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“I’m back,” Chosen called as he strode into the house with grocery bags in hands, setting them on the kitchen island and putting them away. The house didn’t buzz with the sound of Dark tinkering with her projects in her room like most days, but he could hear the television was on. He couldn’t catch a glance of her from the kitchen.
“Did you get the parts I asked for?” Dark asked from the living room.
“Yeah, it’s on the counter.”
“Good, now get over here. You were gone too long.”
Chosen let out a small chuckle to himself. “You can live going thirty minutes without me in the house,” he said, deciding the groceries could be put away later as he grabbed a soda can from the fridge and brought it with him to the living room. He opened it as he found Dark sprawled on the couch, her attention drawn to her phone instead of the scene on the television. So much for whining about being out so long. He took a sip of his drink as he dropped himself onto the couch next to her.
Dark snapped up to him. “Hey, is that the last of the orange soda?!” she asked.
“If it is?” He grinned as he reached for the remote on the coffee table and propped his legs up on it, taking another sip of the soda.
“Dude! I told you to save that for me!” she exclaimed, grabbing him by his jaw and pulling him into an abrupt kiss, prying his lips apart and taking the drink from his mouth. Chosen didn’t stop her, his face flushed too warm to do so, anyway. The force in her fingers curled around his jaw and the pressure of her lips against his lingered on his skin and his lips despite her already breaking the kiss. She took the can from his hand and chugged a generous amount. “You can’t get all flustered like that after thinking you can finish my favorite drink.”
When he returned to himself, Chosen glared at her from the corner of his eye and grabbed the drink—not without a surprised, “hey!”—from Dark, setting it down on the coffee table before leaning forward for another bruising kiss. Dark was caught off guard but grinned against him and easily melted into it a beat later. Her hands found their way to his body, as if he were magnetic, wrapping around his neck as he leaned further forward until she laid against a pillow at the armrest of the couch. His hand was planted on the couch beside her head and the other came up to cradle her head, fingers tangling in the strands of her hair.
They fell into that well-familiar pattern—lips moving against each other, kissing and biting with enough pressure to bruise; teeth, tongue, and all, bodies pressing impossibly close, and hands scrambling for a hold on each other. It had been a practice done countless times now, but the heat in his face, the cocktail of some twisted love, craving, and desire churning in his stomach never failed to prove intoxicating to him.
In a way, she was really like a drug; terrible for the detrimental side effects but impossibly addicting. He should hate it. He should really stop, but the rush of adrenaline and the feeling of her touch crawling up and down his body made his head spin in just the way he loved.
It wasn’t really like he had a choice either way. Dark—her herself, being in her presence, being held in her arms, absorbing the warmth of licking flames and debris all around them—felt so freeing and exhilarating, and that’s all Chosen had ever wanted since the day he was created. He needed that feeling—the rush of her, the desire, the need for her in his veins. Otherwise he would be trapped in the reoccurring nightmares and his past crawling up on him and he would be completely lost, meaningless in a foreign world.
They parted for only a moment, just to catch their breath—breathing in each other’s proximity before Dark sat up and pushed him against the back of couch, her legs on either side of his thighs. Grasping his shoulders, she pulled him into another messy and hard kiss. An arm slung around his neck and the other buried fingers into his hair, scratching at his scalp and drawing a quiet noise from him as she tugged hard. Chosen planted a hand firm at her hip and another snaked up underneath her pajama shirt, her skin warmer than usual under his hand.
Chosen hated those two feelings. More than he hated feeling trapped, he hated feeling meaningless. Because at least then, he had a purpose. He had labour to do. Even if exhausting and taxing on him physically, emotionally, and all the ways, at least he had something to do. Even if it was horrible and he would rather die than relieve it and he’d never wish it upon his worst enemies, at least somebody needed him for something at all. And if he were to be a meaningless stick drifting through the internet, he would be worse off than he was in the first four years of his life.
(But how would he feel the numbing dread bubbling up in his stomach at the thought of that, when he has never experienced that? How would he know that familiar feeling of meaningless? When he means to the world to Dark and she means the world to him? When he could have everything and anything with her, live a life free of care and tireless, endless work with her? When he has her to live and thrive for?
How would he find meaningless familiar, when he has always had a purpose?)
Huh. Odd.
When Dark broke the kiss, they were panting in each other’s breath with their faces hardly an inch apart. She was still grinning with her sharp canines, hair rustled up where Chosen’s hands had buried themselves within. Her flush was nearly impossible to spot, but with the minimal distance between their faces and the countless amount of times he had admired her face, he could notice the tint spreading across her cheeks.
“Spacing out mid-make out? What, are you bored of me now?” she teased. The question was delivered like a humored poke at him, but he understood underneath that thin layer, she was genuine.
“No, just thinking,” he chuckled, a half-assed answer that he hoped she wouldn’t pry further at. He didn’t feel like talking about it now, instead raising a hand to smooth out her hair. “But what happened to the movie you were watching?”
“Mmh, just some corny, lovey-dovey shit. It’s boring.”
“Oh, like what we’re doing isn’t ‘lovey-dovey’?”
“Nah,” she smiled, “but I think I found something more fun to do,” she purred, sliding off of him, Chosen raising an eyebrow. “Or, someone more fun to do.”
Chosen’s face warmed up further. He smirked, taking Dark’s hand and letting her drag him with as she made her way upstairs to their bedroom. Except that when he crossed the doorframe and shut the door behind him, pulling Dark in and spinning them around to pin her against the door, he found himself staring at an opening in the forest.
Blinking confusedly, he looked around. Dark was nowhere to be seen, just the familiar open expanse of grass and trees in the immediate area around their house. He really could have sworn he was just…
“Cho!” Dark called, the grin apparent in her voice. She slapped him firmly on the back as she landed beside him. Chosen turned to her, nothing but cluelessness in his expression. “Thought you were going out stargazing? What are you doing?”
“I— weren’t we just…” he started to say, glancing at their house once and returning his attention to her. She raised an eyebrow. He opened and closed his mouth multiple times and failed to say anything each time.
…Maybe he’s just sleep deprived, or something. His memories can act up sometimes. But he truly has no recall on how he had gotten here, in the grass, staring at the forest when he swore he was just with Dark in the house. Something like that had never happened to him before.
“You’re acting weird, man,” she just said, pulling him from his thoughts, “come on.” She took his hand in hers again, lacing their fingers together and blasting them up into the air to sit on the roof. Chosen just stared at her, still trying to comprehend how he got from their bedroom to here. Dark just leaned back, grabbing a small pack of beef jerky—her favorite snack—from her pocket and tearing it open, popping a piece into her mouth.
“You okay, Cho?” she asked, turning her attention to him.
“Uh…” Well, whatever happened, now he’s here, stargazing with Dark. Which… “yeah, but how come you’re up here with me?” Dark had joined him up here in the quiet nights no more than ten times because she would always argue it was always mind-numbingly boring. Chosen had to drag her with him twice. In any case, it’s not in character for her to willingly join him.
“Couldn’t sleep. Can’t work on the project without the parts I need either, so joining you is the only other appealing thing to do right now.” She chewed on another piece of her snack.
Chosen hummed, turning his head away. He looked at the opening in the forest where he was earlier, recalling when he had burned a parting in the sea of trees with his lasers when he was sparring once with Dark. The memory amused him as he crossed his legs which dangled off the gutters, staring at the dark night sky streaked with light clouds, hiding away the view of the sky grid. The nighttime breeze was cool, brushing past his skin.
“Cho,” Dark called. Chosen mumbled a reply under his breath, just audible enough for her to know he was listening as he watched the deep green treetops in the distance sway with the wind’s kind, gentle breath. “You know you can’t keep doing this forever,” she said lowly.
Chosen’s attention returned to her fully. “Doing what?”
“You know.” Dark’s tone was firmer.
He just blinked. He tried to recall any clue for what Dark was trying to get at, but came up short. “I really don’t,” he let out a single laugh to ease the tense between them—or maybe just for himself—but it didn’t land. “Like, stop this stargazing stuff? Sleeping on the floor? What?” Dark sounded like she was talking about something serious, and Chosen wasn’t confident in his guesses, as they were more pet peeves that Dark occasionally scolded him about lightheartedly.
“You can’t keep pretending like I’m your entire purpose,” she said.
The words hit him as though she had punched him in the gut as hard as she could, and then some. Chosen sat upright. “What do you mean by that?” he asked, more perplexed than he just was earlier that night. He didn’t have the first clue about why it hit him so hard, but it had.
“Go do something, Chosen,” the dark-haired stick stiffened, “go do something for yourself for once.” She stared at him deeply. Not quite glaring at him, but definitely not glancing at him affectionately. Like she had opened a window to his soul in his eyes and spoke directly to it. “You can’t keep doing things for me now, I’m not here.”
Chosen’s throat started to close up on him. “But— you are..?” She was sitting right beside him. He could reach out to her and touch her—steal the snack from her hands, cup her cheeks, tangle his hand in her hair, or kiss her. He wanted to. He wanted to move to her and just graze her skin with his touch, but he only found himself stuck. And it made him want to touch her even more. Just to prove she’s right here, in his reach, present with him. When he couldn’t, it made his heart rate pick up. All he could do was stare at her, confused and upset.
“Stop hiding behind the lies you’re making for yourself.”
But why? He wanted to say, but his voice failed him. He curled his hands into fists, frustration bubbling up inside him. Every time, when he needed it most, he couldn’t even get his voice to cooperate—even in his dreams.
—Wait.
“You can’t, Chosen.”
Dreams?
“Because you’re alive, and I’m not.”
Chosen so much as blinked and he was no longer staring at Dark, who stared right back at him with attentive concern. Instead, his gaze had found his ceiling. The frustration, panic, and utter confusion had all dissolved and blurred into that familiar mind-numbing dread.
… Right.
The cool night breeze no longer carded through his hair, tickling his nape, nor did the light from the water bask Dark in a soft blue glow that contrasted the color of her features in the most wonderful way that embers and fire could never. Because they were not sitting up on their roof in the cloudy night, nor was Dark here to glow in that lovely light.
The despair joined in the dread weighing his heart down, pressing in on him. He turned his head enough to steal a glance at their window, the curtains half-drawn. It was night again, cursors knew what time. With the heavy ache that curled tight around his whole being, he managed to sit up and get out of bed. He had no resemblance of a sleep schedule now, nor did he care. He didn’t care about many things now, actually. Essentially nothing at all now. He doesn’t remember the last time he had eaten—he doesn’t need to, anyway, and he had gotten used to the pit in his stomach calling for food, he doesn’t remember the last time he had stepped outside of bed, he doesn’t even know the current date.
The house was still and silent, his heavy footfall the only sound in the house. The television wasn’t on, Dark’s room wasn’t filled with the tinkering of tools and the tapping at her keyboard. The television would likely never be on again, nor would any sound of life come from Dark’s room again. The house was stripped of color and any light as well, as if the life within it was taken away entirely with Dark, and Chosen couldn’t replace its presence.
Or maybe he could, but he was hardly alive. It felt like that, at least.
His steps brought him up to the roof. He walked to the edge and sat down in the same spot as he did in his dream, quietly as ever. He eyed the forest opening like he did in his dream, and the memory didn’t serve him amusement—just worsened the ache. His eyes found the water, the surface looking almost milky from the reflection of the clouds that hung above, hiding the sky grid away. Even the breeze seemed to hold its breath around him.
The night was perfectly the same as it was in his dream. Except it wasn’t. Because the treetops no longer looked a deep green, nor the clouds a comforting presence in the sky. It was as if the world had stripped the color from the world in his eyes as well, not just their home.
Was it still home without Dark?
Did he have anything without Dark?
Maybe that’s what she was trying to get at in his dream, saying he doesn’t do anything for himself.
He should. He still won’t. Not when he could lay down here, his back against the solid panels of their rooftop. This felt much easier. This felt like the next best thing for him, even though it still didn’t feel great. Because Dark wasn’t here. She wasn’t here to scold him for sleeping on something hard.
She wasn’t here to stop him from going back to sleep, either.