Aw, hell. I feel terrible.

I never thought I would feel comfortable putting something-- Anything directly over the corneas of my eyes. I declined the option of hard lenses. That was slightly nauseating in concept, especially since the softer, polymer lenses just came out. I never dreamed they could feel so… Comfortable. So natural. As natural as breathing. It's freeing, really.

Unlike the rest of this.

I can hardly feel these contact lenses. Lenses that impel contact. That give sight. And that's what I really want. Crystal. Clear as day. I want to see him.

I feel terrible. Guilty. For lying. I mean, it's not technically… Well, it is lying. By omission. It's not telling the truth. But, God, I want this so badly. I need it.

He comes in, just out of the shower. My bathrobe is enormous on him. I almost smile at the laughable way it hangs off of him.

But then, I'm not supposed to be able see the Comedy. I'm not supposed to see him. Not allowed.

My glasses are on the nightstand and I'm supposed to be as blind as a bat, not as keen as an owl. But owls can see in the deepest of the darks, see things that are otherwise impossible to see. And I'm nowhere near that adept even now.

I carefully avert my sharp eyes as he looks at me.

'Nearsighted?' he asked me earlier, before removing the flimsy latex, a barrier that yet remains. A chink in the armor that was supposed to be forged in trust. The mask is a needless fortification. A blinder.

He asks every time he stays over. Every time he sheds that indelible parapet. It belies how insubstantial this really is. And I feel bad for lying.

But at least he stays and has stayed. Ever since I pointed out the practicality of sleeping where we fuck and vice-versa. Ever since we started this charade. Almost every night. Always after patrol. Not every patrol. But almost.

And always, always with that damned mask. Or else always, always in the dark. I'm not allowed. It makes me wonder what else he is hiding there in the blackness with him. Everything, really.

Everything I know of him is trivial. And I'm bitter but that too is trivial.

Trivial like the-

hard unyielding sinew and flesh and skin and mass of his anatomy

-appearing not for the first time before my eyes as he drops the robe away-

patterns of the scars on his ribs and his back and how they feel in my hands

-I can see that they are stark white even against such pasty skin-

the taste of his lips under mine and the staggering rapture that he brings me to when I am inside of him

They are trivial in comparison to the visage he wont show me, the name he wont give me, the man he hides away from me as much as is possible. And I'm bitter but he stays and I need that.

Yes, trivial. But not really. Not at all. Not to me. Not when these things, these details, are all I have and he is everything.

He looks over his shoulder at me as I sigh and I look up to catch the movement.

And there he is. Clear as day. Crystal.

Ugly.

There it is.

Every goddamn freckle.

Every creased line in his frown.

Too-big ears. Too-low mouth. Too imperfect to be anything but.

Red. Gaunt. Pallid. Withered.

Ugly.

Perfect.

Mine.

My Rorschach.

I stare at him openly and don't have the presence of mind to look away. I don't want to. I don't care.

It's a shot in the dark. My aim is dodgy. I could miss. But I don't feel guilty as I lie.

"I see you. I see you. I--"

I lose everything in him.