June..

Does anyone realize how utterly full of shit June is? I think that it is the month that God put in just to make people like me suffer.

June: not quite summer, not quite the end of Spring. No actual holidays to look forwards to. The crappiest astrological symbols. The crappiest everything.

Even death is harder in this month.

Sean threw the pen down and hurled the leather bound notebook across the room with a violence that was at odd with his usually calm demeanor. He didn't care though. He was past beyond caring at this point.

He would have left it on the floor, all sprawled out with its sheets all crumpled and stained from the dirt and semi-dry paint on the floor. He really would have, but the notebook had been a present from him.

His deep sigh aggravated the heaviness in his chest as he walked over to the book and picked it up. He caressed the soft, glossy covers before turning it around in his hands and smoothing down the pages tenderly, all the while desperately wishing it was his skin he was touching

//And I'd give up forever to touch you
'Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now//

He walked over to the bed and sat down heavily on it. It wasn't his bed by any stretch of the imagination. Nor was this his home. If he recalled it correctly, he was in... Jasper. Or Banff.

One of the towns in the Rockies anyways. He couldn't remember. Nor did he really care. He only lived cause it was to hard to actually kill himself and get it over and done with.

That's what he told himself at least. The truth, the one that he didn't dare admit was that he just had lost the courage to actually take his own life.

He lived because he was lost. Very lost and hopeless. In this sea of humanity, he had no harbour to cling to. Nothing to ease the hardship of his journey.

And so he stayed. Not living, yet living at the same time. It was hell. His own hell.

//And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
'Cause sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight//

He put the book down and reached under his pillow where he kept his most treasured possession.

Pulling it out, he examined it closely.

It was nothing special. Just a plain dark blue shirt, with long sleeves. A tear in the left cuff. Two top buttons missing. A scent of Ck one still rising from the soft, worn cotton. Just a shirt.

It was his shirt. The one he wore the last time that they had secretly met to make passionate and needy love before reality intruded in on them. Their last time together before Mortua came and snatched him away.

He lifted it up and buried his face into it, crying yet again as he had done over and over again since that day a year ago..

"Why did you leave me? Why did it end that way?"

//And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am //

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

-Orli squinted up at the clouds as he got off the bus. Sighing, he looked around the small bus depot he had arrived at and smiled wryly.

So this was Jasper. Not a bad place, really. In fact, it was a gorgeous town. The mountains were majestic and the air was just so pure that it made his smoke hardened lungs ache.

In fact, even though he wanted a cigarette so bad, he didn't dare reach into his shirt pocket and pull his pack out. Namely cause it would seem like sacrilege to pollute such an unspoiled town.

"It'll have to wait mate."

He told himself, even though he was desperately dying for one. Shaking his head, he then dug into his suede jacket and pulled out a package of dentyne and popped out two pieces from the blister pack before stuffing it back into his pocket.

As much as he would have loved to explore all that Jasper had to offer, he had a mission to undertake. A mission that had to be finished as soon as possible before it was too late. It had to be done before yet another friend was snatched away from him by Death's cold arms.

He knew that Sean was running desperate. Viggo's death had broken him when other blows hadn't even fazed him and Orli was afraid that in this bleak desperation that he had sunk in, Sean would decide to take his own life as well and join Viggo in death as well.

The others felt that his efforts to ride into Sean's life were hopeless and borne out of immature beliefs that he would be able to heal the grieving man. They scoffed at his suggestion that Sean needed someone to stand behind him as he slowly pulled the pieces of his shattered life together.

"He's faced loss before Orli. Let him grieve in his own way. He just needs the time to do so."

He wanted to believe them and turn away from Sean. After all, he did have his own life to deal with. Taking on someone else's burdens was something that he could ill afford to do. But even though he had called himself a fool as he had been packing his belongings in order to chase after Sean, he couldn't forget how the older man had looked during Viggo's funeral.

He hadn't wanted to see it. The deep pain etched in his face as he watched the coffin that contained his lover be lowered into the ground. Nor the lost look in the face as the dirt was shovelled into the grave.

As he had walked up to the older man to give his condolences, he had briefly wondered whether anyone could look so beaten, so defeated and still have the energy to live. It scared him to see Sean like that. So worn. So tired.

//And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
And you bleed just to know you're alive//

And yet, he had done the same thing that everyone else had done. He had ignored the signs of desperation and despair, the kind that makes people do foolish things to try and end their misery. He should have taken him into his arms at that point and tried to heal the wounds before they festered and poisoned him from the inside out before there was nothing left of him.

Maybe even shown him that there was still hope for someone that had lost so much. That even though people and places where so transient, that there was still a chance for happiness. Even with his clumsy earnestness, he could have shown him that, and maybe he could have touched him just a bit, maybe even made him not want to plunge into that abyss of despair.

But he hadn't. He often wondered why he hadn't considering that he had the balls to do anything utterly foolish and dangerous under the sun, but he hadn't been able to do that.

Maybe it was because he wasn't sure how his offer would have been received. Or maybe it was because he didn't want to wound him anymore. Or maybe it was because he couldn't bring himself to admit that yeah, maybe there was more to his offer than he realized.

Or it was just the need to have this kept from everyone else. A secret to have between himself and Sean. Because he didn't think that anyone would really see why he had taken those steps to reach out to him.

//And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am //

He wished he had the courage to do it then. But he didn't. Instead, he had just embraced Sean and mumbled something before taking off with the other mourners, all the while trying to ignore the faded green eyes in the sallow skin that looked as worthless as shards of a broken 7-up bottle.

He thought that the memories and guilt would go away after awhile. But they had been haunting him endlessly now. Those eyes would flash in his dreams, in the darkness, wherever he was, the image would just push itself into his mind.

The memories had gotten worse when he heard that Sean had left the U.K. for parts unknown after making himself a virtual hermit in London. Hearing those news had made him realize that he had to do something. Sean, it looked like, had finally snapped and even though other people either didn't care, or didn't want to intrude, he would.

He had lost one friend, he wasn't about to lose another. So he had done his sneaky best and tracked Sean's movement down until he had pinned it down to this small, obscure town in the Rockies. It wasn't hard, since Sean had left cryptic messages with his sister, whom Orli managed to charm well enough to get the information he needed.

Sighing heavily, he reached into his worn and faded jeans and dug out a crumpled piece of paper and frowned at it. He really needed to work on his writing. The loops and scrawls didn't make sense to him and after five minutes of looking at them, he was ready to give up in frustration and move on to plan B: check out every hotel in the area for a tall, pale looking blond man and hope that it would be enough to locate him by.

But the memory of haunted green eyes came back to him at full force and that made him try harder to decipher his scribbled mess. After several minutes of squinting at the paper, he grinned in hard-won success.

"Now to hope the next part is easier" He muttered as he looked up at the flawless sky and got moving.

~*~*~*~*~*~

After he had cried himself out yet again, Sean tenderly replaced the shirt back in its hiding place and sat back.

Was there anything else to live for? He asked himself as he then scrabbled around the bed-side drawer. In several minutes, he had managed to pull out a Bowie knife that had been sharpened to razor sharp edge.

He looked at it closely, then placed it against his throat, pressing the cool metal hard enough so that he felt the nick of the blade cut through the top layers of skin. A couple drops of blood oozed out and slid down his neck, leaving a warm trail that quickly turned cold.

It will only take a second to end his life that way. He wants to do it desperately. Wants the pain to bleed out onto the dark coverlet and to stain his shirt as his soul travels to where Viggo is waiting.

Death in Viggo's arms is more welcome than the walking death he is living right now, he thinks as he begins to slowly draw the knife across his neck. More blood comes forth, but not enough. He has to cute deeper, put more pressure on the knife in order to do that.

Sure, he will miss everyone. But the end reward will make the pain worth it. No one really knows how much he is hurting. How empty he really feels. Even though he's got his family and his mates, it still can't ease the icy chill taking over his soul.

//And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am //

~*~*~*~*~*

He had found the address and had even sweet-talked the care-taker into giving him the spare key. He felt a little guilty about using the fame card on her, but hey, desperate times call for separate measures, right?

And he could feel that even in the marrow of his bones, that something important was going to take place soon. He can't explain it, but the foreboding is there. The kind that marks an epiphany in the stretch of your life at that particular point.

That was the reason why he had put extra effort in procuring the key. He was going to find something that he didn't like in that room and he felt he was justified in taking some precautions.

Biting his lip, he then walked down the long hallway, the key clenched tightly in his hand as he searched for the room number.

"662..664..666." He shook his head. Did Sean realize the connotation that number had or had he been so far gone in his pain that it didn't matter to him anymore?

Either way, the sight of that number didn't do much for his confidence. If a man believed himself to be that lost, there wasn't an ice cube's chance in hell he could be convinced there was any salvation.

He shook his head. He was sorely tempted to turn around and flee from that place and admit that he had been defeated by his own doubt and by Sean's grief. He was turning to go and return the key when the clang of an object being dropped made him determined to go through with it.

He was sweating after hearing that noise. As far as he knew, only knives made that weird clanking, metallic noise. And he was positive that he had heard it come from the room that Sean was in. Which meant that he had to hurry.

Fumbling a bit with the key, he clumsily fit it into the lock and turned the knob, pushing the door open soon after.

He entered the room in a rush and nearly fell over the knife that was lying on the floor in his haste to get to Sean, who was sitting on the bed, his throat bloodied and his head bowed as he cried.

Even though the sight was disturbing, Orli was somehow perversely glad that Sean was still alive and crying rather than lying on the bed with his lifeblood leaking out all over the room.

Acting on that relief, Orli quickly walked up to the bed and carefully wrapped his arms around the older man. He fought the embrace at first, not wanting anyone to penetrate the grief that had been his constant companion. He wanted to be left alone to die. To wallow in his misery.

He fought until he had no more strength left to fight, but the arms didn't let him go. In fact, they held on even more stubbornly than before. They held him and a soft voice talked to him, soothed him, walked him through the dark-twilight of grief.

He talked. And cried, pouring out all of the emotions that had been forcefully locked up inside him for all those months. And Orli listened. Quietly and without judgement, he listened. And offered as much comfort as he possibly could.

//And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am //

When it was over. When the tears had all been shed, Orli cleaned up the blood and put the knife away. With gentle, careful movements, he undressed him and put him between the blankets before crawling in with him.

He pulled the shivering man closer to his body and kissed the top of his head and wondered if anything would change. If it would be worth sticking around after this night. He had come at the right time, he knew that much. If he hadn't barged in, Sean may have gotten the courage together to give it another try and end his life.

Orli closed his eyes at that thought. No. He wouldn't think of it. He would just think about the mandarin smell coming from Sean's hair and the warm body that was wrapped around him.

He wouldn't ask for anything more. He had gotten it by having Sean alive at the close of this day.

He kissed Sean again and sighed. The grief had been cured tonight. The wound had finally been cauterized enough to let Sean maybe start to live again. And when that happened, he wondered whether they'd be a place for him in the other man's life.

"Orli?" Sean's soft whisper broke through Orli's thoughts, bringing him back down to the situation at hand.

"Yeah?" The younger man asked.

Sean squirmed under the blankets as he looked for the words to voice the thoughts and feelings that were skirling about like dead leaves caught in a storm.

"Would..I mean..Shit.. Would you mind..terribly.." he sighed and shifted around once again as he searched for the words that proved to be so elusive to his questing mind at that moment.

"Mind what?" Orli prompted the other man.

Sean exhaled noisily before he began to speak.

"Staying. I don't know for how long. I can't say that I know where the hell this is going to lead us. I can't promise anything for certain.." Sean's voice trailed off at the last part, since he was totally unsure of what else he could say to Orlando.

They lay in silence for several moments before Orli finally gathered his thoughts enough to speak.

"Yeah. I'll stay. For as long as it takes. I'll stay."

//I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am//

He knew that there was a long way to go before they would get closer. He knew that they may just be close friends. Or they may eventually turn into lovers. He knew that nothing was for certain, just like Sean had said.

But at least there was something between them and that counted for enough.

Fin.