Just a Desk.
They called it just a desk when they accidentally bumped it. As Havoc tortured the first lieutenant and she chased him around the office, they didn't understand why the Colonel had gotten so upset over it. Of course they wouldn't know or understand why it was so much more than a desk. They wouldn't even understand it though they had been here for some of the things that made it special…
These scuffs on the very front of the desk was when I had thrown my boot at Hughes for sitting in my chair as he waited for me…he was always doing that sort of stuff, and no matter how many times my boot had been thrown, I never really aimed for him, and he never really cared that I threw it, it never discouraged him, not a single bit…
This boot mark on the top was when Maes had climbed over it to give me a hug against my protest, and then to show me the pictures he had taken when I wasn't looking…I wish I would've accepted that hug…
This ink stain was when Hughes tried to fix the printer at the academy…what an idiot, and then I had to clean it up and help put it back together haha, he was so hopeless sometimes.
This cut on the bottom left corner was where Maes had leaned in close with his knives and stuck my coat to the desk for giggles, and then kissed my cheek, leaving me attached while he pulled out the pictures I had taken of him, out of my desk, and proceeded to ask me why I thought these trivial moments where he was just being himself was so special.
They just were.
Everything about this man was special, down to the annoying way he showed the first picture he had ever taken of me to all of his friends and the librarian, the way the girls giggled and encouraged his behavior, saying he was just, 'fawning' over me and told me to accept it and let him do it...as always when it came to you, I let you do what you wanted.
The way I had to fight his exes best guy friend to get said picture back for Hughes, I hadn't known the thing she forcefully took was the picture…All he said was it was something he always carried and really cared for…it was reason enough to fight for it. I didn't need to know what she took, all I needed to know was that it was Maes, and it was his, and it meant a lot to him…that was a good enough reason to get a few scrapes and a few bruises, and that's why he's no longer a fan of blonde women. He would always joke that broad was enough to turn a man gay.
The crack in the side was where I sat and cried the day he was to marry Gracia…right before the wedding. I sat where my legs should go, kicked repeatedly at the side until it cracked, and then cried that I had damaged one of the only things we had shared that survived the years…
I cried when you had come to find me, the best man, and I tried to get you to leave, but you just held me…like an idiot, and it had only made the tears come harder than before…there, right then and there you had promised to me, that my spot in your heart was never to be filled by anyone else. That, duty was duty. You held me like you had done so many times before, and said that the love you had for me and Gracia were two different loves. You had said to me, ours wasn't based on the physical, it was based on the emotional, the spiritual, the pureness that came with chaste kisses in the night and nothing more, that it was above anything in the world.
You were so stupid…
I miss you Maes…
I miss you so much more than anyone could ever imagine.
More than anyone in this lifetime could grasp.
This desk, is not just a desk, it's a reminder.
To never let you die.
There's the physical death that you had in that god forsaken telephone booth…But there's another death…that comes when people forget about someone, and let them fade from existence like a shadow or like the flash of a camera, that stupid, camera that you always carried…
I won't let you die again.
If I let you die again, I don't think I could survive it. So, I promise you this, you will always be with me.
This desk is not just a desk, it can never be just a desk.
If it were just a desk, than this is just a mind, not memories, not feelings, nothing more. I refuse to admit that my memories of you are nothing.
So this desk, is far greater than just broken wood and stains.
It's so much more than just a desk.