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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Pairing: Implied Sands/El.
Feedback: Yes, please.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Part VIII, and end, of the Fractal series.
Summary: Because if this is romance, then it's got pistols up the sleeve and scars spoiling the skin.
***
A man walks into a bar.
Bar? What bar? What the fuck does it matter-Timbuktu, London, Tijuana-a bar is a bar is a bar, even if a white horse isn't really a four-legged shitter with a pretty face and a brutal back-kick.
Maybe the bar's half-full, maybe it's half-empty-
you pessimist
--maybe he's alone and maybe he's got friends, one black and one Mexican to complement his pastiness. Maybe there is no black guy, and the Mexican's actually lounging just outside, strumming broken lullabies as if he can piece them back together, defeat Humpty-Dumpty Syndrome that's cost us so much money and blood and life, can't you read, that's what the papers say. And maybe, just maybe, the man's completely alone, nothing at his back but a pair of Desert Eagles warming from his skin and a thin-folded wallet that doesn't even belong to him.
Hell, maybe it's a dog walking in.
Doesn't matter. Doesn't ever matter, because none of it's known, you see. Science says nothing's ever known for sure, not if you slice deep enough, fine enough, look straight down and there's dozens and dozens of little uncertainties everywhere-does he like me? Did she check out that fucking tight-assed limp-dick with the great big red car? Are they going to catch me? How much is it going to cost, you greedy stone-wringing son of a bitch?
So you can't say this or that for anything, anything, except-
--a man walks into a bar, and walks out. He's the only one that manages it, because everyone else is too busy drowning sorrows, or maybe fishing them out of their fly-specked cervezas, to remember that feet are for walking, and yes, paying hurts. Everyone's got to pay, sooner or later, and no one ever wants to because they're afraid of the pain, because they're afraid that they don't know what's coming so how could they possibly be ready, and so they try not to get up, they stay until their knees rust in place and their bones merge to the hard wood of the chairs.
A man walked into a bar. He said to the bartender-
--and he walked out, leaving his toll on the counter. Two coins, silver shiny eye-coins because there's no color here, no gold, gold's just a rich man's illusion and a poor man's false dream. He pays, and he goes on.
He goes on.
***