Title: The Last Supper
Pairing: Roy/Hughes
Warnings: 90 angst, .2 implied "bedroom fun". (Marvel at my tact.) Plus the most cliche symbolism ever!
Disclaimer: I'm actually rather glad I don't own these two. I've got enough emotional issues of my own.
Roy arrives home to find Hughes at the stove, as he always does. The taller man's domestic streak used to surprise him, but it doesn't anymore. He's gotten used to it, just like he has to the fact that no matter how much Hughes loves him, he'll never be the nice little wife with the nice little children in the nice little house with the nice little picket fence that Hughes so desperately wants. Roy is just a detour on the way to this nice little reality. He is merely the love of Hughes' life. Somehow, that is not enough. But Maes puts a lot of effort into convincing himself that it is, so if he sometimes cooks enough for a family of four and sighs over the leftovers, Roy doesn't say anything. There is only so much of the fantasy that he can create. He just sits at the table and allows Hughes to serve him, salving the fresh hurt with pleasant chatter and warm food, trying his best to be something he is not, can never be.
No matter how painful dinner is, though, dessert is always fun. Sometimes it begins before the sweets even enter the oven; Roy catches Maes' hand and slips a finger into his mouth, sucking until the sweet batter caked on the digit dissolves, revealing even sweeter flesh. Sometimes Maes, withdrawing a fragrant tray from within the stove's warm recesses, holds out one of the treats to Roy, smiling as the younger man nibbles it down until he is nipping Maes' fingertips, kissing them quickly afterwards. The next one that Maes offers is held in his mouth, and the kisses that follow are not so quick. As filling as dinner often is, Roy is never satisfied until after dessert.
Today, however, something is different. The stove is full, too full even for one of Hughes' most wistful days, and the rest of the kitchen is too empty. All of Hughes' things, the aprons and the cookbooks and the feeling of home, are gone. Pretending not to notice, Roy sits down to what sould have been one of the most sumptuous meals of his lifetime. He does not remark on its unpleasant saltiness, knowing that that isn't Hughes' fault. Not directly, anyway.
What happens next is not dessert. It is not sweet. It is rough and hard and painful and desperate and leaves Roy lower than any sugar crash he's ever had. Throughout it, he smells something burning, hears a timer sounding frantically in the background, and clings just a little bit tighter, moves just a little bit faster. Time can't be up. Not yet.
When he awakes, sore and aching like a fresh wound, he is alone. The apartment smells charred, like so many other ruins Roy is responsible for. He wanders into the kitchen, coughing as the stench grows stronger. On the counter is a trayful of now-cold cookies that would have been red, had they not been burnt black. They are shaped like small hearts.
Roy picks one up, and it crumbles to pieces in his hands.
A/N: Just over 500 words. That almost qualifies as an actual fic!
I was a bit unsure about the ending. Should he have found them all broken? Should he have broken them all? Should he have found them in the trash? You know you have a sad life when this is what you spend your time fretting about.