#a.nd here i was being good and not hurting feelings! my streak has ended.

[vaulttecexec]

@armageddonpitchman: [ final ] sender and receiver share a kiss for the very last time, and they know it's their last.

they had a good run. their baby wasn't a baby anymore, and for the past two decades, they kept him sane and stable. was it hard? absolutely, chems he needed were hard enough to come by. did they manage? they did, and together, they had the life they'd given up on before everything went to shit.

she started to notice a few days ago. he would cough more. his movements weren't as smooth as they once were. she knew, and she couldn't help but want to ignore it. she loved him too fucking much to think of the alternative, and she wasn't ready. she wasn't ready to say she'd have to do this without him again. she wasn't ready to give up one of the best parts of her.

and it was selfish to ask him to keep fighting the inevitable. she knew it was, and she was running out of time to keep doing it. she couldn't hold on to him forever. so, she decides to keep her promise. if he asks, she would. just, not yet. no, right now, she finds him in their make pretend house, moving slowly to duck under his arm and stand between him and the counter.

she manages to play the little radio they'd found years ago, and she takes his hand. one last dance. one last moment to remember before she gets the fuck out of dodge. she'll drug him with the last of the supply, and then, she has to move. she has to take janey north and come back to finish a job she shouldn't have promised to do.

and it was selfish when she went up on her toes, loaded his inhaler for him and depressed it. she let him cough, but it wasn't enough. they both knew it. still on her toes, she presses her lips to his when the coughing fit subsides. her life depends on how close she can be, and how much of him she can remember like this. letters meant nothing if their author wasn't there to keep replying.

that was selfish, too, and so were the tears she let stream down her cheeks. "i promised you, and i'll keep my word, but I-," she couldn't tell him how much she didn't want to around the lump in her throat. she knows she'll never have him like this again. have him aware and fully with her. "i love you, cowboy."

it's selfish of her, to hope he'd tell her he'd changed his mind and she didn't have to do this, but she knew she did. And she would, but she'd continue to be selfish and refuse to be the one to break it to their kid who just came bounding up the front steps. "i'll give you two a minute, and I'll take her north, and when i get back-."

she walks away before their daughter caught her crying. she'd promised. she'd do it, but fuck if it didn't rip her heart out to have to be the one he trusted enough to see him that way.

[meme, accepting!]