Vignette. 497 words.
(three last cheers for the departed)
They
raise their glasses to the very end.
Vague
WolfwoodxMidvalley.
Rated:
K
"You know," he said. "You're never coming back."
Wolfwood shrugged, taking a long drag off his cigarette. His face was weathered, a mocha kind of tan having set in around the creases, and his shirt collar was loose and hanging open like he hadn't straightened himself out in days, showing the stretches of dark skin between the black suit and his neckline. The terrorist priest was in for the plunge. A black lung wouldn't matter to him now. And he supposed it wouldn't matter much now either if the orphans in December starved to death, after all. This was the final mission, the one you didn't get called back from once you were sent out. "The finale," Midvalley would say. "The closing act of the grand performance, on the greatest stage of all."
He hadn't even phrased it like a question. 'You're never coming back.' It wasn't worth skirting around it, avoiding the inevitable. What was the use of playing secrets at the last goodbye? They were too old, had lived too much and killed too many to be such cowards now, looking in on the face of death.
Facing farewell and death should not have been so hard to do.
"We've said goodbye before, a hundred times," he spoke, languidly around his cigarette, if only to remind him. "We always thought it'd be the last goodbye, and it never was. I'm not ready to die yet."
Midvalley's lips seemed to turn down a little at the corners as he fondled his drink, still nearly untouched, which was a rarity for the musician, passing it nervously from hand to hand.
"Promise me," he said, quietly, in a gravelly, desperate voice that Wolfwood didn't particularly like. It sounded rough-- rougher than Midvalley. Toughened by unshed tears. He said, "Promise me. Promise me you won't give up that easy."
Quickly, he added, "There's still time to run. I'd lie for you. . .to Legato. . .to Kni--"
Wolfwood held up a hand, and the musician stopped.
Under his breath, he mumbled, "Do you think I want to give him up? To that Monster?"
His head was bent, sweeping the dark hair over his eyes, and the Hornfreak knew to say nothing.
The dark-haired assassin swung his legs back in his seat, tossing his cigarette to one side of his mouth as he gulped down a shot of whiskey. His lips crackled with ash and wetness, burning in the half-light under Midvalley's watchful gaze. He was drinking in everything. Eyes like a black hole, framed with the lines of early aging-- absorbing and engorging everything about the man who was waltzing into his grave at the break of dawn, not three hours until. Wolfwood laughed, lowly and genuinely.
"This really is the worst place in the world," He said, smiling.
They clinked glasses to that, and raised their hands to toast the last goodbye.
exeunt.