I came to in the couch, and it was dark outside. I lifted my head from Mik's chest, looked around the room, blinked slowly. The arm around me moved, pulling me up fully. I pulled a hand through my filtered bangs, while running a sort of reality check, remembering the events of the past… minutes, hours, whatever.

"Harley. What has he done to you?"

I cringed. It was the first time anyone had asked me straight like that. Everyone moved around it, trying to forget it. Hell, I tried to forget it.

"Mik, I…"

"You don't want to talk about it?"

I was to tired and shook up to lie. "Yes I do. I really do. But why do you want to hear it?"

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. In the corner of my eye I noticed his rumpled shirt and open jacket, and wondered how long he had been holding me.

"When you left," he began slowly, "I wanted to warn you. But I didn't really have a reason to. I could only have said that I saw… things, the simplest actions or words, that hinted to something else than the surface you fell in love with. I wanted to say that I had seen it before, and that you ought to watch out."

"I wouldn't have listened," I said.

"The spiders…"

"I know. The first, hateful little 'gift' from Tybalt I ever saw. Symbolic, isn't it?"

A few moments of silence passed, and I felt the lulling comfort of his warmth as we were sitting close enough to almost touch.

Then Mikhael finally said: "I should have warned you. I should have told you how much of Tybalt I saw in Skids."

Skids. The name made so little sense. Only a year after I moved in with him, he said he wanted to put the childish nickname behind him. It was 'Gio' or 'Giovanni' after that. The name 'Skids' belonged to someone else, it belonged to a man I had loved, really loved…

I started to talk. The words floated from my mouth, clear and undisturbed. Telling rationally about the small changes, about quitting my job at the night club because he got a good job and told me to quit, about how he always assured me that he loved me, even after things started to get bad. And about the day two years ago, when he lost his job and finally snapped, really snapped, so the rest of the world could see it as well.

"I stayed with him for a while after that," I said as the story approached its end. At some point we had moved to lie on the couch, my hands clinging to him, showing all the emotions my voice lacked. He hadn't said a word, only listened, and I forgot all my suspicions and the warnings screaming in my head. I wanted to trust him, I needed someone to trust, anyone.

"I thought perhaps I could control him, protect the rest of the world from him and vice versa. Until I came home and found him with that girl. Shit, she was only a kid. If I had left there and then, I would have returned. I would have convinced myself that he needed me, and gone back to him. But when he saw me, he said…"

I managed a small, desperate laughter, the only breach in my monotone voice. "I don't know why that single sentence made such a world of difference, but I think it really drove it home, made me realize absolutely everything that I had refused to realize. He asked me, he actually asked me, to 'join in'."

I laughed again, less forced this time, a mocking sound, ridiculing him, myself, the whole situation, the whole fucking relationship. I laughed and laughed, my fingers digging into Mik's ribs and my forehead pressed hard against his shoulder and teeth clenched so hard it made my head hurt. He held me through the manic laughter, through another fit of wrecking sobs, and through the silent, cleansing crying. And finally, he just held me, as my mind slid into near comatose relaxation.

After a long while, I sat up. Mundane needs made themselves heard, and I went to the bathroom, taking a little time to compose myself and clean up the skin-deep mess a well. He went in when I had finished, and I went to the kitchen, made coffee, did things, normal things, calmness settling in the room.

The fridge was depressingly empty, since I was going away the next day. Next day? I looked out, seeing the first rays of dawn between tall buildings. I wasn't leaving before the afternoon, I had time to thank him, and get some sleep.

I poured the coffee as he got in, and handed him a cup. "'Fraid it's a bit old, Sandy and I aren't big coffee drinkers so a packet lasts a while."

He took the cup, and leaned slightly against the fridge. I rested against the counter, not bothering to sit by the tiny kitchen table. It felt good to get the blood flowing again after having cramped all muscles for so long.

"So what about you?" I said, breaking the comfortable silence. "I've been doing all the talking tonight. Thank you for listening, I really needed it. But don't you have anything to say? Something that would make my embarrassment at pouring my heart out a bit smaller."

He smiled, and moved the cup to his mouth, just smelling the contents, looking thoughtful for a moment. "All I can offer in that area is our breakup, and you know all about that."

"Not all of it," I said. "Just my side."

He shrugged and moved the warm cup in his hands. "Isn't that the same thing? It was bound to happen, right?"

"I suppose. We grew apart, as they say. But not that much. It had just become apparent that we needed to do something to stay together. And we wanted to, right? Both of us did."

He nodded slowly. "We didn't do much together. It wouldn't have been too hard to change that."

"But then Skids suddenly decided he didn't want to wait for The One to sweep him off his feet anymore," I said, finding that my voice contained less bitterness and more wistfulness that I had expected. "He just… radically changed my days in a period where they were getting stale. I didn't even realize that he was courting me; he was just being more intensively friendly than before. More focused. Less Skids, really. Did you notice it before me?"

"I didn't," Mik admitted. "But Torres did. He was the one who made me aware of it. I had just noticed that you were happier, which cheered me up."

"Cy noticed?" I said incredulously. "Well, I guess we did more stuff without him, but…"

"He was in love with Skids."

"What?" The contents of my cup jumped, spilling a few hot drops over my hand. I put the cup on the counter and wiped my hand before turning back to him again. "But how did you know that."

"By accident," he shrugged. "But he was more intensely aware of Skids' state than I was of your then. Because I took you for granted, while he was in love and pining. I think I envied him that."

"Wow…," I said, considering it. "After Skids and I got together officially, Cyanide avoided me. When I finally confronted him, he basically told me to fuck off and never talk to him again. He hated me. I thought he felt that he became the third wheel all of a sudden, and that that was why he… Shit, I guess I never saw it, he was always so insistent on being the straight one. Like he tried to avoid the whole stereotype that says having a gay friend makes you less of a man yourself."

I fell silent, until he returned to the subject: "So when you left, I was devastated. I still loved you, and it was the second time I had a breakup with… unresolved issues."

His tone was neutral, and I winced at the indirect comparison of me and Tybalt. That was certainly a position I had never imagined myself in.

"But bygones are bygones, right?" I said. He seemed to be lost in thought, and didn't answer. Then he slowly put his untouched cup on top of the fridge, and then looked at me, straight at me, holding my eyes. I squirmed a little under the intense scrutiny, but at the same time it spoke to my more primal parts, reminding me that every one-night-stand I had tried to achieve to keep physical needs from boosting other problems, had failed, for so many reasons, one of which was in this kitchen…

"So…" I started, preparing a babble about how I had kept him all night and he probably needed to sleep and I had to pack and get ready – when he was suddenly a lot closer, one warm hand holding my upper arm just where the sleeve of the t-shirt ended, the other lifting my face and…

I froze, my whole body going rigid at the touch of his lips. Gentle pressure, soft and intense, chaste and infinitely passionate, he kissed me, and I closed my eyes, wondering when I'd wake up from the dream this time. But this wasn't like those countless dreams where I was back in the safety of his world, our world. Those dreams had seemed disturbingly real, while this, reality, was much… too… unbelievable…

When he lifted his lips away, I was gasping for breath. I backed away the minute space between me and the bench, trying to stop from shaking.

"Why?" I finally managed. His hands hadn't left me, and I kept looking up at him. I wanted to move away, but his light grip was as efficient as any chains, making me stay just because I wanted the touch.

"Because of what we had once," he whispered. "And because pain ends somewhere."

Whatever sense those words made to me then became unimportant as he kissed me again. And this time I moved into his touch, clinging onto him like I had done all evening, offering him the last of my caution and fright to take it away from me.

And he took it.