•••

A year's worth of dust lay quiescently thick upon every surface, a grey reminder of long months passed in the solitude of elsewhere. Other places, hundreds of them, each with their seductive, tawdry anonymity and clouds of placid resignation. Drugged hotel rooms, a few dank basements, and a campsite here and there. Running, because that's what he did best.

Of course, he didn't have to travel to do that; it just seemed appropriate somehow. Six of swords. You will go on a long journey. Long night's journey into day. Something like that, anyway.

Huge motes wafted into the air as his single, battered duffel hit the floor. His nose tickled and twitched, but he was unwilling to sneeze; the discomfort was richly deserved. He could've done his wandering here, and dusted in the interim.

Saved some money, too. Didn't matter that he wasn't poor, that he could well afford a year here and there. Poverty was a sense-memory, embedded deep in those places philosophers like to piddle in when they're deep in their cups and the bartender's taken away their keys.

He didn't miss being broke; money bought things he liked. He did miss the people.

No, no he didn't.

That's what the year was for, remember? A year to yourself, a year away from the tatty remnants of things you should've given to the Salvation Army ages ago. You didn't, and because you chose not to, you had to run.

Or walk, as the case may be; easier on old bones to saunter aimlessly down some unforgiving highway than run and risk flying over a cliff without forewarning. He'd come to appreciate the lassitude involved with a well-planned suicide.

The rushed ones were so... messy. Complicated, leaving all parties with a massive, shared case of existential blue balls.

Not that he cared anymore. People. *pah* They were the houseplants of his life. Pretty, green, cheerful. They painted nice big splashes of life on his bookshelves, giving a pleasant facade of life in a sterile hell of satisfactory central heating. They taunted him. 'We're warm, we're alive, and we care about you!'

But they didn't, and it took way too long for him to figure that out. All they wanted out of him was water and access to the sun.

Even trades, he supposed.

The metaphor wasn't perfect, but neither was he. He'd tried, though. Reached the only way he knew how, but eventually he poured forth and nothing came trickling back to pool at his feet. He told himself, time and again, that he didn't need the petty returns; his love was unconditional.

And it was; salty and sliding down his face and redder than he'd thought it would be. There's that wanting, though, not merely to be wanted, but to feel the pleasant tension, the tug and give and biplay of wanting-and-being-wanted. Call me, I'll call you, write me, I'll write you, paint your smile and I'll sketch mine somewhere too.

Never came about, though, no, and what's to be done about that?

If you stop watering plants, they wither and die. It took him a year, but he finally realized that it wasn't anyone but himself that kept those damned relationships going. He poured in, waited for someone to reciprocate, and when they didn't--he'd toss in a bit more to keep it going. They'd do something, surely, when they had the time.

*pah*

A year was good; in a year, the most of them would wither away. Without the goods and services he offered forth, they'd die. Fade away, to be tossed in the trash. Loneliness sucked, but at least he wasn't draining himself for someone that didn't care anyway.

It was easy, and he didn't even have to face up with losing the connection; it just...wasn't anymore. He wouldn't mourn it, wouldn't allow himself the luxury, and there was no way anyone else cared.

After all, if they had, they'd have put forth the fucking effort.

They didn't, he wouldn't bother thinking about it anymore, and goddamn it, he needed groceries.

But he wasn't buying any fucking Miracle-Gro.