Work Text:
He sees her in sunsets. In the hues of a day melting across the skyline. Reds and oranges and yellows and all the colours he never took time to notice before her.
And she’s in the morning’s sunrise against his cup of coffee. Sleepy blues and pinks of promise, steam diffusing over the rim of his mug.
He finds her in bookshops; where he fights down residual embarrassment about soulmates and colours. In airports; when his eyes land on clear packaged snacks tied with looped ribbon. In wine stores; where he still habitually seeks out her favourite drops.
She’s clear on the page of letters he still sometimes gets, words of gratitude and hope from survivors.
Despite the days and distance between them, she never stopped glowing bright and vibrant in his memory, in his heart.
Until Wheatley, until standing in the courtroom with her not behind his shoulder. Until five words burned charred black into his psyche. Words he’ll carry forever. “I feel betrayed by you.”
Now he sees her in greys.
In the roiling clouds that threaten to unleash a reckoning. In the lonely man sat slumped across the bar. In the dark empty stillness of his home.
The colours are lost. The glimmer she brought to his world now dimmed. And he faces once more into the dark night, alone but for the red hot sting of his betrayal on her tongue.