Disclaimer: I own nothin'

Pairings/Warnings: ?x2, heavy angst, implied m/m sexual content, ambiguous "you" so reader can decide pairing...

A/N: *appears and leaves heavy angst fic*

Far

I down the cheap whiskey and it actually makes me shudder. Maybe I've spent too damn long at political soirees and at Winner mansions as after all this time drinking shitty booze burns. I don't really give a shit, eye the guy behind the bar who's been instructed to keep my glass full and he complies, coming over, a short nod and pours another.

I'm not the only one sat at the bar. The kid's been trying to get my eye since I came in – probably thought he saw a mark. I fucking know the kids a pro, I'm not that freaking dumb, and it seems my glance in his direction is all the encouragement it takes. He gets outta his seat, does that sashay thing someone probably told him was hot and slides onto the stool next to me.

His hand reaches for my thigh, touches the well-worn denim, and he leans close to me. I can see his eyes are rimmed with kohl, with glitter, more evidence of kid's profession.

"You're new here," he says and I bite back some of my sarcasm as I reach for his hand, removing it from my leg.

"I'm old," I say, and then clarify, "just been gone a long time."

I have been gone a fucking long time. L2 was nothing like L1, like what I'd become used to. The bars like this where people start drinking as early as damn possible. Where kids in eyeliner try to pick up someone to fuck them. L1 was all about classy places – bars and clubs. Places with one word names. Storm. Mist. Lightening. Shit like that. You took me to them a few times – those places that you hated, let me dance close to you, let me grind my body against yours, make you want me and take me back home and fuck me. That was the only reason we went, I guess, an elaborate game of foreplay.

"It's ten for a hand job, thirty and I'll blow you, fifty for all the way and a hundred for whatever you want."

I try not to laugh at the kid's bravado and I finish my drink. I try not to feel depressed at what "whatever" means. I'd met some fucking creeps in my time and "whatever" was not something I wanted to contemplate. I reach for my wallet and the kid probably thinks he's got a bite but I would never pay for a fuck, even if I wanted one, and sure as hell even though we're not together, I'd feel like I was cheating on you. We've not been over long enough for the traces of your bites on my skin to have disappeared. For the bruises from our last time to be gone. For me to forget how it damn felt. I still feel you on my skin.

I pay my bar tab and reach for two fifties. "Don't fuck anyone tonight," I say, putting the money in his hand and I see then what I expected. Track marks down his arms. And I know he won't fuck anyone tonight but he'll take something and that will be my money gone. I ain't stupid. I know I'm not helping but maybe, one night, that kid won't be bent over fucked dry, won't blow some guys, and won't die a little more inside. It's something.

I leave then, walk to the place I'd rented on a short term thing – it only needed to be short term, I thought, bitterly, and I pass the things that make L2 damn L2. The kids on the corners. The dealers. The pros.

The streets are like I remember – the Chinese stores with the duck carcasses hung in the windows, the Halal butchers stores, the pizza places where you could buy by the slice. I remembered these places – knew the ones that as a kid they'd had sympathy for the street kids and given the days burnt shit or stale leftovers. I'd gone back to Franco's, tipped in the jar by the counter, as the owners had given the remnants of the days pizza's so many damn times and I supposed it was all a karma thing. Pay it forward. Whatever. Made me feel a little better. Wondered if they still did it – plenty of war orphans around. Kinda made me a little sick. But then I guess I was sick – everything made me feel like I wanted to puke my guts out.

You came to the first tests – watched behind the protective glass. I kinda thought it was funny – that you and the docs had to be behind glass and yet there I was, lying on the white table, being scanned by the MRI machine in nothing but one of those hospital gowns with my ass out on the cold surface underneath. Glamorous it ain't.

I guess I felt you there even though it wasn't damn possible. As I was moved into it by the mechanics, as I laid there and heard the sounds of the machine taking pictures of my body to see how fucked it was. You were watching it – watching me as you always had, as you always did, your eyes, your stare always being my fucking undoing and you saw inside me then. Saw how fucked my body was.

The day the results came through I just shook my head in our kitchen. I didn't want to say – didn't want to say anything and neither did you. Talking ain't ever been your thing and I had nothing but bullshit to say. It wasn't gonna be better. It wasn't gonna be easy. My body was fucked. That was all there was to it.

"I can't," you said, and I nodded, bridged the gap between us. I moved the hair from your eyes. Leaned up. Kissed you. Knew what I'd feel if the situation was reversed.

"I'm not asking you to."

You took me to bed. It was the only time I'd not been your equal, the only time we'd not fucked violently and harshly, instead, you, I guess, worshipped me. You didn't let me touch you. You threatened to tie me to the bedposts and I kept my hands at my sides as I don't do well with being vulnerable – though I was vulnerable under you, as you trailed kisses over every part of me, nipped and bit down at my sensitive spots and I shivered and moaned and thrashed my head to the side. When you finally, after so fucking long, slid into me, you rolled your hips perfectly, you kept your head at my throat and you licked at my pulse and you let me touch you then, my hands sliding to your firm ass, trying to force you to take me harder, faster, but you didn't. You never did what I fucking wanted you to.

I guess you'd say you made love to me even though I hate the words and the idea and the fucking romance of it. As I could deal with you fucking me hard and fast but that was our goodbye and it was too damn much. You knew it. You've always been so fucking smug – always so fucking arrogant and I loved and hated you for it. You took your own damn time, my dick slid against your abs and you made sure I came first and you followed, gasping my name and biting down at my throat and I dug my fingers into your shoulders and you dug yours into my hips tight. It left bruises. You left marks. Guess you always had.

The morning after I blew you in the kitchen and kissed you, make you taste yourself on my lips and I left.

I know you lost everything. Or you never had anything. And I won't be another thing you lose. So I crawled back home, or as near as home as I could come, like wounded animals do when they know it's their time. I knew in the beginning, when I started vomiting up blood, when the nose bleeds started, when the dizzy spells nearly got me killed in action, that it wasn't something we could deal with. As it was so goddamn mundane – it wasn't guts and glory – it was slow and steady and my body fucking failing me. I sat a few nights in our apartment with a loaded 45. – thought about it, rested my finger on the trigger and put it back down. I knew you had to live here after. That whatever, that was your home, and I guess I couldn't do it. Would ride it out. Would let it get worse and wait and take the meds and lose my hair and whatever the fuck else.

I reach my place, the apartment in a dilapidated block, and try not to feel damn disappointed once again. As you're not there. And you never will be. I slide off the leather jacket, find my meds, take them with cheap booze, and tick off another day on the calendar.

In sleep, I dream of us how we were, when we partners, when you could look me in the eye, when we were invincible – when I held a machine gun in my hands, when we fucked after missions, when you wanted me. When I wasn't broken.

"I can't," you said and it echoes round my head – when I'm awake, when I fucking sleep.

And I know you couldn't. I know you couldn't watch me die. And babe, you don't have to.