sweetheart always had a morbid curiosity about death. it was something you experienced only once, something so tailored to the individual. they were fascinated and often wondered what one thinks about in their final moments. as they laid on the ground, staring at the sky, a quick breeze came by, shaking the trees above and sending stray leaves falling by their head. they didn’t notice. birds chirped all around them, and while their songs were loud, echoing through the forest, they didn’t muffle out the frantic footsteps running in the other direction, away from them. the ground under sweetheart felt wet. a white hot pain filled their chest. their body was confused, frantically cloaking then uncloacking. both their literal and supernatural core were on fire. and while the world was spinning around them with so many sounds, a red stain slowly growing larger through their department uniform shirt, they didn’t notice any of it. their mind thought of one thing and one thing only, their kitchen cabinets.
when milo and sweetheart first bought their house, the kitchen cabinets were the first thing they planned to fix. there was nothing inherently wrong with them, they were standard gray cabinets with brass handles, they served their purpose. but they were the same style cabinets milo and sweetheart had in their old apartment, and while it seemed like a small thing, this wasn’t an apartment anymore. it was a house. it was their house. they could do and change whatever they wanted. so instead of tackling the overgrown backyard or faulty plumbing in the guest bathroom, they settled for something more manageable, more sentimental to them as their first home project, redoing their kitchen cabinets.
milo, always the man with a plan, already made the list of supplies they’d need for their DIY cabinet renovation. most items on the list were already checked off. they had the paint and the primer and everything they needed to sand and gloss the cabinets. all they needed to do was find the time to go to the hardware store and pick out the new handles. that was the final check mark on their list. after that, they were set to paint their kitchen cabinets the color they wanted with the handles they chose. it was one step closer to making their house truly theirs.
today was the day they were supposed to get it done. it was a beautiful, hot summer day, both milo and sweetheart were off work and planned to take full advantage of it. they had a relaxing morning, laying in bed longer than they should, playing with aggro longer than they should, bickering over whether to make breakfast or pick something up on the way into town. it was turning out to be a shockingly relaxing weekend.
as sweetheart and milo were getting ready to leave for the hardware store, both their phone’s rang. asher called milo, telling him to come over to david’s for a backyard bbq, one milo asked if david had any idea was happening. asher snickered in response which meant he did not. the department called sweetheart, telling them they needed to come in quickly and that they would be sent thirty minutes out of dahlia to be on scene for an arrest.
it didn’t surprise sweetheart to be called in today, a work life balance with the department was a fictitious thing. what did surprise them was milo’s reaction. when they fought, which was pretty rare, it could be traced back to one of two things; money or the department. he was sick of the department taking advantage of sweetheart’s good nature and passion for their job. sometimes, this frustration felt more directed at sweetheart than at the department. sweetheart knew it, they were basically a doormat for their supervisors and no more than a number to the department, but that didn't stop it from stinging when milo would point it out. much to his disdain, sweetheart changed into their uniform. they promised when this was over they’d get the cabinet handles and continue on with their weekend as planned. but milo was so fed up with everything he just huffed and grabbed his keys, muttering strings of “whatever's” and “it’s fine”. in the car on the way to the scene, sweetheart sent milo a stream of texts apologizing for ruining their weekend plans and promising to make it up to him somehow. they didn’t receive a response but saw he read the messages.
sweetheart wondered what would happen if they didn’t come in today. if they’d listened to milo and just told the department no. it was their weekend, one they wanted to spend with their partner and their friends. but because sweetheart couldn’t say no, they were instead here. alone on the ground in the woods, an hour from home, in a pool of their own blood, thinking about cabinets.
what sweetheart hated more than fighting with milo was when they left fights unresolved. when fights went unresolved, sweetheart would spend every second of every hour replaying it in their mind. they would over analyze every word, every expression, every little moment. it was just how their brain worked. going into this job was no different. their attention was on one thing and one thing only, even though they were briefed on the drive over about the case details and what to expect, its fair to say their mind was just somewhere else.
and while they were replaying milo walking out of the house as they were walking further into the woods to the location the department told them to go, all they could think of was where he was going. what he was feeling. they didn’t hear the footsteps creeping behind them. they didn’t hear the rustle of clothes. they didn’t hear the gun cock. they missed all the signs and didn’t cloak. and in the blink of an eye, they were on the ground. it all happened so fast.
too stunned to speak, sweetheart felt their body go into overdrive. their stealth nature tried to hide them but it was too late. a puddle was growing underneath them. they didn’t scream. they were going into shock, and all they could do was think of the stupid cabinets. all they could do was think of milo, angry at them for taking this call. to think of milo, wherever he was. to think of milo, going back to an empty house. and how he’d probably be going back to an empty house everyday after today.
as the trees above began to grow blurry and the sound of the birds grew more distant, sweetheart didn’t know what hurt worse, the bullet hole in their chest or the fact that, if this is really it for them, they’d never see what would become of those cabinets. that they’d stay dull and gray, never to be changed, never to be truly theirs.
