zzz

You’re dressed casually: sweats and a shirt that’s tighter than your clinical kitchen jacket. Like a never ending hug, it tightly clasps the muscle forced upon you by the Execution programme. You should feel cold. You are cold, but the surge and flush in adrenaline is something that melts your stone heart and body. In your haste to leave at your colleague’s proclamation of an emergency, it seems you forgot your jacket. 

Fatigue eludes you – your breathing is controlled as ever. 

Let’s face it – if it weren’t for your shifting galaxy, you would’ve stayed in bed this morning. 

This is all his fault. 

You’re not sure what you’re doing here, having jogged to the diner getting heckled via landline by your coworker. Ordinarily, you wouldn’t have deigned to answer. After all, the day management of the place is left to your colleague, not you. 

“He’s asked for you specifically.”

You can hear the satisfied grin through the landline. When you press her for more details, she hangs up on you, and you’re left seething with an almost broken cord clenched tight in your fist. 

Who the hell is she talking about?

As far as you knew, the boss had gone and fucked off to somewhere in Scandinavia two years ago. Unless he’s hauled his geriatric ass back here, you sincerely doubt he’s the one requesting your presence. 

But if you’re being honest, you don’t mind this sudden disruption to your schedule. 

Like molasses, sleep would’ve pulled you under – sticky and sweet – for the rest of the day to escape your thoughts. That’s your daily routine: an endless struggle with your mind. 

With this, at least the war in your brain has stilled. It’s a dangerous calm, one that threatens to flow out of control at the slightest ripple. The waters are growing agitated – it’s only a matter of time before you’re pulled under. 

Make no mistake, you will be dragged to the depths eventually. That’s not something you, nor anyone, can prevent. Sleep cannot hope to fight it. You cannot hope to ever escape it. 

Your head aches. 

It’s freezing. You’re slowly becoming more frigid, and your hands are beginning to shake. It was a mistake, coming out here. You don’t know what’s caused the change. 

No, you do know. You just can’t bear to keep acknowledging the catalyst behind it. 

It’s not the run that’s winded you – your breath stops ragged as you fumble in your pockets for the Old Gold that should be there. That small, plastic-wrapped carton should be there, but your pockets are sorely empty. 

Shit, shit.  

Your ears are ringing. Just like the death knell ringing for your friends and subordinates, it keeps ringing and ringing and tolling and tolling. Those reverberations permeated through sinew, through flesh and vessel – only contributing to the staggering tremors attacking your palms. 

That alizarin blue is fading from your vision, and there’s nothing you can do. 

Numbness spreads awful quick through your extremities after all; it hurtles whip-fast through your spine, pressing you against icy, rough brick. 

“Ha,” your breath comes in the form of hoarse, faint heaving. 

You’re not sure what comes next. Once the star begins exploding, it’s eventually reduced to nothingness. It’s theorised that even its very atoms disintegrate eventually.

 What’s going on?

Why aren’t you disappearing like those husks of particles?

You– you’re an empty shell. 

What’s that infernal fire spreading through your arms?

“I’m sorry,” you whisper with the finality of resignation. You’re not falling anymore. You give up. 

“Hey, there’s nothing to be sorry for.”

He was nowhere mere moments ago – there was nothing but empty void on all sides. Not a star, not even a singular atom to initiate collision and the chain of energy. He’d been nowhere, but now he’s everywhere. 

That hushed cadence. Those warm palms. That tired look in his eyes, softening as you met his gaze. 

“You okay there?”

Mr Francis Mosses is closer to you than he’d ever been. Each callous on his hands you can feel pressed through your thin shirt, they burn against the permafrost of your skin. 

You’re too close. Those soot-black eyelashes – you can count them individually at this proximity. This distance is infinitesimal; faint traces of his cologne invade your senses, lingering beneath that milky, powdery smell. You shouldn’t notice this. You shouldn’t be like this. You shouldn’t be feeling that feeling in your stomach. 

This is dangerous. 

“Yeah,” you manage to form a coherent syllable. A nuclear fission chain begins in your throat. “I’m alright.”

“Mm,” he acknowledges. His hands are still supporting you, and he’s not letting go. You can distinctly hear each pulse as it sounds out in his ribcage, while simultaneously hearing each breath as it hitches and tumbles in his lungs. At your sides, curled into tight spirals are your fists. 

You’re tense. Anyone can see it – the spring making up your flesh and bones is about to reach its plastic limit. You won’t be able to come back from this. 

The centripetal force making up your galaxy – your routine – is dissipating. 

He’s the cause of it. 

His arms wobble when you go limp, and suddenly you’re in his space – face pressed right into his trapezius, breathing in the temperature of his skin and the woody scent of aftershave. 

That’s new. 

He wraps around you, and you clutch the back of his shirt with enough force to crush a skull. He’s alive, pulse wildly careening through his flesh and sinew like a hummingbird. Furiously, he’s alive. His touch is searing as you press impossibly closer and closer. 

That gravitational pull can’t be from a mere supermassive black hole. 

He’s the origin – the very centre of the universe. All matter wants to be part of it; your cells tear into his, your heart sings out its mournful song, just to be a part of him. 

“Hey,” his breath is scorching across your ear. “You’re here, you’re alright.”

The murmurs are clumsy, tripping themselves up in a rush to escape his torrid lips. 

I’m here.

I’m alright. 

It may just be true. Where your hands connect to his latissimus dorsi through his crisp white shirt, they’ve stopped shaking. 

And you don’t know it, perhaps you never will, but that small, plastic-wrapped carton of gaseous aurum has been stored neatly away in the back of your mind for the past few minutes now. 

A throat clears. 

Your colleague’s face sports an amused expression, while your eyes convey a well-timed fuck you, as the rest of your face is buried in his shirt. 

When you pull back slightly, with her hand now on your back as well, you swear you feel Mr Francis Mosses clamp around your biceps like a vice. Resisting. An unstoppable force. His expression is worried, but when his exquisite brown eyes slide from you to your coworker, you think you can see the hint of a glare in them. You can’t be too sure. 

In the ultramarine light, there might be a hint of red on his face. You can’t be too sure of that either. 

“Sorry, I wouldn’t have called you in if he said he didn’t know you,” she explains sheepishly, but your ears are too full of a roaring heartbeat and your focus is entirely elsewhere. “We’ve been having issues with our milk provider, so we’ve switched to his company. It wouldn’t have been such an issue if our menu wasn’t half milkshakes.”

Her eyes are full of apology, despite her grumbling. She’s known you since your Execution Squad days, operating the calls and speaking to victims. She knows exactly how it feels – the panic, the suffocation, the lingering taste of tobacco that you can never really escape. 

But you can’t focus on that either. 

His thumbs are rubbing tiny, fiery circles onto your flesh – unconsciously, you think, as your eyes observe the slight anger in his face. 

No, wait. You blink in surprise. Since when are you able to discern that face?  

“I’ll wait inside so you can help me with the contract,” she scratches the back of her head, nonplussed when you don’t reply. “Take your time.”

She leaves, and you feel the origin of the universe relax. The molten, rigid singularity sighs – the heavens shift in response. 

“Sorry for taking up so much of your time.” He’s working, yet you’ve taken that away by giving in to your weakness. Shame bubbles in your throat, and you wish you could repeat this morning all over again and do it right just so you could avoid inconveniencing him. 

“Don’t apologise for that,” his voice is low, strung through with a hoarse fatigue. There’s something else clouding it, though, a sort of tightness that reminds you of anger. But he’s not angry, not anymore, you don’t think.

What is it?

He pulls you back into him, clutching at you as though you’re the lifeline instead of him being yours.

What is it?

“Mr Francis Mosses,” you breathe, but your arms wrap around him tightly once more. 

What is it?

“I’d give up all my days to help you like this.” 

The words are hushed, too hushed. They’re not meant to be for your ears, but your senses have been honed to a razor-sharp edge and your hearing is the sharpest blade of them all. 

You’ve identified that strain of his voice, so parallel to anger. 

Worry. 

He’s worried. 

That realisation burns you more fiercely than anything you’ve ever felt before. 

You give in to the torturous exhilaration. 

You lose yourself in the warmth. 

Just for a bit. 

‘I thought of quitting, baby, but my heart just ain’t gonna buy it.’

When he comes in those blue evenings, he brings the stardust that you can never spot in the sky. There’s no sun. There’s no moon, either. There are only the thick clouds that only let the most precocious blue through, and the power lines that cut straight through them. 

Over these three years, the only stars that you’ve seen are the twinkling remnants left in high-rise office buildings in the far city. You’ve seen the glimmers in diamond-encrusted watches, seen the shine on the record-player knobs you polish, seen the glitter in the dirty cents handed over the counter. These are not real stars, however. 

He brings the excruciating stardust, all bottled up in flesh and woven through in his capillaries. 

Today is no different. 

You don’t need the stars that are light-years away. Proxima Centauri, I don’t care about you. Tens of thousands of Kelvin – but they might as well be as freezing as the vacuum they orbit in. They’re cold points to you, dots of light that you can only see in encyclopaedias and the thick books customers bring in on occasion. These celestial bodies aren’t meant to be in a greasy diner – even mere phantoms of them are rare to spot.  

He’s warmer than any star. He’s closer than any star. He’s comprised of the universe itself. 

“What would you like today, Mr Francis Mosses?” 

Your very own galaxy. It appears nightly, much better than those lousy light shows that never appear in the thick fog of this polluted city. 

The panic of this morning has been long-forgotten. All gone, when you look in his mellow eyes. All gone. 

“Your recommendation,” he requests. He’s derailed your routine once more. “And double that.”

For the first time, you’re late in lighting a smoke. That’s not your fault, of course. It’s not. It really isn’t, not when he pulls your arm to sit you opposite him, nor when you let him, nor when you miss the warmth of his hand as he retracts it. 

The steaming food lies as the Rubicon between you. Who will cross it first?

You wait, tongue poised between your teeth. 

His hair is as messy as ever. Briefly, you wonder how it would feel beneath your calloused fingertips. 

There’s no response yet. You watch a little longer: a slight tremor as his throat bobs, lips pulled in nervousness, and eyes that dart to you, to the food, to the wall and everywhere in between. 

You lied about that last bit, by the way. Those tired, glassy eyes are focused solely on you at the moment. His darting eyes are actually your own: focused on him, his tapping fingers on the black reflective table, the steam particles between the two of you. 

“Are you feeling better?” It’s a simple question, devoid of any exhausted hum. It takes everything out of him, as though he’s practised a million ways of saying it and he’s still messed it up. His next breath is deep. 

“Yes?” You don’t mean it as a question, but the rising of the syllable from your larynx belies your confusion. Of course you’re all right – and you don’t mean this in a patronising manner. Of course you’re alright, when the building suffocation was replaced with a suffocation of another kind. 

A balmy, soothing sort. The previous drowning was a struggle; you gave into it fighting, with a snarl on your lips and a shattering spirit. But who wouldn’t ease into the other asphyxiation? In that honey-sweet warmth, you’d readily renounce your soul. 

“Yes,” you quickly repeat. This is a first: considering a customer’s feelings as you attempt to avoid a misunderstanding. “Much better, Mr Mosses.”

You don’t know why you avoid his first name. 

It seems he doesn’t know either; those tranquil brows furrow momentarily, before he gestures to the second portion of food. 

“Will you eat with me?” 

You give in too easily to the deception, especially when he adds your name onto the end of his question. It’s like a challenge, almost. 

“I thought about asking you directly,” he bites into the sandwich. Chews. Swallows. You’re slightly entranced by the movement of his throat. Human windpipes are so fragile, after all, in comparison to the imitation. “Mm, then I got nervous.”

If he was nervous, what were you?

“Don’t worry,” you say blithely, but that’s not your intention at all. You don’t want to be callous, and that surprises you once more. 

He always seems to coax a novel reaction from you. 

“Don’t worry – I wouldn’t refuse you,” you repeat. It’s a little quieter, a little more honest about how your heart sways. You don’t think you’ve ever sounded so heartfelt. 

“You mean that?” 

His tone shifts; a note lower, a pitch you wouldn’t have detected if you hadn’t specifically trained for this. You didn’t think of your response as particularly special, but it seemed he’d taken it as an invitation. 

You don’t mind that. Then again, you don’t mind his actions that should annoy you, had they been done by anybody else. 

“Yes. I’ll eat with you anytime.”

When you take a bite of the sandwich, you finally cross the Rubicon. 

You don’t know anything anymore. The routine, the precious universes you shaped – they’ve all been scattered by the two warm palms of a single man. The object of your rage is sitting in front of you, yet there’s no actual fury filling in the preconceived compartment. 

There’s amiability in one neat box. In the next, curiosity overflows and spills everywhere. Weaving through them all, however, is a strange substance you can’t identify. It’s warm. 

It’s warm, where there had previously only been ice. 

The strawberry taste lingering on your tongue is exquisite. 

It’s odd. Only after the dishes are soaking in the sink do you remember the pack in your apron pocket. Only when you turn around do you realise he’s still in the booth. Only when you spot his face do you notice you’re no longer feeling the same surge of adrenaline right before you smoke. 

You light the stick on the stovetop dispassionately. 

When the crisp blue air greets you, he’s in your shadow. How bizarre. 

It’s even more strange when he doesn’t leave to go to his small, compact van. He… remains. 

No, he does go back to his van. You watch him, sweet plumes hazing from your lips and fingertips. You can see the contraction of his tendons, each muscle moving seamlessly. No, not seamlessly. There’s a bit of a wobble – from fatigue, perhaps. No, that’s not right either. 

Have you always made so many mistakes when reading someone?

There’s a lack of drag that you’d expect. He’s always tired, so the slight pause in his gait is something natural to him. Instead, his feet are hesitant, as though he’s jittery.

This time, he comes back. 

Your mouth opens slightly. 

He’s never done this before. 

That coat from before, he wraps it snugly around you. You didn’t even know you were shivering. He’s meeting your gaze, but his brows are furrowed and he wears a weak smile with it. 

“Ah,” he mumbles slightly as your cigarette falls to the gravel between the two of you. It’s fine – it’s almost been burnt to a stub regardless. You step on it – thus bridging the chasm between you two. At this distance, he’s shorter than you are. You’ve been aware of it, but this is the first time you’ve truly felt it. 

He’s fastening his coat around you, but you can feel the trembling of his hands. 

“You looked cold.”

He’s so considerate, you realise. Even this morning, he went out of his way to help you. Even now, when he’s uncomfortable, he’s thinking of you. 

“What about you?” you breathe out. Your breath condenses in white plumes, and you think it’s a prettier sight than smoke. “Aren’t you cold, Mr Francis Mosses?”

Those warm eyes soften into liquid. There’s a slight crimson in his ears, a tiny hitch in his breath, and a shake in his shoulders. 

“No,” he answers honestly. It must be honest, for though his voice is clear, he looks away bashfully. He’s bared his heart, while yours is still locked away in its box. “I don’t get cold when I’m with you.”

What a coincidence, you want to say. 

Neither do I.

But you’re not him. You don’t get to run words parallel to that beating organ’s desires. 

You look away. 

You shouldn’t be allowed to say that either, you also want to add. 

Inexplicably, your heart is beating far too fast for it to be considered healthy. In fact, it might even be arrhythmia. That’s serious. 

“I–” You begin your sentence, but you hadn’t planned to actually open your mouth. This is new, too.  

“You should take better care of yourself.” The words stumble clumsily from your lips. Not everyone can have that buttery smoothness like he has. This is the universal truth – you’ve always avoided prolonged conversations for that reason precisely. So, why? Why now? Why does your pulse push these syllables from your careless vocal strings?

“I will.”

The weakness in his smile is gone. It’s fond, and you can’t bear it. 

“You’ll catch a cold,” you warn. 

And you won’t be at the diner if that happens. 

That’s strange. Why are you thinking that way?

Right. It’s him. He’s the catalyst. 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” His teeth are so bright. When he smiles, he’s got the jewels of the sea in his mouth. Bright pearls – and here you thought he’d only have mastery over the stars. 

“I’m serious.” You let yourself indulge in the smell of him on the coat. Your eyes are closed. You don’t think you could bear seeing his face more. “Don’t get sick.”

“Don’t worry so much,” he exhales – the trip and jump in the sound turns it into suppressed laughter. 

You can’t get sick. You want to say that. You’d shout it for the world to hear, but that would be too troublesome – and like you mentioned previously, you’re not like him. Your heart is small and cold and closed off in a tight box. 

Please, you can’t get sick. 

But for him, you’d do it. 

‘And if I didn’t think it was worth one single try, I’d jump right on a big bird and then I’d fly.’

He’s tricked you. 

Each time you think you’ve fit Mr Francis Mosses into a neat routine with clear expectations and a place in the galaxy, he evades that and tricks you. Then, he tricks you for a second and a third time, for good measure. 

Otherwise, why would you be counting down the hours until he gets here?

When you’re ringing up Miss Mia Stone’s order at half-past twelve, you’re thinking of him and his soft hair. When you’re taking Mr Henryk Jamesons’ money at quarter to five, you’re picturing those molten brown eyes. And when you’re separating the food into two compact takeout boxes for Mr Stephen Rudboys, you’re imagining those soft lips, poised to say the most unexpected things.

That’s also new. Since when did you focus on his lips?

“Thanks, have a great day,” Mr Rudboys waves at you mechanically, and you almost unconsciously reply with ‘don’t get sick’. You feel like an idiot. 

You feel swindled. 

You feel tricked, and it’s all his fault. He evidently has no respect for the labours of a diner worker, if he’s entering your mind while you’re serving other clients. 

Why does everything have to boil down to him?  

It always comes back to Mr Francis Mosses. You think it was a wise decision to be wary of his gravitational pull. If you’re not careful, he might just cause a wormhole and shoot right through you. 

With others, you’re thinking of him. 

Even when you’re alone, you swear you can smell that powdery, milky smell lingering. 

It’s not fair. 

Does he think of you too? When he’s under blue, fog-filled skies like these, does he think of the smoke you exhale? When he’s with others, can he recall your awkward attempts at conversation? When he’s alone, does he imagine you there with him?

Do I occupy your thoughts like you occupy mine?

It’s ridiculous. Really, it’s laughable. You’re a speck on this planet, while he’s the centre of everything. 

That would be your usual train of thought. 

Humans are not stars. 

But you don’t get to think even that, because you can hear the familiar hum of an engine and you know it could only be him that’s here.

And you’re laughing – laughing at yourself, laughing at your foolishness, laughing at just how ludicrous you’re being. To think, he’d made himself so at home in the ordered compartments of your mind that your very capillaries are magnetised to him. 

You’re attuned to him – compass pointing straight. Not north – you couldn’t care less about the ridiculous iron centre of Earth. The arrow points at him.  

For the first time, you’re inside the diner when he comes through – still beaming, hand pressed to your miserable face and wretched laughter ringing flush against the mellow tones of Frank Sinatra. 

He pauses in the doorway. Though you hear him – how could you not – the sounds that bubble up from your diaphragm refuse to cease. 

It’s only when you notice that gaze in his eyes that you stop – warmer, more liquid than anything you’ve ever seen. Those irises are darker, too – impossibly dilated. 

“Mr Francis Mosses,” you greet him. There’s a smile on your lips. You don’t think he’s ever seen you smile like that. “What will it be today?”

Dazed. You can read his face clear as day – and somehow, somehow, that makes you incredibly conscious of yourself, of him and of every minute action between the two of you. 

“I’ll take anything you give me,” he murmurs. His voice is hoarse, and not in the fatigued way, but in the ‘I’m losing my composure’ way. Carmine bleeds into his skin – you can feel the same carmine thrumming ceaselessly through your veins. 

Fuck.

This man, is he your Achilles’ heel? Your hamartia, your flaw above anything.

No, it can’t be. You’re full of flaws – he’s the only good thing about you. If anything, you’re the person who’s sure to drag him down. 

“Right.”

He sits at the counter today, perched on the cerise-red stools and propped up on an exhausted elbow. Yet, his eyes are clearer – sharper – than your usual expectation. They’re honed on you: your movements, your actions, you. He’s watching you, and nobody else. 

“Did someone make you laugh?”

His tone is different from his usual one; it lacks its usual enervation, and there’s a rougher burr to it that you can’t quite place. When you look up from where you’re assembling his wrap, there’s a shadow in his eyes. 

“Yes.” You did. For the first time in years, you laughed. All thanks to your azure singularity – him . 

There’s more he wants to say. Those lips of his part minutely, but you’ll never know what he wanted to say. 

“Hm?” And for the first time, you really want to know the potential: his thoughts before they leave his lips. 

“Forget it,” he exhales, looking anywhere but you. You slide his food over the counter; there’s a tinge of disappointment in your action. Disappointment, huh… 

You wonder if you’ll have enough boxes to sort out these different feelings. 

He doesn’t speak as he eats. It’s only when you slide onto a neighbouring stool with a milkshake for yourself that he looks up in surprise. 

“You…” he murmurs – there’s an eternal question concealed in that singular word. 

“You feeling alright?” you ask in mild concern. 

“What would you do if I said I wasn’t?” he breathes, and you look at him. You study his expression: his wide, sleepless eyes, his tousled hair, his lips pressed together. There’s a faint trembling in his hands. That won’t do.  

“I’d ask about it further, Mr Francis Mosses,” you reply seriously. “If it’s an emotional issue, I’ve been told I’m a very good sandbag. I can listen and take beatings simultaneously.”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” his raised eyebrows suggest he’s mildly taken aback, but he presses on. “But there’s one thing you could do for me.”

“Which is?” you prompt. 

He takes a deep breath.

“Call me Francis.”

Oh. 

He always exceeds my expectations. 

“Please,” he almost begs. Who are you to say no to the one who decimated your universe?

“I think I’ll go crazy if you don’t.”

You don’t think you’re meant to hear that last bit – it’s muttered so softly that you think he’s unaware that these are his words.

There’s a maddening rhythm to your heartbeat. You don’t want it to ever end. 

“Francis.” Those two syllables creep out carefully. This is a first – you don’t remember the last time a name wasn’t carefully framed by honorifics and made impersonal. Francis. 

“Yes?” he replies breathlessly. It’s so fucking intimate: his pupils are blown out, bottom lip wobbling with a slight sheen on them, hands shaking around a cheap napkin. All because of you. It’s his name you’re saying, but it’s your lips it’s falling from. Yours. 

You want to turn his thoughts on their head – just like he’s flipped your world upside down. 

“Francis.” It’s almost a whisper – not quite. There’s laughter seeping into the name; rich amusement drips from it. You’re delighted. 

How can one man make you feel so much?

At the sound of your joy, his scarlet flush bleeds into his neck. Before, he’d met your gaze so boldly each time – irises honed right on you. But this – his face is exquisite right now. Those glazed-over eyes evade your stare. He’s looking anywhere but you: breathing spiralling out of control, teeth clamping desperately over those soft lips. 

And you’re grinning, teeth flashing neon and that blue taste on your tongue. 

Have you ever felt so light?

There’s laughter spilling over, and his eyes snap back to yours. 

“Francis,” you rasp. “Don’t ever change.”

Keep surprising me. 

Stay right here. 

When he takes your hand and holds it in both of his, it feels like a promise. It lasts only a moment – but you swear you experience several lives within that singular gesture. 

There’s that blazing flush on his face. 

You hope he’s feeling as warm as you are. 

“I won’t,” he says, and the heavens align themselves once more. 

‘I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king.’

Anticipation makes way to expectation.

Francis.

Each muscle, every organ, all of the cells in your body – they’re all waiting. Sure, you’ve waited before. You’ve waited for the next mission, you’ve waited for your paycheck, you’ve waited for your new gun to be issued. 

You’ve waited to tear down doppelgängers.

You’ve waited a long time for revenge. 

But that burning feeling doesn’t feel like the balmy heat that traipses carefreely within your vessels. It’s a dancing, delicate thing. 

You’ve seen the ballet, once. There was a doppelgänger amongst the dancers – movements bolder than any of the others, freer and more unrestrained. Wilder. You almost felt bad about putting a bullet through its eye, but duty called and you weren’t about to abandon the fury within your heart for something as mundane as admiration. 

You don’t know why you’re thinking about it. 

You don’t know why your heartbeat is behaving so intrepidly, but you suppose you’ve lost enough humanity for your body to develop such characteristics. 

It’s strange. Really, it’s so strange you might end up laughing again.

Francis.

He’s got you so easily in his palm. If he asked you for it, you think you’d take the fist-sized organ from its receptacle nestled between your lungs and present it to him on a silver platter. You’d wipe away the congealed blood on his hands with a rough thumb and kiss them better with your poisonous mouth. 

You aren’t a poet. 

You’ve been a soldier and a pawn, so all you know and all you may ever know is the metallic, coppery stench of carmine – it follows in your shadow and stains your footsteps. Your hands are covered in it, and will be forever.  It doesn’t matter – you’d give your body over and over and over and over. Parallel universes will have the same outcome for you. There’s no changing that. 

You’re a soldier, so you’re not allowed to wax poetic about him – any letters you write, any flowery prose will be obscured by the heavy darkness you drag within you. 

But for once, you’d like to try your hand at words. And if your hand is still too stained with that bleeding arterial red, you’ll write it with your body. 

Just once, you’d like your limbs in this universe to be used for something more pretty than killing. Even though it’s an imitation, red is still red and blood is still blood. 

You aren’t a poet, so the most you’ll get is this expectation. You’re a simple creature. Words elude you, but your emotions are too fleeting to be caged in by prose and logic. 

It’s so ordinary. 

It’s all you ever wanted. 

But he doesn’t come tonight. 

Tonight, you’re left with that awful blue fog as your paramour and Sinatra as your entertainment. 

It was foolish, holding on to this expectation. Did you forget already? 

He is one to go beyond them. 

This is one of the few times you’ve ached so sharply. It’s a clean slice through your heart – not like the blunt bang of a pistol, but a masterful cut that draws out the pain better than a bullet ever could. 

It hurts. It really does, and it’s all your fault for feeling hopeful. 

You changed your mindset, and it only came back to pay you in tears. 

But you don’t cry.

It hurts, but the plumes of smoke you exhale taste better than the salt. 

If anything, you’re cherishing the white-hot pain. Maybe you haven't completely lost your humanity. 

It’s long laid dormant, but this agony is sweeter than honey. 

Still, you wish for everything to just disappear. If only for a moment. 

It hurts. Go away, please. Go away. 

You’re an idiot, and when you bury your face in your hands, you barely feel the burn from the cigarette. 

‘I’ve been up and down and over and out and I know one thing.’

You’re unusually sullen the next day. There’s the biting pressure you feel from yesterday, but that’s ridiculous. Francis has no obligation to visit you daily, and your disappointment is your own fault. 

It’s alright. 

You can’t bring yourself to blame him. 

You feel so stupid, though. 

Never have you felt so small. With revenge, the burning consumes you and you don’t feel hopeless. There’s a goal to strive for, after all. But with this, there’s nothing you can do.  

“What will it be, Francis?” 

Your words come out tired. They match the fatigue in his eyes; something you’d normally be noting with wonderment. Today, the excitement doesn’t come. 

No, to be more precise, you tamp down on it harshly before it can come up to the surface. 

“Mm.” He acknowledges your question, but he’s staring you down dazedly and you can’t help but feel slightly wobbly inside. “Something light. I haven’t been feeling well lately.”

Right. You tap the pager unconsciously – it seems him staying away yesterday wasn’t out of his own volition. You don’t know what you would’ve done if it had been otherwise; but then again, you’ve forced those feelings back into a little box, locked tight thrice. Inescapable. Impenetrable. 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” You give him a weak smile, and the awkward fumbling of well wishes seems to have done the trick – his soft smile back washes the insecurity away without a trace. 

It’s when you’re cooking that it happens. While your hands drip red from strawberries, you hear footsteps. His footsteps – the ones you memorised. There’s that same gait, that same tired drag of his sole. 

And you force down your smile. 

He’s never done this either.

You’d think he was just walking around the diner to pass the time, but his footsteps get closer and closer, until–

His arms wrap around you from the back. 

You freeze. 

Out of all the things you thought he’d do, this isn’t one of them. His face presses into the juncture of your neck, and he’s breathing you in. He’s warm, so warm, and your heart finally begins its fervent race once more. 

If he squeezed you any tighter, you would’ve thought he was going for a suplex.

His fingers trace from your hips, up your abdominal muscles, before settling on your solar plexus – each digit splayed out as though his palms were the sun and his fingers the rays. How fitting. 

You should push him off. You should, but there’s something about him you can’t resist. 

“Francis,” you whisper, and it’s like that final barrier in the dam finally breaks. You give in to the raging tide of emotions. Let yourself be swept up in this turbulent river. Don’t worry about a thing. 

“Mm,” he hums, lips just brushing against the stiff fabric of your clinical jacket. And you can feel their reverberations echoing to your very bone marrow – you don’t think you’ve ever heard your pulse so cleanly, so clearly. “I missed you.”

The admission takes all the strength out of you. 

I missed you too. 

I missed you, so much I couldn’t bear it. 

Perhaps that’s the reason. Perhaps that’s why you could never push him away. 

Fuck.  

You really are a fool. 

So, why doesn’t that upset me?

‘Each time I find myself flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race.’

It’s a sleepless night. Just when you think those sweet molasses are going to drag you under, they slip from your fingers and leave you tossing and turning. 

“I missed you.”

You can still feel his fingers on your body. 

When you close your eyes, you can feel him, pressing his lips against your neck and holding you close to him. 

Back then as a Captain, there were people who needed you. Of course there were – you were a pawn, a soldier, someone who had a duty and kept to it. You were a resource: easily replaceable. In fact, it was a miracle you’d lasted the year. 

But him.  

You bury your face in your pillow. There’s a furious beat to your pulse. You can feel it everywhere: your head, your legs and even your stomach.

There’s no doubt about it. 

You like Francis. 

You like him, so much so that you’re running out of boxes to put your emotions in. 

It doesn’t come as a surprise when you’re haggard at work, even more so than yesterday. The day is both sluggish and hare-like, racing away from you yet constantly disturbing you with its slow crawl. It’s the adrenaline and dopamine; they’re clashing and twisting and dancing against themselves. You honestly don’t know how your hypothalamus manages to outshine itself every time. 

The familiar hum of the engine comes when the fog up in the sky is still white. It’s earlier than usual, but Francis has never been one to stick within the lines you’ve put him in. 

“Francis.” 

The shadows under his eyes are darker than before.

“I’m not here for food today,” he exhales. “Just let me spend time with you here.”

That’s a first. 

You’re a little lost. When the boss trained you on how to deal with customers, he never mentioned the tricky ones like these. 

“Ah,” you mumble. “Sure.”

“I also brought you something.” He’s smiling with his eyelids lowering – it’s not an expression you’ve ever seen him make. Fuck. You can’t resist him. 

He’s already taken up too much space in your universe. 

There’s a small plastic bag he takes out of his coat pocket. It crackles lightly against the glass of a milk bottle. “Strawberry cookies. Made them myself.”

You don’t think you’ve ever received such a heartfelt gift. 

When he places them in your outstretched palm, all you can think about is the roaring heat of his hand. 

There’s a few flecks of sanguine on his crisp white shirt. When he notices you looking, he laughs awkwardly. 

“I cut myself at work,” he explains, adjusting the hazy buttons. That’s a new habit; of course he’s filled with mysteries. Since he’s Francis. 

Gently, you take his wrist and press your lips to the fabric concealing it. 

“What–” he chokes. “–what are you doing?”

“I’m kissing it better,” you reply. There’s something different about you tonight as well. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, but it seems you’ve become more bold in the time you’ve met with him. “Do you want me to stop?”

It seems you’ve been intoxicated by him. 

“No,” he stammers. “Please don’t.”

Perhaps he’s been intoxicated by you too. 

It’s only when you’ve placed your lips on the tips of his fingers that you finally pull back and study his face. He’s completely flushed now, with his hair messed up and eyes wide. 

You take a bite out of the biscuit. There’s strawberries on your tongue: sweet, tangy, perfectly suited to the buttery crumble. It’s warm, as if it’s been held close to his heart. The thought makes you smile. 

It’s perfect. 

This man…

When you stand from the stool to brush the crumbs from your fingers, he stands with you. 

When you head into the kitchen area, he follows you. 

When you attempt to move past him after washing your hands at the sink, he stops you by holding onto your wrist. You could break free if you tried, but you won’t. Because it’s him.  

“Francis…” you trail off. There’s a certain look in his eyes – it’s impossibly tender.  

“Tell me you’re feeling the same as me,” he pleads, pressing your palm flat against his heart. His pulse is wild, spinning out of control like that dancer you saw all those years ago. 

Your own heartbeat roars its own feral beat; it’s a careful syncopation with his. 

You didn’t know his human heart could feel that way. 

It’s not supposed to, not like yours does. 

That heaviness – you don’t hear it with humanity. 

Your thumb brushes over those soft lips; that look in his eyes speaks of immeasurable hunger. 

“Please,” he whines, and you surge. 

Your mouth is on his, and he tastes like the strawberries you’ve just eaten. Heady. Sweet. He may have cornered you between him and the sink, but you’re in control – the two of you know it. 

Perhaps that’s why his lips part so easily. 

He’s warm – so warm. You eagerly devour him, pressing a hand to his nape and another to his waist while you take his small hisses in stride. He’s forced to tilt his head up; hands scramble for purchase in the dips of your back, seeking refuge as you roughly press into him. 

He’s intoxicating. Even when the metallic taste enters your mouth, he’s intoxicating.  

Even when you can no longer smell that milky, powdery smell on him. There’s no woody aftershave either. 

Even when you hear the sound of a familiar hum. 

He stands, frozen in the doorway. 

Your lips are on someone who looks like him. 

And you’re looking directly at him. 

Why does he look like that?

His hands are shaking, and he just looks so lost. He’s panting, as though he’s just run here – and his face is covered with small scrapes that can’t just have been from work. 

And why are you feeling this bitter pain?

You knew you could never have Francis – his world was far too removed from yours, and staying with you is dangerous. You’re cursed, doomed to stay in this intransient state. 

“No–” he chokes out. “Get away from that thing!”

Why does it hurt so much?

You thought you’d be alright giving up on him. 

He can’t enter your blood-soaked world. 

He can’t.  

It hurts. It hurts so much. 

Your heart’s breaking into pieces, but you’re still holding onto his doppelgänger and that creature’s lips are still on yours. 

Francis… 

It was nice. This little dream was nice. 

It was nice, but there are tears in your eyes and a wry smile on your lips. 

It’s ending. That fake, brief happiness is crumbling away. 

“Get away!”

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” The doppelgänger’s voice finally drops to its natural pitch – low, a harsh hum reverberating through your sternum. “You caught on now?”

No. You hadn’t caught on just now. 

You had a feeling from the very beginning. 

‘That’s life (that’s life) that’s life and I can’t deny it.’

All the celestial bodies will go cold one day. It is simply a matter of waiting for the universe to turn into a graveyard of giants, undisturbed for the rest of eternity. 

There’s a gun in the cabinet behind you. If one examines it closely, you can see distinct initials that match someone working at the diner. But, surely not, right? None of your customers have suspected a thing. 

Faintly, you hear your name being called from somewhere along the periphery. 

“You need to get back, he’s dangerous!”

You pull out your gun, unlocking the mechanism with a swift click. It’s a standard-issue, given to the lieutenant-class and above – a heavy thing, unauthorised to be carried by any civilian. The bullets inside are deadlier than any ammunition used in human warfare. 

You didn’t think you’d ever use it again. 

But today, Francis will be joining the graveyard of celestial bodies. There, he’ll eventually disintegrate – not an atom will remain. 

“Francis, stay right there.” Your words are cold. Don’t you see? This is my world, Francis. 

This is my danger. 

This is what follows in my shadow. 

Don’t come near me. 

“Oh? I didn’t think you were ex-military,” the doppelgänger’s voice rumbles in its chest. “Give up. You’re no match for me. We’ve evolved past puny human capabilities.”

You didn’t think you’d ever do this again. 

Not again. 

Tears blur your vision, but you don’t need to rely on your eyes to kill. 

You need to shoot him. You need to shoot him because you love him, because he’s still alive and this thing is trying to replace him. You need to pull the trigger. 

Francis.

I love you. 

This pain – it’s too much to bear. 

When you squeeze the trigger, you repeat it like a mantra. 

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I’m sorry.”

And there’s a smile on the doppelgänger’s lips as you shoot him, like he’s won. 

There’s blood everywhere. Splashed on the pans, coating the griddle, sliding and congealing on the bright neon signs that light up the diner in fluorescent red. Brain matter is cleaved in thousands of pieces, and you resist the urge to throw up.

Red is still red, and blood is still blood. 

When the doppelgänger’s body begins to bubble, you move without a trace of hesitation – sliding across the counter with the agility of an athlete. You’re crying – crying as you take Francis out into the pouring rain.  You’re crying, as you’re covering his body with yours – behind you, the doppelgänger’s body finally blows up and shards of the diner stick to you and maul your back. But it’s fine – he’s still alive. Your universe is living – breathing beneath you. He's warm – a human warmth, with a human pulse and a human smell. 

“You–” he murmurs, drenched in rainwater and the blood covering you. His eyes are widened, but he doesn’t look scared. He’s not scared of you. 

And you’re high, high on adrenaline and the sight of him. 

He’s alive. 

He’s not dead. 

You protected him. 

‘Many times I thought of cutting out, but my heart just won’t buy it.’

The D.D.D will get here eventually. That’s something you’ve come to accept as truth, which is why you don’t care about phoning them when the smoke rising from the place will alert them regardless. 

You pull him into an alleyway near your apartment. There’s a howling storm and a torrential downpour, but you don’t care about any of that. 

He’s warm. He’s warm, and he’s alive. 

“You’re real, right?” you murmur. Your drenched palms press into his face. He’s staring at you, tears gathering on his lash line and a shake in his bottom lip. “Francis.”

“I’m real,” he breathes, and it’s like nothing else exists in the universe. Nothing but him and you in suspended animation, within all the space-time. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I’m not going anywhere. 

Has anyone said something like that to you before?

There’s no fear in his eyes.

What a foolish promise. 

But maybe you’re the fool for feeling the way you do about that vow. 

You’re covered in blood, but he’s looking right past that. 

“Did you know–” he chokes out, looking away. “–that he was a doppelgänger?”

Yes. I knew, and I kissed him despite knowing that. 

Francis, I can’t be with you. 

Those words race through your head, but you can’t bring yourself to say anything. You can’t bring yourself to lie, either. Instead, you nod – and you can’t meet his eyes when you do so. 

“Why were you with him like that, then?” His thumb traces your jaw, mirroring the actions of your hands just moments prior. He sounds heartbroken, and you can feel tears blurring your vision once more. “Don’t tell me he’s better than me.”

“Francis,” you plead against the storm, against the deafening wind that presses against your words. “I can’t be with you.”

There’s a pause. Water soaks the two of you, but neither moves. 

“Who decided that?” He steps closer, and you swallow. His arms wrap tightly around you, and his head’s buried against your chest. He’s angry, you realise. He’s angry, because he knows exactly why you decided on that dream. 

He’s pressed skin-to-skin against you – fabric drenched through and ice-cold – and there’s a searing heat that threatens to envelope you whole. Let it, you think. I’ll give in for you. 

“Who decided that?” he repeats, mouth moving against your collarbone. If you weren’t against a wall, you think you might’ve collapsed by now. 

“Francis,” you falter. More. “Don’t you see how dangerous it is with me?” Say no. Be with me despite that. 

You’ve become selfish. 

“I don’t care,” he whispers against your flesh. “You like me, don’t you?”

I adore you. 

Don’t leave me.

You don’t say anything, but he can hear your answer in the wild drum of your pulse. 

“You’ll protect me.”

I’d give my life to serve that purpose. 

“Francis,” you rasp. There’s something coiling within you, burning up hotter and brighter than anything you’ve felt before. It sets your veins and capillaries alight, altering everything within. 

There’s a frigid downpour that freezes flesh and sinew, but you’re sweltering with him pressed against you.

Stardust coats your fingertips when you slide them beneath his chin. Beneath the rain, everything sluices away – the pain, the blood, the worry, and the hesitation.

“Use me to forget,” he breathes. “I’ll be yours.”

Fuck.

Gently, you slot your lips against his, and his eyes flutter closed. He’s hesitant – you can tell from how his hands curl open and closed against your chest. He’s hesitant, yet he presses himself against you like you’re going to disappear any minute. 

It’s funny. 

You’re thinking the exact same thing about him. 

Your fingers dig into his hips – you don’t think you’ll ever let him go.

His lips are warm – humanly warm – and he tastes explosive, like neutron stars merging. He’s divine.  

“More,” he whines into your mouth. “Please.”

With such soft lips parting just for you, who are you to refuse?

“Mm,” he gasps as you deepen the kiss, pressing your tongue into his spit-slicked mouth. Each pretty noise that escapes him snaps one more string of self-restraint of yours, until it’s all gone. You flip him, so his back’s pressed against the cold, drenched wall and your body moves against his front. 

And his hands – they’re clawing at your back and dragging against its valleys. You can feel each nail as you go rougher – eliciting more pain for you, but you couldn’t care less about that . Not when you’ve got him melting like putty as he clumsily moves his lips against yours, not when he’s desperately trying to come closer and closer and closer.  

There’s salt on your lips and copper on your tongue. Tears and blood. You can’t tell who cries. 

“More,” he pulls back from your mouth panting, choking for breath. “Please, I need more.”

Fuck.  It’s getting addicting. 

“You sure?” 

Give in.  You can’t help wanting to lose yourself in that heady sensation. 

“Please,” he begs. 

You crumble so easily.