Summary: Weird. 1x2x1.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, don't have it. Don't sue, you won't get anything. Hear that, Bandai?

-

the world became light

-

When you walk down the street, you don't ask to hold his hand. He still doesn't like casual touches, and you figure that he has given enough concessions already, so you don't press.

Everything is like this. You want more, always more, and you don't try to get it because you look back and think, he's come far enough. Let him do as he wants. He'll come through eventually, and you want to be waiting.

It's just that the holding hands, or lack thereof, is so very much a shame. Hands are formed to fit together. Palms together. Thumb here. Clasp your fingers so. Like a lock and key meant to happen, but he doesn't like to be touched yet, and you can wait.

It's been six years.

You think that the waiting is killing you.

-

Sometimes, at night, he reaches. Just reaches – not for you, nor anything. You think maybe if his hand touched a corpse he would do the same thing.

You think, a necrophiliac is my lover.

That makes you a corpse.

You want to stop thinking.

-

Once, a long time ago, you tried to hold him. You stretched your arm, straightened your fingers, and he snatched them and twisted. He said, "I don't like casual touches. They make me feel cheap."

At that time, you remember such a wave of regret, and sympathy, and understanding. You remember vowing to never use him. You never would. You never will.

But you think, you didn't understand then. How it was to feel used, that is.

It must be somewhere, tangible, and you know you have found it here: in the smirk he gives you over the couch and the broom closet and Quatre and Trowa's bed, and then the morning when touching is cheap.

You understand.

It makes it harder to forgive.

-

Every once in a while, there is ecstasy. You'll be lying in bed, as close as you dare, with his hair tickling your forehead and his breath against yours.

You'll stretch – neck, back, arms, legs – the arches of your feet that feel of passion and sex.

He'll wake up, slow misting lust in his eyes, and when you come you'll scream his name and God!, inexorably twined, and he'll fall asleep against you, and you'll feel the murmur of his lips form your name.

Three letters, two syllables.

That's ecstasy. You love it.

You love him. Even though he's killing you, you love him.

It's not enough.

You cannot live for a moment of rapture.

-

You don't eat together anymore. At first, you forced him to sit down every morning and eat breakfast with you. You'd chatter, pick up the paper, point out various things and joke about how it's only when you don't make the news that the two of you are safe. Jokes about normalcy. How very plebian it is to sit down and eat breakfast – toast, eggs, oily breakfast food he hates – with your lover.

You don't know when he stopped staying to eat breakfast, or when you stopped making him.

He wakes up first, showers, leaves for work.

You wake up later to a cold bed of unwanted light. You eat your greasy food and go to work after him.

Anyone who didn't know you would think you didn't even know each other very well. Even those that know you aren't sure of what your relationship is.

You can tell them.

You'd say,

It's all very simple. I love him, I adore him, he is my God. And he uses me. Uses me over and over and over and sometimes I think he doesn't know any other way to love, and I'm so sorry, but I can't forgive him anymore.

You've stopped forgiving.

-

There's so much anger in his eyes when you come in and change the channel. It's abrupt.

You think, has it come to this? Where we hate each other for the trivial things that make up life? You wonder, is it worth it? Is it worth it to break up years of work over a remote control?

You let him have the television. You don't need to watch your show. You need him.

It's desperation.

But even a drug addict can free himself, and you –

You are in chains.

-

You come home early, make dinner. It's your turn, so you stick a chicken in the microwave and put on some canned soup. When it's his turn he makes rice and miso. It's predictable. Too predictable.

You eat first. His food goes in the oven.

You sleep.

You never find out whether he actually eats what you make, or whether he throws it out and makes 'proper food', as he used to say. You eat every bite of his. It's almost like having him there to think that his hands touched the ingredients and some measure of thought went into the process.

It's sad, you think, that you have to rely on food and your imagination to find your lover who sleeps beside you, with you, in your bed at night, and light cold and empty in the morning.

You put his food in the oven. Take out his gun.

-

This is when and how and why and where you fell in love with him.

Once, eons ago, you were in a box. Not a room, a box. Blackness and dried blood – your own – and the stench of human all around you. You remember this: all this pain and haziness, and not being sure if they had blinded you because you couldn't see anything in the dark anyway.

You remember the door blasting open.

You remember thinking: Hell, if this is how they're killing me, they've got style.

You remember the first thing that hit you wasn't the gun in his hands, but the eyes deep electrifying blue behind it. You realized you weren't blind, because slowly the rest of the world filled in, like a child coloring his book slowly, and the world became light.

-

words: 1000

10:43 PM

15-10-04

lokogato enterprises ltd.

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Huzza! Life goal! Exactly 1000 words. ::is inordinately smug::

And as for the fic, well. It's odd. The entire thing was crafted around the title line, if 'crafted' is even the word to describe it … the first few sections were written alternately in algebra and English classes. Sad, yet true. It is probably why I lost eight points on my last math test.

So … did you all like it? Was it too short? Too vague? Pathetically poor writing? Please tell me. REVIEW! The button's right there so please click it!

REVIEW if you hated it! REVIEW if you liked it! REVIEW if you want to drown it!

Please?

loko