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The first time was not an adrenaline-fueled rush of skin meeting skin, teeth clashing, hands grasping and taking and pulling. Chests were not heaving, minds were not ships on stormy seas, rolling upwards to a crest and breaking only to plunge down into green depths.
The first time was a hush, blooming like milk in tea, two things shifting quietly and completely into each other. Breath was not forced violently into and out of lungs but forgotten, and chests did not heave but stilled, full and heavy and warm. When breath was remembered it was shared, passing from lips to lips like an offering. Hands did not demand; they asked permission, and only when granted began to seek, to quest, gentle and in awe.
The morning light was witness. Minds still foggy from sleep, hair mussed and feet shuffling, warm light which so rarely graced London streets had poured in through windows like a benediction, dust motes dancing lazily, golden ships sailing through still air.
On this morning, which began like any other with an offer of tea, a simple, verbal thank you had no longer seemed enough.
It had been lifetimes since then.
Now cool, muted light seeped through the flat windows, the reflection of the rain drops on the panes distorting into fantastic shapes over the battered wooden floor, the threadbare carpet, a worn blue couch, and a figure in repose, fingers steepled, eyes shut and brow furrowed in deep thought. Thunder rumbled gentle in the distance, answered by the sharp staccato tympanizing of fingers on old fabric. Eyes opened to a familiar sight, one that he had clung to desperately on nights when he had nothing else but this. He had always pictured a warm, golden glow, the noise of street traffic a gentle background music, mixing seamlessly with the off-key humming of a man cooking. He had imagined the feeling of a hot mug between his cold fingers, steam rising in smooth curlicues to mix with his breath. Warm lips on his. He tried to recall that feeling now, the one which had kept him going through blood and pain, the one which filled his chest and weighed him down more than food ever could, the one that had told him to harm, to kill, so that another would not be harmed, killed.
Only a vague remembrance of that feeling remained, utterly eclipsed by another; if asked, he would describe them both exactly the same, the weight, the urge to do harm, but this was so far removed from the other he was unable to articulate exactly how.
Tears were there in those eyes, tears that would not fall, but the rain did the job for them. Distorted shadows ran down the pale skin, down the dressing gown that had far too many holes, to the carpet, where they continued on, running quickly, now slowly, towards the prone figure in the plaid chair. The movement gave the illusion of movement, and for one lonely, impossibly long and never long enough second, he allowed himself to see a mouth pulling in air, gently, as though asleep; a chest rising and falling steadily with each breath; veins pumping blood to extremities and back again. These things he had loved, taken for granted, appreciated with every thing he had, every nerve and synapse and molecule; these fibers of his that were so intrinsically connected to those of another.
Belatedly he recalled breathing; his lungs refused the orders of his brain and kept heaving, the stupid things. He breathed in the smell of home; clean laundry and gun powder and takeout and warmth and light, home.
He stood then, thankful for the unconscious working brain, storing muscle memory in long limbs, because surely otherwise he would not move. Quiet steps muffled on old carpet; an acid stain, indents of long gone furniture, a spot favored by a previous owner’s dog; these were things his brain knew, saw, deduced, had once teased apart into stories, into lives; no longer.
He knelt, pale hand ghosting a hair’s breadth above unmoving skin, unwilling to let go of the illusion, willing his brain into delusion. They stopped, those spidery digits, over pale mouth, still chest, inert veins, still hesitant.
They stopped finally over hands, hands clutched together in a silent prayer, hands that had gripped him tight and raised him from his own hell, hands that had forced life and warmth into his body, hands that he had never expected or wanted or known he’d needed so badly until they were gone.
Warm flesh, one small finger tip, pressed into cold, turned a wrist and felt for life where there was none. Two small pills lay unassuming, cradled by lifeless flesh, an apology; an offer.
He had been gone for two years, eleven months, fourteen days, six hours and twelve minutes, and he was twelve minutes too late.