

His face hardened before softening into a grimace, most likely thinking of his motives to go on the raids. I knew what his motives most likely were, but the shock still coursed through me as I took in the fact of him being a child, holding the artillery that these grown men do.

"I was grieving," he stated, continuing to put on his clothes. His eyes didn't meet mine as he continued to speak, "I needed a way to know that the people that killed Cynthia paid, but I couldn't do that out of irrational anger so I went through the raids."

I rose from the heat of the covers, finding my clothes and slipping them on before walking over to his now sitting frame on the bed.

"The whole point of the raids was to spare as many people as possible. They were trained to be invisible and not to take the lives they didn't need to, but I took advantage of that opportunity," his guilty voice told me. "I massacred as many troops as I could, knowing that they were the ones to kill Cyn."

Tears welled up in his eyes as he finally met my gaze. I couldn't help but feel the hurt and guilt seeping from him. The information swarmed through my mind as I imagine Luke's younger self planning a secret vendetta to kill any soldier he came across.

"It's okay," I whispered to him, my arms wrapping around him in a vain attempt to save him from the thoughts running through his mind.

This broken man sitting beside me was the sweetest person and so kind hearted, but wrapped in the mistakes and failures of his past. My lungs collapsed as I realized the weight on his shoulders and guilt weighing on him. The hurt crushing him was causing him to collapse in front of me.

"I just can't help but imagine their faces as they died, pleading for mercy." Tears seeped out of his eyes as he looked at me again. "I took their lives, they had families Lissa. They loved people like how I love you and I took them from them."

Sobs racked through his body as I held him close to me, shocked by the confidence he had in me to tell me this and the emotional toll it took on him. When I had first met him, he seemed to be regret free and careless about his action, but now his emotions seemed to spill out in front of me.

The next hour was spent trying to calm him and myself down as I took in the information and tried to imagine the horrible things Luke hid in his past, but I couldn't. Luke, who sat beside me, wasn't the person to kill without warrant, he wasn't the kind to do something without calculating the costs or risks.

As we made our way to the meeting room preparing ourselves for the emotional and physical weight of another raid, I realized a thought that I never had before. The revelation almost made me gasp audibly as I stared at Luke's features beside me.

He had considered everything when he was younger; everything except love. His younger self hadn't realized he would be taking someone's love away from them by seeking revenge, and if he had, he hadn't realized the magnitude of that until he felt what love felt like.

My hand clasped against his harder as we walked through the doors of the meeting room, my way of telling him that I loved him. His head darted over to me skeptically before accepting the tightening and smiling in my direction. The action was unexpected, but completely necessary in my mind.

Luke's body led mine to the two available chairs beside each other, everyone obviously knowing that Luke and I would want to sit together. The meeting was fairly boring and the only thing that I could do was get lost in my thoughts as I stared at the beautiful man beside me.

The scars that his body carried failed in comparison to the emotional scars that marred him eternally. His carefree facade seemed to be ripping at the seams in front of me as stress edged its way into his mind, making him physically arch due to the weight of it on him.

My mind failed to comprehend how a person like him could possibly be so wounded and carry on as if nothing was wrong. The fact that he killed those men didn't hurt him mentally, he was fully aware of what he was doing. What was hurting him was that he didn't calculate the feelings of love into the mix.

Now that he had someone to love and care for, he knew that the emotional connection between two people was too heavy for one person to take. It warmed my heart how far he had come from being his cold self to being a man that could still be strong, yet also love the person that mattered the most to him.

It hurt to know that the emotional toll that this life took on him would probably always be carried with him, but knowing that he could trust me enough to unload his burdens on me was comforting in so many ways to me. The way he could forget about all the stresses in the world, like this morning, and talk to me gave me hope that one day we would finally be happy. We could be happy without the dark shadows from our pasts hovering over us as we held each other closely.

"I think that we should do the same rotation as before," Luke's voice spoke, catching my attention and dragging me out of my silent reverie.

My eyes immediately travel to his face, knowing the agreement between us concerning me going on the raid. As my gaze continued to burn into the side of his head until he rephrased his words.

"I mean....we should do the same, but Ashton can stay in the van while Melissa goes in and monitors the ground floor." His eyes meet mine, searching for any trace of apprehension. I smile at him, accepting the position he has made available to me.

Michael let out a chuckle before mumbling something under his breath that I could barely make out. Luke's arm comes in contact with Michael's as the red haired boy lets out a whimper in protest.

"I would like to suggest that I go in and we take some of the younger leaders out," Ashton's voice spoke up as all eyes turn to him. "We have boys leading teams that have only been involved in a few raids. They don't deserve the stress of this."

I nodded my head in agreement, looking over to Luke once more for his consent. As Luke went to nod his head, our thoughts are interrupted by the annoying voice that always sets my body into a tense state.

"Why is Melissa leading a team then?" Bob asked, pointing out all my faults as he continues. "Last time she was in charge we were attacked-"

"How am I supposed to help that?" I questioned incredulously. "That was not my fault that they attacked, and did everyone get out of that building relatively safe?"

"Moving on," he continued, failing to answer my question. "You have only been on one raid, not to mention your lack of experience in the outside world. The only reason you are even involved in these raids is because your Luke's little booty call."

A sudden, loud noise was heard, radiating from Luke's hands hitting the table with immense force. "You don't get to call the shots Bob," Luke's gruff, yet strong, voice said lowly. "There's a reason I am in charge of the raids and it's because, unlike you, I can plan them to not go wrong," he spat, anger growing like wildfire in his blue eyes.

The table was silent, no one daring to speak under the tense situation. I looked over to find an amused expression covering Calum's face as he futilely tried to hide it.

"Now if no one has any other questions," Luke's voice boomed, looking around the room for any protests from the group to find none. "Then let's get going."

Within seconds of the words leaving his mouth we are all leaving the room to suit up for the third raid of the campaign.

Edited: 14 January 2017