A/N: Yeah awesome. Here's part two. This was kind of an old oneshot I had running but I decided to finish it to fit this theme (I have hundreds of WIPs I will probably try to finish and stick into this). So yeah. Have some angst. Enjoy. (Also, sorry for the re-upload, there was a typo I just couldn't leave.)


-- 002: Staig - "Holding" --


Sometimes I still smell you, and I think about the little things that we did together that always meant nothing at the time.

I think you clipped the nail on my pinky finger once. You criticized me for having a crack nail and I just laughed at you. You'd think someone would forget something so stupid, but it's those little things that I remember the best.

I think that, maybe, I should have paid more attention. Like, it's completely numbing without you here. Actually, it's like barely being here at all. I co-exist with the world, as much of a soul as you are now. I think about you a lot - no, I'm always thinking about you. Your scent still lingers on your side of the bed that I try to avoid sleeping on for fear my own might diminish it, and your clothes still lay in their pile on the floor from last Friday when you left, and I try to tell myself that soon I'll wake up and it'll be all over and I won't have to worry about what side of the bed I sleep on anymore because you'll always take up the other side I'm considering taking for my own.

I'm unhealthy. You were my life force. I haven't been into work. Actually, I haven't left the apartment at all. I pace through the kitchen two times a day considering a meal but give up after when the nausea from your absence returns when I accidentally set the table for two by some pipe dream that you might stop by for dinner or something like that.

Do ghosts even eat?

When you told me you liked shit boring I never imagined you could actually get bored of living. There's still some crime scene tape stuck to the sofa but I refuse to touch it; it's presence alone lingers like a poisonous reminder that you're dead and it keeps me in line when I try not to blame myself. Maybe I could have paid more attention - no, I should have paid more attention. I had to. If I had, I might have acknowledged your underlying depression better. Or maybe I was just in denial about it the whole time.

When I wander the house, I pick up and put down little things that make everything seem vague. It's almost like you were never here some days, and it's like I'm crying over nothing. The dog hates me because I won't play with her and she is about as miserable as me without you. Sometimes we come together in our mourning - she'll curl up with me in our bed while I cry about you and she nudges your pillow with her nose and whimpers. I have to say I have to pity her more because she was home when you...

Well, you know what you did.

I remember once Kenny was telling me about hell. He told me that the suicides went there and had no escorts for exactly that reason - they knew what they did. They knew where they were going and there shouldn't have been any surprise at all to them when they got there.

I wonder if you were surprised. I wonder if you were still holding on to a bit of life when you got there, and I wonder if you thought maybe you'd made a mistake. I wonder if you thought of me, of our dog, of our home and of our future. Not me - it's never about me. It's about us, Craig. It's always been about us. We were rivals in grade school, we were rivals on the football team in our freshman year and we were lovers since your eighteenth birthday when we did it in the back of your dad's van. We own our little vet clinic in Colorado Springs.

We. Us. You and me. Together. Forever. You know?

It's probably going to be madman's speak to anyone who reads this, but it doesn't matter. See, we do do everything together, and I guess that's why I asked Kyle to take care of our dog this morning. He'll take good care of her, and he kind of understands, I guess. Not about what you did, or what I'm going to do, but he understands that I can't have her suffer at the moment I do this like she had to when you left.

Well, it's my turn now. I'm coming after you. We'll be together, and maybe I'll understand from your point of view what happened. I'll take the place on the chair in the living room, and I'll put my head in your body. I'll feel that rope around my throat and I'll stand in your position. I'll feel that I have nothing to lose, because the most important thing to me is already lost. It's only been a few days, and I'm already tired of it being just me.

It can't just be me.

It'll never just be me.

It has to be us.