It was high time John took some leave. His flat was comfortable, an ideal place to take one of his scarcely allowed breaks from the military. He preferred to be alone on his vacations, but he got a little lonely sometimes without the attention he so shamefully craved.

Was it sick to get off on the feeling of someone watching you? If it was, he denied it. At the worst, it was hurting him, and the pleasure of it greatly outweighed the fear.

He knew the feeling of eyes on his back well. He also knew how to catch the stalker in question, to move faster than they could think, but this time? He just couldn't seem to, and it aggravated him like nothing else. So, he made up a little game, perhaps to prove to himself that he wasn't insane, that there was something or someone near him who just wouldn't show.

He started making himself vulnerable, to tempt whatever human-esque creature that was following him into showing themself. He'd sleep with the door open, shower with only the clear curtain obstructing him and the open air. Eventually, he got real comfortable with himself, walking around the flat with no shirt, then with no jeans, until he was content just sitting around naked, sitting with legs spread and his hair a delightful mess.

He noticed overtime the strange repositioning of his objects; how his candle or his cup would occasionally tilt just a little. How the picture frames scattered about the flat would be lying down or tossed to the ground entirely. It made him grin, knowing he was frustrating this little ghost.

He was in the bathroom the first time he got a real reaction; the reaction he craved. A tube of old, long-discontinued lipstick lied on the tile of his bathroom floor, the dull red color painted on the mirror, spelling out desperate, yet carefully chosen words. "I need you."