Nicholas: Hey, There's kind of an odd story behind this. It popped into Becki's head and of course she asked If I'd write it, but I told her I wouldn't being that I'm already working on a challenge of hers and I though that would be the end of it...but NO!! It just wouldn't leave me alone. I HAD to write something because her inspiration bunnies had been sicked on me and were gnawing at my brain.

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue me

Rating: M...language...angst...some smutt.

I look at him…

He is sleeping beside me, chest moving up and down, up and down; it's the only thing that tells me he's really alive anymore. Even breaths of nicotine-stained air constantly forcing it's way in and out, in and out of his ill lungs like a recording put on repeat meant to play until the player breaks. A faint, unsteady flutter of his heart beats up in an uneven rhythm against his sternum: evident traces of the excitement just a short time before. His body splayed out beside me, head leaning gently against my chest holding that calm, cool, emotionless face; it sometimes makes me shudder to look at it. Tan skin has waned pale over the past few weeks of being stuck inside and in the shadows and even as he sleeps, the tension doesn't let him be.

I look at him lying there…

There is nothing inside him anymore. Once upon a time, he loved me. Somewhere over the rainbow, his heart flew away and left me the cold shell of the man… The man who used to hold me in his arms at night and coo loving words in my ear with his Leprechaun lilt: naughty fantasies of what he wanted to do to me, silly, petting endearments, and promises that "I'll never leave you." You left me a long time ago. It may not be intentional how you shut me out, but it becomes more and more apparent with everything you do. Even now, just laying there sleeping after our routine nightly escapades. I can't fathom when or how you adopted the habit of literally almost passing out after you come. You used to at least have enough energy to embrace me so that we could slowly fall asleep together. Ever since you left me, it's been wearing against my insides; it's been so long—too, too long.

I look at you lying there…

Thinking back, I can pinpoint the exact moment that you left me. It's funny, your worst nightmare seems so far away, but then it was right there in front of me like a slap in the face that night so long ago in Yakavetta's basement when the both of us had to watch Rocco… All of the times I had seen men die before couldn't prepare me for watching a bullet rip through his chest, tearing out blood and chunks of meat and life. I remember looking at you, his blood spattered across your forehead, and when I saw the terror pulling at every fiber of you being—pulling it so tight that it might have snapped in the same moment that Rocco drew his last breath—I lost it. I had more will to kill those bastards then, than I'd ever had before for anyone. However, even then, after that, you were still there. You cried harder than I've ever seen you cry as your heart and soul tore itself into little pieces and bits, but it was still there for me to see. It went away—up and fled—and I could tell by the expression on your face, when I told you to break my hand so I could slip it through the cuff. I know it had to so that you could be detached enough to really hurt me, but…

I look at you lying there and…I don't know…

I thought it would come back after a while. I knew and even expected that your sudden lack of emotion came from that horrible trauma, but that was almost a year ago. A year of—how do I say it?… Of looking at an empty smile, hearing a cold, half-hearted rasp in even your lightest of laughs. So many months and weeks of never hearing that you cared when you said that you love me. God, all of those days of feeling you so far away even when you're head is right here leaning gently against my chest. Seeing someone else when your dull nails would dig into my back, your head pressed against the pillow, your voice screaming my name in that magnificent, orgasmic fire. It wasn't the same…It didn't feel like your body that I was driving into over and over and over again, never seemed to be the same. Even if it was you fucking me senseless, even as every thrust of your hips brought me closer and closer to that sweet, familiar release, it just…wasn't you. I couldn't help this nagging feeling that I was just there so that you could relieve some of that tension. Is that the only reason you…?

I look at you lying there, looking at me…

"What do you mean?" he asks. His touch as he lays his hand on my chest isn't loving or gentle as it would have been, it's just there.

I mean this…this thing we've been doing all this time, this charade of our lives before. You left me, but where did you go, Conn? Where could you possibly get to that I'm having such a hard time following? I need you with me, I need you here. Come back to me, love.

He makes a nervous face and just looks at me for a moment. "I'm right here," he lies. Or maybe it isn't a lie; maybe he just doesn't know how horrible this is for me. I'm not sure what's worse, but either way it's making me nauseous.

I look at you lying there, looking at me with those cold empty eyes and I wonder: where's my brother gone? Where's the man who once could be so completely open with me? the man I could laugh with? the man I could cry with and would cry right along with me? Bring him back… Where are your tears? Can't you cry anymore?

With a sigh, he sits up, looking away from him as he pretends to be preoccupied with rubbing a kink from his neck. "I don't know what you're talking about." He's annoyed. That's laughable—he's always annoyed. It's either annoyance, anger or vengeance with this new Connor. This new thing that is not my brother glances at me over his shoulder. "Can't you just go to sleep?"

I don't want to…don't sleep yet, please? Can't you just hold me, just for a little while?…before you turn cold to me again.

The look he gives me, I'm not sure I like it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't. It's one of those looks that reminds me back when we were in school, way back when the teachers hated us and scolded us every chance they got with that look. That fucking look. Then, the most absurd thing happens: he rolls over and away from me. "Stop being such a girl," he mutters.

That's it. I've had it with this fucked up melo-drama of his. No doubt I've been more than patient with him because I love him and he needs endless fucking patience sometimes, but this is really too much. That asshole. Who the fuck do you think you are? God damn it, Connor! Why don't you just slit my throat and spit down it?

"Where are you going?" Now he turns to face me. Hah, now that it's just a second too late. He'll beg my attention now that I'm no longer at his side giving it to him anyway. I just cross the room. "Hey, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to bed." I snap. As I lay out on the cool sheets that had been there untouched on my bed for a year and a half now, I felt that tightness in my sinuses telling that it's coming. I know immediately that there are tears in my eyes. And as he looks at me lying here looking at him with a single drop falling from each duct, I can't believe that he can just lie down and go to sleep. That PRICK!!