Title: Dirt
Author: Dingo
Disclaimer: PRNS don't belong to me, no. I believe it'd be redundant to say that I don't own Hunter or the two others that appear below. This could be seen as a vague companion piece to 'Shattered'; although there's no mention of it I wrote the two in the same frame of mind.
Summary: Hunter sees the bowl as empty.
There had always been a bowl of dirt on the mantle.
Always.
Since he had moved in, the blue bowl had kept in it rocks and soil and leaf matter and everything else associated with dirt.
It had never been empty. Never.
It was empty now, and that made him sad.
It had been washed and cleaned and put back up on the mantle, and no one would have ever known the difference. It was in exactly the same spot, and the same chip was a few degrees off-centre towards the kitchen, and the spot of brown paint that had been splattered on it when they had painted the fireplace was still at the direct front, but the small level of dirt that it had once housed was gone.
The dirt had never been changed, but it had never developed. It had stayed the same – same rocks, same leaves. No decomposition.
For a year, one glorious year, the dirt had stayed the same.
Now, it had been…he didn't even know what had happened to the dirt. Whether it had been sucked up by the vacuum cleaner or thrown out the window or in a compost bin somewhere.
That dirt had absorbed every feeling around it. If there was a fight going on, they'd only have to look at it to remember the importance of the fact that they loved each other, and whatever fighting was going on wasn't that important. It stored memories of sitting on the couch, watching TV, cuddling, the first time they kissed in the room, the first time they'd said they loved one another, the first time he'd given and received a hickey.
And now it was gone.
Bags appeared with a thump, and Dustin came into view, staring at his feet, standing just beside the bowl, the bowl that was conspicuously empty.
"You get everything?" Hunter asked listlessly, and he knew, he knew, that Dustin heard it in his voice, there was no way in the world he couldn't have, but there was always the chance…always the fact that since he hadn't seen this coming he didn't know Dustin like he should have.
"Yeah."
Hunter nodded vacantly, changing his focus again, ever so slightly to the left, staring at the bowl once again, that damn empty blue bowl that had been full when Dustin had admitted that he loved him.
Dustin stared at him quietly, one of the moods that only Hunter had seen him in, the quiet, reflective Dustin, the thoughtful one that understood that ownership of Hunter's heart was free but you owned it for life.
Hunter sighed. "So you're right to go?"
There was a matching sigh from the door. "I wish this didn't have to happen," Dustin said quietly. Hunter heard the telltale scuff of his shoes, those damn shoes held together with masking tape and superglue that Hunter was forever attempting to throw out, but Dustin would always steal them back from the bin and Hunter would tolerate it because he loved Dustin and when you looked at the scheme of things a pair of shoes wasn't worth fighting about.
"I know you do."
Dustin spread his hands weakly, Hunter didn't even have to look up to see that was what he was doing, he knew Dustin well enough to know how much Dustin used his hands when he was talking.
"Hunter, please. Don't be like this. It has to be this way."
There was another chip on the bowl. Hunter wondered whether or not Dustin had dropped it when he had thrown out the soil.
"I know, Dust."
"Give me something, babe-" Dustin halted as the benediction came from his mouth. Hunter didn't bother to look up. "-Your brother's here," he finished, a few seconds too late to pretend it was only one sentence and a few too early to have started another conversation point.
Hunter nodded. The rumblings of the falling-apart Jeep could have been heard in Colorado.
Dustin ran hands through his hair. Hunter still knew this, still knew everything Dustin did without even watching. He knew that Dustin shifted his weight to his left leg when he was nervous and only stood up straight when he was talking to Sensei,and that the scar on Dustin's right calf wasn't healing even though it had been a year since the Final Battle and by all rights the nick he'd received from a Kelzak should have disappeared long ago, and it still annoyed him that he hadn't foreseen this.
He heard Blake come cheerfully up the stairs and through the door. "What's happenin', man?" he asked Dustin, clasping hands.
"Hunter's sulking about moving."
Hunter stalked out of the room and brushed past his brother and his lover.
"I'll leave you two to manage the bed by yourselves."