Work Text:
I am not quite sure about how I want this story to end, right? It’s simple. Two people, finding each other, falling in love. Nobody knows yet. At least those two don’t know yet, and their rather self-absorbed, oblivious friends don’t know. Well, they don’t want to know. It doesn’t fit the plan, right? It’s not the noble cause, this love.
He’s not being cautioned by his 'friends', this is not “I love you and I want you to be ok” this is “you are disgusting, watch your step.” It’s not a warning. It’s a threat. I will take your place; I will sell you out. And the more disgusting the way the more joy I will feel.
He knows this. He knows.
Her friends don’t want to see it. Oblivious they call them. They are not. They choose to be.
It doesn’t fit her. It doesn’t fit their picture of her. And when they don’t see it, nothing happens, right?
She is theirs. Their interests are hers. She is them. Her having interests of her own is betrayal. Her loving anybody but them, of her own accord — and it must be ‘but them’, because love for them and him cannot possibly exist at the same time — is worse than betrayal. Its treason. She’s not a person of her own. She belongs with them. She must be with them. She must be them.
One person knows. She knows of both their struggles. She wants their happiness. Individually. Well, she’s never seen them as pair. They are odd. Odd. So different, not similar at all.
Outcasts. Hardworking. Smart. (Smart?) Lead by choices they made very young. Belonging to a group they are not sure about anymore. No, they are sure. They are their friends. They love their friends. But the cause?
Do they love the people?
Everything got way to serious, way too quickly. It was but a school crush. Not even young love. Supposed friendship.
No. They have nothing in common.
And yet, maybe they are what the other needs. Maybe.
This is not about them. This love is not a noble cause. It is an unwanted distraction, a liability, a tripping hazard for the greater good.
Because he has no future. And she cannot have a past.
I don’t know how to start this story. Because, well; he dies, right? And she gets to live.
She gets to be great. Be an advocate. She is going to be “the change she wants to see in their world”.
But she’s also going to be alone.
Well not alone, but it will feel like it.
She will have children, two of them, and a husband. And she will love them. She loves them, but she will also always wonder what could’ve been.
What their children would’ve looked like. Would he have been a good father?
He surely would’ve been a good dad. He would have.
Her husband loves her. He would’ve loved her more. No, not more, just differently.
But it’s no use, right? Cause he’s dead.
Long gone. For the greater good. A noble cause.
Honoured in name. Cleared of any wrong doings.
He would hate it. He is not a good person. He wasn’t a good person.
He did wonder too, you know. He wondered what it would be like, to love her openly. To be hers fully, in name. Honoured like that.
It wouldn’t be. He knew that as well.
Their love was no noble cause. And within their noble cause there was very little space for love.
He dies. He’s dead.
She lives. She feels dead.
They won. They won. She can be the change. They won.
Did they?