Disclaimer: I own very little.

A/N: This is an entry to the 30dogpile challenge in LiveJournal, the theme being Tea. Implied character death and threesome.

No Sugar

As I step in, I smell tea.

For a moment, I think I'm just imagining it. After all, I haven't smelled tea here in ages. Even now the smell is faint, so much so it could just as well be imaginary. Still, somehow, I know that it is real, even in its faintness invading my senses, embracing me.

There are no strange shoes at the door, so it can't be for guests. And you don't drink tea, do you, you've always preferred coffee just like I rather drink my juices. Tea has always been his drink, this one brand especially -- how can I still recognize it by simply the faint smell, after so long a time?

For one moment, one insanely hopeful moment, I almost manage to convince myself that it's he, he has come back to us and I won't let him go again. Then reality floods back in, reminding me that it's impossible. It's like a slap on the face to step into the kitchen and find you there and the tea, and not him.

"Welcome home," you say softly, and I reply, "I'm home." And again my eyes drawn to the pot of tea.

"You don't drink tea," I say, and you nod in agreement.

"No, I don't," you say. "But he did." You look down at the cup you hold in your hands, and I know you haven't taken even one sip of it. I sit down next to you and pour myself a cup. I don't drink any of it, either.

"I miss him," you say suddenly, breaking the tea-scented silence, and with a startle I realize it's the first time I've heard you say it in so many words. I have assumed you do, of course, and your actions have indicated as much, but never before have I heard you say it.

"So do I," I reply, softly, not daring to speak too loud lest I break the spell of the moment. I breathe deep the scent of the tea, and I can almost remember its taste, not sensed directly from the hot liquid but as an aftertaste in his mouth, soft but not sweet, he never liked it sweet.

"Of course you do," you say, not looking at me. And I nod. Of course I do -- after all, I loved him. And so did you, even though you wouldn't readily admit it, even though at first you would have preferred to have him anywhere but in your daily life. But you stood him for my sake, as he stood you for my sake, too, and I was the most fortunate man on Earth that you both loved me too much to make me choose.

In the end, I never did -- you grew to love each other as well. I wasn't surprised, really. I'd always known that, given the chance to know each other, you would realize just what I saw in the other. I loved him as I love you, and I could have never picked one over the other.

And then, as it far too often does, life made the choice for me.

I close my eyes, briefly, and imagine him there, imagine him holding a cup of his favourite tea, looking at us both warmly as he never looked at anyone else. The scent of the tea confuses my head, and for a moment I'm again convinced he is indeed there, he hasn't left, or perhaps he has returned, and in any case he isn't away and he is here and I, no, we are whole again.

Then you take a hold of my hand, squeezing it a bit, and I open my eyes to the harsh reality again, staring at the empty spot across the table, wishing futilely it would be again claimed by him. "He's not here," I hear somebody whispering, and then realize that it is I who spoke.

"No, he isn't," you reply, just as quietly, and I wonder if it's just as difficult to you to speak loudly, if you, too, feel as though the words were stuck in your throat and would only come out creeping. "And he won't be."

"Why?" I ask, still quietly, and the word, as it finally manages to leave my mouth, is weighed by all the emotions that fill me at the moment -- sadness, and despair, and nigh insane longing and confusion, confusion because I don't know why it happened and how and why I couldn't prevent it -- and seems to banish the scent of tea for a second. "It is... illogical."

"It is, indeed," you reply, and I know you are just as baffled as I am, understanding just as little, unable to comprehend just why he had to leave us. It was too early, we both know. We weren't ready for it. Hell, we never would have been, but at least we weren't prepared for it yet, not knowing how to face such a sorrow. All my data cannot tell me the best way to cope, all your observations would not allow you to predict that it would happen. One moment, he was there, the next one, away.

It wasn't supposed to go like that. Nowhere in our plans -- we had plans together, so many plans, dreams to fulfill and goals to reach, none of which can be now, not without him -- did we take into account the chance that, one day, one of us might not be there. That he might leave in the morning and never come back.

"I wish," you say after a long moment of silence, but do not finish. I nod, once again, knowing that there are so many things you could finish with. You wish you could have been there, just as I do. You wish you'd have told him you loved him more often. You wish you could have said goodbye.

That's the most cruel thing, is it not? We never got to say goodbye. By the time we heard, he was long gone, our words reaching him no more. He always listened to us, taking every word of ours for reality -- after realizing this I lied to him no more, not wanting to break his trust --, rarely understanding but never questioning our conclusions. Yet this one time, when it mattered the most, he wouldn't listen to us, his ears deaf to us, and we could just whisper into the empty air and know he did not hear.

It isn't fair, my mind tells me, even though fairness has little to do with logic or chance, it isn't fair that we loved him so much and that we lost him. It isn't fair that something as simple as a bus driver falling asleep would take him from us, him who fought through even the worst hardships and never gave up. He wasn't that fragile, shouldn't have been so easy to steal from us. He belonged to us, with us. It isn't fair.

Then again, I think bitterly, life rarely is fair.

"One day," I say, not really believing my words myself, "one day, it won't hurt this much anymore." You don't say anything, but I know you disagree, and so do I. Everybody keeps telling us so, telling it will go away, telling we will get over it, and one day we will look back and remember the good times we had instead of the pain of the loss. Yet even with all my knowledge, all my studies which claim this is, indeed, the most likely case, and the sorrow will ease over time, I cannot bring myself to believe it. Every time I wake up I wish just as much this has all been but a cruel dream; every time I go to sleep the bed feels just as empty, even with you at my side.

If he were here now, he would laugh at us, or possibly hiss and flush a bit; he never was good with all the emotional stuff, which made him all the more adorable in my opinion. Yet however much I wish so, there is no hiss, no protest of any kind; there are simply silence and the scent of tea that brings no comfort when it doesn't bring him back after all.

We both take a sip of the tea, finally, and then lean towards each other to share the taste, hoping to catch some resemblance of him, some little fragment of everything he was, of what he meant to both of us.

I taste the tea on your tongue, and wonder when it became so bitter.