Disclaimer; If you actually believe that the characters belong to me I don't want to shatter your illusions.

Prologue 2 - A Love Without Warmth

"I'm sorry," he said impotently sitting on the stairs and facing the front door. He seemed so sad in the end, nothing like how he had been before.

"I've packed my things" said the red head, shifting the packet of frozen peas on his swollen face. "I his them in the cupboard." He was staring at the kitchen door. The other man, the brunette, could not see his face from the stairs.

"I'm so sorry" he repeated. Too tired from his earlier outburst to say much in his own defence.

"You keep saying that." He wanted to get up and leave. He wanted to end it. But he had been hit pretty hard and his head was still reeling.

"I am sorry. Please don't go," he was begging now.
"And what stay until one of us is dead?" joked the red head humourlessly.

"I love you."

Silence.

"I said I love you," the brunette just above whispered.

For a moment the red head was afraid that things would become violent again. He knew that things had a way of escalating between them, that few things had to be said to provoke a fight.

"No you don't" he said gently. "What you do isn't love."

"I know I've messed things up. But things weren't always like this. I helped you, remember? I took you in when you had no where else to go."

"And I'm supposed to be grateful." It wasn't a question. He was tired. Tired and Dizzy.

"Why shouldn't you?" the brunette almost shouted.

"I've more than paid you back for that by now."

"You little whore. Is that what this was about? Paying me back?" he had stood up during his tirade.

"It doesn't matter anyway" He felt empty.

"You never loved me?" sadness.

"You never loved me." avoidance.

"You never loved me." acceptance.

The brunette sat back down and the silence engulfed them again.

"Where will you go?"

"It's best that you don't know."

"I never meant those things I said earlier…"

"I know." It didn't matter anymore anyway.

"I loved you." They were going in circles, "I really did. I mean in the beginning. But I did. I don't know what changed. What made me want to hurt you."

The red head got up slightly wobbly on his feet, "S'ok I'm sure it was my fault as well."

It didn't take him long to get all of his luggage together. "Goodbye." he whispered as he left the house for the last time.

The moment that Tala was down the road he doubled his pace his face contorting angrily as he remembered the pain in his head. Boris was dead, Boris was so dead. How dare they send him into that psycho's house for a year! What were they thinking? The information he got wasn't even good enough to merit that kind of time frame.

Maybe it was punishment. He flicked out his mobile and retrieved a number from the address book.

"Joey's Pizza" a voice on the other side answered.

"I'll be at the extraction point in ten." Tala ordered and hung up. Why did he always end up with the psycho's?