Title: "Lord of War - Drabble/Ficlet 03"
Author: Hecate
Fandom: Lord of War
Rating: PG 13
Pairing, Character: Orlov/Valentine
Summary: Everything I loved got broken.
Disclaimer: Not mine. No money made.
Note: Unbetaed.

The leaders and generals hated him because he got in their way, because he was good at his job. Still, they used him, gave him medals and promotions. Because he was the golden boy, the agent that never stopped, the man they could put in front of the cameras and then tell the public that they did something.

Just a decoy, really, a lie that worked, and it took Jack a while to see it. It took Yuri to make him see it, Yuri walking away after Jack did everything right. Yuri walking away and no medal or promotion could change that.

But it didn't stop Jack either.

Hunting Yuri was easy because it was familiar, and even knowing that it was probably useless didn't take away that ease.

It didn't change the fact that whenever Jack saw Yuri it wasn't only the hunt that was easier but also, in some strange way, getting over the fact that he would never truly catch Yuri. Because sometimes - when Jack didn't think of weapons and dead villages in Africa and South America, when he didn't think of children torn apart by bullets - Yuri made him feel alive again. Gave him purpose because this hunt would never be over, and he would keep on running after Yuri. Jack should hate it. Instead he loved it.

Loved the hunt, loved threatening Yuri, even if Jack's words were empty - Yuri would always be able to get away. Jack loved how alive he felt around Yuri, anger, hatred, the urge to pull the trigger and just end Yuri and his guns. Jack never did. Sometimes he thought he loved Yuri, too. Just a bit, just enough not to kill Yuri, just enough to ignore that he was going crazy.

And it didn't surprise him, not really. He loved the world, too, loved every single thing about it. The beauty and the ugliness, the messy things that made him want to scream, the fact that the world needed to be saved. The world and Yuri, and it fit together, and Jack should have known how the whole thing would end.

He couldn't save the world, not from itself, and he couldn't save Yuri because Yuri didn't think he needed saving.

He lost Yuri first. A weapons deal gone wrong, and Jack found Yuri's corpse between other bodies, cold and dirty, and he tried not to puke on what was left of the man he kind of loved.

He lost Yuri first, and now he waited for the world to die on him, too.