A/N: Did you need some angst in your life? Don't you worry, I've got you.
It's not my fault, however. Blame Maevemauvaise and Kangofu-CB on tumblr.
A/N2: Maeve posted the video for Halsey's "Eyes Closed" (from her new album, to be released June 2nd. Go pre-order. Your wait is almost over!) and it inspired this. Also, the title is from the lyrics.
Pairings: 2x3
Warnings: ANGST, character death
My lover, My Liar
"Hey babe, you ready to go?"
I looked in the mirror; not at my own reflection, but at the man standing behind me.
His eyes were compassionate, his lips pulled into a very faint grimace that made it clear he was concerned.
About me.
My fingers tightened on the tie I had been fumbling with for the past ten minutes.
His eyes went to my fingers. He knew me too well.
I cleared my throat.
"I just need another moment."
He nodded, accepting the excuse. He lingered for another moment, and then walked out of the bedroom, leaving me to my own thoughts.
I let out a shuddery breath.
My eyes looked hollow, the violet smudges under them doing me no favors either.
At least my uniform was pressed. I had been distracted, had almost burnt the right trouser leg when I left the iron on the crease too long, when I found myself staring at the bookshelf across from my bed, my eyes locked on the rows and rows of books that he had left behind.
I drew in a deep breath, forced my fingers into cooperation, and finally managed the regulation double windsor knot, pulling it tight enough that it left me uncomfortably aware of my collar pressed into my neck.
I picked a wayward cat hair from the shoulder of my khaki dress shirt.
Brown. Not from my cat. His cat was the dark haired tabby.
My jacket was still on the hanger, and I shrugged into it with a sigh.
I hated the jacket, hated the entire uniform. I had only had to wear it five - now six times. I did my level best to avoid every single occasion that would require me to wear the tight, itchy dress uniform.
There was no getting out of today, however.
And even though I wanted to, even though I hated myself for thinking of all of the ways I could engineer an excuse, I knew I had to go. I needed to go, now matter how much I wanted to pry my own fingernails out instead.
"You look good."
Michael was waiting for me downstairs. Michael, who knew without really knowing how difficult this was for me. Who would never be able to understand just how much I despised myself for nearly every thought that went through my head on a daily basis, but especially today, especially these thoughts.
He offered me a small tilt of his lips, meant to be encouraging, but it made me think of him.
"Want to drive, or should I?" he asked, fingers reaching for the two sets of keys hanging beside the front door.
"You should," I said, because I was fairly confident if I drove we would end up going in the opposite direction of where we were supposed to go.
He nodded, eased the keys off the loop and opened the door.
I walked out into the sun, irritated that the weather was so perfect, so heedless of my turmoil.
Michael drove just over the speed limit, slower than I would have, faster than I wanted him to.
He looked over after a few silent miles and held out his hand between us, offering something that I wasn't entirely sure how to accept.
I slid my hand into his and closed my eyes as he squeezed.
There were times when Michael's skin almost felt like his. Times when I could close my eyes and image the rough texture, the callouses and scars, were familiar.
"Are we going to get dinner with them afterwards, or go home?" he asked, his voice rumbling through me.
I couldn't imagine eating. I couldn't understand how anyone would want to eat after this.
"Home," I sighed.
Michael squeezed my hand again, and I hated that point of contact, hated that connection to another person, hated the reminder that I was still alone. Without him.
The drive took almost an hour.
As the car slowed, I opened my eyes and pulled my hand away from Michael and sat up straighter in the passenger seat.
Guards signalled us to stop, inspected our badges and the folded parchment Michael passed over, examining the letterhead with a scowl before handing it back and waving us through.
Michael parked, and we got out of the car.
I closed the door, and the sound of Michael locking the car gave me pause, filled with me a sick, alien slick of panic.
"Babe?"
He had both hands on my face, cradling my jaw and angling my head up so he could see me clearly. So I could see him.
"Do you- We don't have to do this."
I shook my head, as much as I could considering his grip on me.
"It's not- You don't' have to," he repeated, and leaned his forehead against mine.
The gesture was familiar, too familiar. It was his, and I felt the panic work its way through my belly and claw at my throat.
"I have to do this," I insisted, berating myself.
He eased away, but his hand reached for mine and I was pathetic enough to accept it.
We walked past the memorial, my eyes scanning the names, the faces in that haunting sculpture of desperate, writhing humans.
We were ushered down several halls and then outside again, into a secure area with concrete walls topped with barbed wire that gleamed in the sunlight.
The others were already there, seated among the two rows of folding chairs that felt both out of place and horribly appropriate.
Heero nodded once, acknowledging my existence. Wufei saw me and his lips tightened, but he slid over, offering up the seats beside him, and Michael and I eased into the row.
Une was standing, her spine so straight it had to be painful.
There was a breeze, faint enough that it could only stir a few tendrils of her hair.
The other people there looked at me and then through me, recognizing me and- and I didn't know. I frankly didn't care.
That was part of the problem, I was sure.
After ten minutes of tense, silent waiting, the two rows of chairs were filled and Une made some kind of signal to one of the guards.
An alarm sounded, and then a door in one of the concrete walls opened and three uniformed guards walked out.
And then there he was, shuffling along in the tight shackles around his feet, the manacles around his wrists connected to his waist, but even so he managed to look graceful, managed to look untouchable.
They led him to the far wall, and I realized there was a tarp on the ground, winced as his feet shuffled across the plastic and he was positioned against the far wall of the compound.
He was maybe a dozen yards away, but when he looked over, when he looked right at me, I felt his gaze pierce me.
His eyes were bright, so vivid against the huge gray wall behind him and the dull canvas jumpsuit he worse.
One of the guards stepped forward, holding a black hood out.
He laughed, a single mirthless chuckle that was swallowed by the hood as it settled over his head and the guard pulled it down to his throat.
Beside me, Michael held out his hand again but I didn't take it. I couldn't.
Another signal from Une, another alarm, the sound accompanied by the whirl of a red light to signal live fire.
I looked away from him and to the row of six uniformed officers and the rifles they held. They each wore black caps and sunglasses, their features indistinguishable.
A firing squad.
It was archaic, horrific in a way that I couldn't wrap my head around.
But it was legal, something he had found in some provision in some forgotten handbook, and he had fought for it, had demanded it. And Michael, his lawyer for the trial that everyone had known would result in a guilty verdict, had done everything in his power to ensure that the method of execution was what his client wanted.
The alarm sounded again, three short blasts, and the guards moved away from him after the first blast. The rifles moved into position at the second blast.
The third blast was deafening.
He was still standing, the canvas jumpsuit no longer uniformly beige, the wall behind him no longer dull gray.
A moment of utter silence, and then he took a step, then another, his feet trying to carry him across the tarp - not towards the firing squad, but towards the row of chairs.
Towards me.
He fell, dropping to his knees, and I knew I imagined it, knew it wasn't possible for him to be saying my name, to be calling for me, but I was halfway out of my seat as he finally surrendered, as his hooded head lowered to the ground.
Beside me, Wufei reached out, digging his fingers into my thigh and forcing me back into my seat.
No one moved; there was no sound except for the thundering of my heartbeat.
Une signalled again and a guard approached him, checked for a pulse and then shook his head.
Only then did Une turn, only then did she skewer me with her glare, did she sweep her gaze across Heero and Wufei.
"There is no justice for the crimes he committed, no reparation for the lives he took. But he has, at the very least, paid for his wrongs. The Earthsphere will be safer without him in it."
Wufei's fingers were still on my thigh, still digging into my skin through the trousers, and I knew he had broken the skin.
It reminded me of the night we had heard.
We had been on duty, had been sitting in our shared office looking over the intel reports and both pretending it wasn't hours after we should have left for the night, both pretending we weren't still there because we needed to hear his voice, to have him check in before we could leave.
"I'm done. This mission… I'm done. This isn't me, this- These people need me." It was so short, too short to track, just a burst of static and his voice, confident and unapologetic.
Wufei had looked at me with wild eyes as we both scrambled for the receiver.
"I love you."
The line went dead before either of us could say anything.
We had known, Wuei and I, that this mission… it was impossible. It was… it was the kind of thing that ended your career, the kind of mission that you would never really come back from. The kind that he had always taken, had always shouldered because no one else could or should.
But we had known.
Une, I was sure, as she glared at me today and said those empty words, had known too.
He never would have come back, but none of us had counted on him abandoning the mission, of targeting the Preventers agents sent to finish the job, of him saving the lives of the very people he had been tasked with terminating.
Heero had been the one to apprehend him, had been the one to haul me off of him after I got in three punches, after our hands tangled together and he passed me the gold cross on the chain. The talisman that we traded back and forth each time one of us shipped out.
The necklace I wore now under my shirt, the cross burning its way into my flesh.
I glared back at Une.
Her warning was clear.
I pried Wufei's hand off of my thigh.
Michael stood and offered me his hand.
I accepted it and we walked away from my lover, from the man who had promised a lifetime together, from my liar.
-o-