Since neither he nor Paris had anything to do, they slept in until almost noon, and then Roan discovered Paris had actually gotten up before him and was making his famous French toast. Roan figured that combining Vicodin with both beer and wine was just asking to be put in a coma, and he was probably lucky he wasn’t barfing his guts out.

After showering and getting dressed, leaving some itchy stubble on his face because Paris liked the look (and because it covered some of his bruise), he went downstairs to the smells of warm bread, maple syrup, and espresso, and the faint chatter of a television tuned to the Canadian channel. (Paris would occasionally watch it when he was feeling “nostalgic”, but it never seemed to last longer than fifteen minutes - nostalgia with Paris had a very brief shelf life). “Damn it,“ Par exclaimed upon seeing him. “I was gonna come upstairs and stick you with a B-12 shot. I thought you were never getting up.”

“Yesterday really took it out of me. I don’t know why.” But he did know why, and the look Paris gave him, one of sad affection, seemed to say he knew why too. But he didn’t say it. He just slid a plate of French toast down the breakfast bar, and put a mug of espresso beside it. Roan took that as an invitation and sat down on one of the stools, as Paris took a seat on the other side and started in on his breakfast.

The newspaper was sitting folded off to the side, and Roan glanced at it, but it was the same old depressing stuff: war, death, privacy violations, a Human interest story that seemed depressing for its attempt at forced cheer. Paris had the remote for the television and picked it up, flipping through channels as he sipped his espresso, which had a thick dollop of whipped cream on top. While he was scanning channels, Roan wasn’t really paying attention, but the name “Clifford Braben” suddenly jumped out, and he turned around to see the screen, saying, “Hold it there.”

It was the local news channel, where a blandly attractive Asian woman in a bright red blouse was reporting from behind a low desk, with smaller, more fragile desks and people somewhat visible in the background. The local news channel had no budget, and it generally showed.

The story was all about Clifford Braben being accused of taking gifts and money from a development company before casting the deciding vote on the Hidden Hills golf course project, which had turned out so far to be a financial sinkhole. The city council had to change zoning laws to allow a large parcel of formerly public lands to be sold to the development company that supposedly bribed Cliff for his vote, and they’d been planning a super luxury golf course that would not only have a horrible effect on the environment, but would be financially out of reach for anyone who actually lived within five miles of the place. Braben was shown leaving an attorney’s office looking pinch faced and annoyed, like Dick Cheney asked anything besides “Why are you so great?” , and pushed his hand against the camera lens in a gesture known to white collar criminals everywhere. “Isn’t that that guy’s father? Gavin’s?” Paris asked.

“Step-father,” Roan corrected, chuckling low in his throat. So Jay wasn’t content to just take down Gavin - he was going for the whole family. And if Clifford actually was bribed to push through the Hidden Hills debacle or was a complete innocent, it didn’t matter; this would be covered by the local media for a while, as it was just that desperately unpopular. And Clifford wasn’t going to be running for the governorship - his political career here was over, at least for the time being. He’d been torpedoed by a man who’d probably done his share of bribing to get his own unpopular land grab deal through. What on Earth was Jay going to do to Gavin, who’d really pissed him off? “Sic ‘em, boy,” he muttered under his breath.

“What?” Paris asked.

“Nothing. Do you know he hated cats and queers both?”

“Really? Ooh, we should go to his office and make out in front of him, and then when security tries to toss us out, you can lion out on them. It’ll be a twofer.”

“You still live to shock, don’t you?”

“Hey, I’m the slacker in a family of over-achievers. If I wanted to get noticed, I had to make a display of myself.”

“Which explains your perfection of it.” He turned back to face Paris - the news team had moved on to the weatherman with the ill fitting hairpiece - and shot him a grin, which Par returned in blinding affection.

“Damn right baby. I’m the king of desperate displays for attention.”

“Which explains your shirt,” he responded, gesturing at it with his fork. It was a black t-shirt that said simply, in plain white letters across the chest, ‘Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful. Hate me because I fucked your dad.’ That had actually been a birthday present from Randi, which Par had absolutely loved, although Roan had to ask him to please never wear it to the office.

Paris grinned slyly. “This isn’t just a bid for attention. There were a couple of instances where this was factually true. “

“Please don’t bring up your sordid past now; I’m eating.”

“Sordid?” he repeated, then did it again, thinking it over. “Sordid. Is it wrong I like the sound of that?”

“Probably, but I won’t hold it against you.”

“See? That’s why you’re the best husband ever.” He leaned over the breakfast bar and planted a kiss on his forehead, and Roan gave him a tight, slightly sarcastic smile.

Par turned off the t.v. since the news was done having anything interesting in it, and they finished breakfast in a mix of companionable silence and meaningless talk. Roan had a feeling they were talking around something, but he really didn’t know what it could be.

And then he did. They were piling breakfast dishes in the sink when Paris, facing away from him, said simply, “I’m doing it tomorrow.”

It took Roan a minute to understand what he said, and then another minute to hope he’d heard him wrong. But he hadn’t, and there was no mistaking what he meant. Unsure what to do, he finally put his arms around his waist and rested his head on his shoulder, swallowing back a huge lump that had spontaneously formed in his throat. “Why so soon?”

Paris sighed, and reached up and cupped the back of his neck. “I realized how close I was cutting it. I’ll be within the virus cycle ‘s high range starting tomorrow, and you know I could transform at any time after that. I thought I’d have more time, but it just got away from me.” He caressed the back of his neck for a moment, and Roan found it amazing he was trying to comfort him. “So, because of that, I thought we could have some fun today.”

“Absolutely. What do you want to do?”

“Besides you?”

Roan laughed. “Yeah, besides me.”

“It sounds nuts, but I want to go to the beach.”

“Hon, it’s thirty three degrees outside.”

“I don’t want to go swimming or anything. I just want to see the ocean.”

He kissed the side of Paris’s neck, once again noting how abnormally warm his skin was. Something in his mind wanted to rage about how unfair this was, but he didn’t allow himself to, because he wasn’t going to ruin Paris’s day. Nothing about this stupid fucking disease was fair, any more than life was fair. Was it fair that, of all the virus children born brain damaged and ill, he somehow came out of it okay? Was it fair that while Paris was getting sicker and sicker, he was only getting stronger? He might actually have a fair shot at living an almost normal human lifespan - and the prospect of that terrified him. A large part of him thought he’d be much better off going with Paris, and he wished he could. “Okay then. Let’s get going.”

Paris glanced back at him, gracing him with a warm, affectionate smile that made Roan’s stomach twinge. How would he live his final day, if he knew it was? Roan wasn’t sure, didn’t know, and didn’t want to think about it.

They poured a thermos of espresso, then put on their coats and headed out to the garage. They took the Mustang, Roan driving, so Paris could lean into him as he drove, Roan’s arm draped over his shoulders and Paris’s warm hand on his knee. The traffic wasn’t bad, and got even thinner as they headed out towards the coast, as a cold November day was hardly peak time for the tourists. He was pretty sure Paris dozed off against him for a bit, his body radiating so much heat he hardly needed to have the car heater on, but he didn’t mind. He felt a surprising emotional numbness, but maybe it wasn’t that surprising in retrospect. After all, the world was ending; this was it. But it was one of those things that was so huge, so impossible to fathom, that it didn’t really strike you what was happening until it had already happened. Knowing that the world was about to be ripped out from under you wasn’t the same as finding yourself falling into a bottomless chasm.

The parking lot for the beach was almost totally empty save for an old style Volkswagen van, and once they got out onto the empty beach, they figured out who it must have belonged to. Way out in the blue-grey ocean, they saw a lithe figure clad in a tight, full body wetsuit balanced on a yellow surfboard, attempting to catch some of the meager waves out there. They decided he was fucking nuts, but more power to him, as long as he didn’t suffer from hypothermia.

It was beautiful here, and peaceful, with only the sighing of the waves and the cries of the seabirds; only the biting cold was a bit of a pisser. But Paris sat down on the hard packed sand and began tracing a pattern in the beach with his finger. Paris always had an artistic bent, but he never did much with it; as he told Roan when he showed him some of the drawings and paintings he did as a teenager (his parents kept them all, and they had a more abstract effort of his framed in their living room), he never had any ambitions beyond getting laid as much as humanly possible. He just didn’t care about anything else. Roan figured he was exaggerating, but Paris did seem to suffer a terminal lack of ambition. As strange as it might sound, he actually liked that about him; it seemed very Zen.

Roan, who had no artistic ability to speak of, joined him, ending up making some sort of mandala pattern, as it was easy to draw spirals and circles. Paris looked at it and seemed to like it, and he joined him by drawing his own mandala pattern as well. What the hell were they doing? Roan had no idea, but bizarrely enough, they were having fun.

They had covered half the beach with loops and whorls, circles and geometric patterns, when the surfer paddled back to shore. He was older than Roan had assumed, in his earlier thirties, although he had shoulder length brown hair, and the body encased in the black wetsuit looked impressively sleek. He looked at what they had done, and said, “Cool. You guys’ artists?” He actually had the faintest trace of a German accent, which surprised him - he really hadn’t expected that.

“Only he is,” Roan said, pointing at Paris. “I’m just copying him.”

Paris denied that, but surfer dude - as Roan had mentally dubbed him - seem impressed. He went back to his van and put his surfboard away, and then came back, dressed in drier, warmer clothes, and carrying a digital camera. He took pictures of what they had done, and as it turned out, he was an artist - a glass blower, actually. (Oh, the jokes he could have made, but didn’t.) They chatted for a bit, and exchanged email addresses so he could send them copies of the photos he took. His names was Lukas, which actually seemed like the perfect name for a German surfer/glassblower wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirt and driving a VW van. Roan bet ten to one that the back of the guy’s van smelled like old bong water.

They all shook hands, and Lukas invited them to drop by the “gallery” sometime (not a proper gallery, just a small shop in a local market where he and a bunch of other artists attempted to sell their wares) before leaving. Once he was gone, Paris laughed. “Well, that was weird. It’s not every day you meet a German surfer.”

“And glassblower.” Roan chuckled, and put his arms around Paris, pulling him close. “I think he was checking you out.”

“You’re just saying that to feed my ego.” He slid his arms around his waist and smiled at him.

“No. He was totally checking out your crotch. I was thinking of punching him.”

His grin broadened until it looked like he was going to laugh. “I can’t possibly love you more.”

They returned to the car, and Paris snuggled against him for the drive back. They stopped at their usual Chinese restaurant and because they were much liked regulars, they got the best booth and the nicest waitress. He didn’t know if they knew they were gay; what they knew was they were great customers and they tipped really well. Ultimately, that was probably all they cared about. It would have been nice if things were always that simple.

During lunch, they both had one more drink than they probably should have, and picking over dessert, Paris told him, “I have stuffed marked. I put it in the bedroom closet.”

Was it the beer? Or did this just not make sense? “What?”

“Everything else is yours. Do what you want with it. Except no throwing away my CDs, damn it. “

Now he understood what he was saying. He had prepared his things, what he wanted to give away to various people, and set them aside for him to distribute after his death. A detail that probably would have escaped Roan, or would have been exceptionally painful. He wanted to ask him when he did that, but realized it must have been yesterday, when he was home, before he collapsed. Maybe that’s why he collapsed - the fever and doing all that work may have taken it out of him. “I’m not going to throw away anything of yours,” he told him honestly. How could he? It would be all he had left of Paris. The thought of it made his throat threaten to close up again.

Paris reached across the table and stroked his cheek with the back of his hand, his look so kind it was almost painful to look at straight on. “I’m always going to be with you, you know. As long as you remember me, I will exist. Memory is a form of existence, life after death. Just do me a favor and try to remember only the good things. “

Roan couldn’t help but gasp at this. It was almost a laugh, and yet also a reaction of shock. Yeah, he said he liked him because he was kind of Zen, but he’d never actually been Zen. Tears came to his eyes and he wiped them away as he asked, “Goddamn, how are you handling this so well?”

He gave him a kind smile, and took his hand in his, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Because I expected to die years ago, hon. Hell, I wanted to. I was never going to have sex again, and I couldn’t trust myself around people; the tiger could kill again. I should have killed myself quicker but I was too scared to do it. So I figured if I kept drinking and just waited, death would find me. It almost did too, before some private eye with a preternaturally sharp nose crossed my path.” He lifted his hand and kissed it, giving him a sweet smile. “So all this time has been a gift. I didn’t expect it, and I’m grateful for it. I’ve had so much fun. Thank you.”

“What the hell are you thanking me for?”

“For the good time, sailor.” Paris gave him a hearty grin with a white flash of teeth. “You should charge admission into your life. It’s a trip.”

“People would demand refunds.”

“Only if they’re complete pussies.” A couple walked past on their way to a table, and Roan’s first impulse was to let Paris’s hand go - you had to be really careful about showing affection in public places, because people could have the most astonishingly psychotic reactions - but Paris didn’t let go of his hand. And he was right - who gave a fuck? Today, nothing much mattered at all, beyond Paris. Besides, they could go psycho, but he could partially transform into a lion - he won. Again, he won the biggest fucking psycho sweepstakes.

“So what do you want to do now?”

His blue eyes glowed mischievously. “Go home and fuck our brains out.”

Now that was the type of cheap date that he liked.

So they went home and did just that. Paris was still the most beautiful man he’d ever seen, even though the ravages of illness made his ribs stand out beneath his skin, made his hip and shoulder bones jut out almost painfully, made his flat stomach concave. It occurred to him that he’d probably think he was beautiful no matter how he looked, because to him he always would be. He loved him so fiercely it honestly scared the shit out of him. He had not wanted to ever feel so much for anyone, especially after Connor, but somehow he had fallen harder for Paris than he ever had for Con. It was almost like he subconsciously sabotaged himself … which wouldn’t surprise him, actually.

The good thing about living so far away from everyone was they had privacy no matter the fact that they had their bedroom curtains open, and while they fell asleep with the pale winter sun warming their skin, when Roan woke up, the sky was dark and sparkling with stars, and he caught Paris giving himself a B-12 injection. Well, why not? This was his last day to use them.

Paris now wanted to go out, hit Panic and maybe a more sedate bar on the way home, which Roan kind of suspected he’d want to do. What he hadn’t expected was that Par would insist on picking out his clothes. “Oh come on,” Paris said, clad only in a towel wrapped around his waist. They’d just gotten out of the shower, and Roan had just pulled on his boxers and had grabbed a pair of pants when Paris stopped him. “You’re such a hottie and you always hide it. I want to show you off. “

He sighed heavily, fixing him with a skeptical look. “I am not, nor have I ever been, a “hottie“. You’re just saying that because you love me.” Saying that made him feel a twinge in his chest that he ignored.

“No, not just because of that. The puppy still has a major league crush on you, you know.“ Paris put his arm around his waist and kissed his ear. “You have the most striking eyes I’ve ever seen, and you have the greatest arms. Once the queens at Panic get a look at your arms they’re going to faint.”

He groaned in defeat. “ You’re going to make me wear something sleeveless, aren’t you?”

“Just stay here,” he said, carefully not answering the question, and then went to search the drawers and closet.

“No half shirts!” He warned him. “And if you bring me anything spandex I swear to your mother I’m flushing it down the toilet!”

Eventually he dressed Roan up in this sleeveless black muscle shirt that had see through fishnet like vents on the side, but since it was Paris’s shirt - of course it was Paris’s shirt; he didn’t own anything even partially see through - it was a bit baggy and not all that revealing. Roan was able to pick out his own jeans, but Paris objected to him wearing a weather appropriate coat. “You have to go with the black leather jacket. You’ve got this whole rough trade thing going on.”

“I am not rough trade,” he snapped, but of course completely caved to Paris’s wishes. Par knew he would too, the bastard. Par, as if wanting to deliberately contrast with his dark wardrobe, wore a skin tight white t-shirt and extremely pale jeans with strategically worn holes in them, although they were baggy enough now that you couldn’t actually see how slender his legs and hips were now.

Once again, Mighty Mouse was on the door of Panic, and was happy to see Paris, whom he let through instantly. He also looked Roan over, and said, “Don’t you clean up nice?”

Inside the noisy, crowded club, that seemed to be the general consensus of the men who swarmed Paris like a long lost brother at a family reunion. One of the twinks even said to him, “You don’t look so bad, y’know, for a redhead.”

He sat at the bar while Paris went to talk to the DJ that was working tonight, a whisper thin but still nicely built black man wearing a magenta cowboy hat and no shirt (was it a rule that employees of Panic could not, under any circumstances, wear shirts?), and slipped him a folded up computer print out. He knew it was the play list that Paris wanted at his wake - he’d already let him know he wanted a wake at Panic. He wanted to be cremated, and he wanted a wake here, so everybody could get bombed and “not be so fucking miserable”. Even in death, Paris wanted a wild party.

Roan folded his arms on the bar and rested his head on them as some kind of inexplicable dance remix of a Stone Roses song pounded through the club, causing reverberations he could feel up his legs. Why did time do this? Why did it move so fast when all you wanted it to do was slow the fuck down? He felt like he was waiting for his own execution. Although he suspected it wouldn’t be so bad if it was his execution. He could fight that; he could go down swinging. But you couldn’t fight time, and you could fight this fucking relentless virus, or the effects it was having on Paris’s system. All he could do was stand by helplessly and watch, and he couldn’t tolerate being helpless. He swore that once he grew up, he would never be helpless again. Oh, how life loved to stick in the shiv.

Suddenly he felt a warm hand on his arm, and he lifted his head to see that it was Toby the bartender, whose chocolate brown eyes were almost liquid with sympathy. “You guys’ drinks are on the house tonight,” he told him, giving his arm a pat before withdrawing his hand.

Only then did Roan realize that Toby hadn’t told anyone - he hadn’t told any of the others that he and Paris were infected. He was a good bartender and he kept his clients’ secrets to himself. He would have thanked him for that, but something in Toby’s expression told him that wasn’t necessary. “You don’t have to -”

“It’s done,” he said, with a casual shrug of his shoulder. “Just take care of yourselves.” He was called down to the other end of the bar by a customer, and Roan watched him go. Did the manager set that up? He must have known that Paris was in bad straits since they had to set up the wake. Just from the looks he occasionally threw their way, he surmised only Toby knew.

Paris captivated all the men, but they couldn’t stay as long as he probably wanted, because in spite of the B-12 he got tired fast. Paris decided this was enough bar hopping for him, so they headed home. Because Roan wanted to see if there was anything more about Braben, he listened to the local news update on one of the AM bands. The same scandal was enveloping Braben, and apparently the IRS was now investigating him. But as the story on him ended, one on his step-son began. Gavin had been charged with assault by three different women who claimed he deliberately infected them. When the cops arrived to interview him, they found illegal drugs on the premises, including pot, ecstasy, rohypnol, cocaine, and heroin. He claimed the drugs weren’t his and he infected no one, but he was in the infected wing of the local prison. It seems the sheer amount of illegal drugs found in his possession was enough for a federal charge. Had Jay set him up? Probably - Gavin was a user, not a dealer. Ironically, he’d probably do more time on drug charges than he ever would’ve for murder. Jay Bishop’s terminal fucking up of the lives of Gavin and Clifford was probably complete. And if either of them got away unscathed, there’d be a new bear trap waiting around the corner for them, for as long as Jay lived. He seemed like a vindictive bitch.

Paris commented on Gavin’s bad karma, and Roan agreed. He didn’t know if Paris suspected the truth, because neither of them pursued it.

Back home, Paris wanted to do something they hadn’t done since Paris had moved in to his house: go up on the roof and look at the stars. It wasn’t difficult; thanks to an architectural quirk, there was a pointless, narrow ledge outside of the main bedroom window, and from there it was easy to lever yourself up onto the roof, which was sloped gently enough that you could lay back and just enjoy the overhead view without worrying about falling off. It was freezing up there, but the night was still, there was almost no wind, and the sky was magnificent. Inky black, but out here, far from the light pollution of the city, the stars were bright pinpricks of white light, and there was a crescent moon that seemed almost as bright as a spotlight, gauzy clouds occasionally scudding over it, looking like wisps of velvet. It was beautiful, but Roan mainly watched Paris watching the sky, his breath visible in ephemeral white clouds. Roan wished he could freeze this moment, stop time completely.

Paris eventually got too cold, so they had to climb back inside. To warm up, they crawled into bed and made love once more, Roan trying very hard not to think that this was the last time they ever would. Then they slept for a while, holding each other tightly in spite of the general discomfort of doing such a thing. Roan needed to know he was still here.

He woke up when Paris got up in the early morning, and he kissed his forehead and told him he’d be right back. Roan actually dozed off for a bit before faint music coming from downstairs roused him. It sounded like mellow electronic music, and he eventually placed it as M83’s “Before The Dawn Heals Us”. Paris had said that seemed like an appropriate final soundtrack. Paris finally came back, smiling, and carrying a hypodermic needle. “There’s a dusting of snow out there,” he reported happily, crawling back beneath the covers. “It’ll probably be gone in a couple of hours, so if you want to build a really tiny snowman, you’d better get out there soon.”

Paris was hiding the needle, but he knew what it was, what it contained. A fatal overdose. Roan couldn’t keep from crying as he admitted, “I don’t want you to go.”

He took his face in his hands and kissed him, but when Paris pulled back, he could see tears in his eyes as well. “I don’t want to go either, but I have to. I can feel it, you know? The sicker I get, the more I can feel the tiger waiting. I think it wants to get out before it dies too. That’s not going to happen.” Roan buried his face in the side of his neck, trying to make himself stop crying, and Paris held him tight, stroking his hair. “Sweetheart, I need you to promise me something: live for me. I can’t do it, so you’re going to have to do it for me.” Paris pulled him back, making him look him in the eye. He knew he couldn’t lie to him when he was looking him in the eye. “Roan, promise me.”

He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t start denying him anything now. “I promise,” he said breathlessly, in complete defeat. If Paris was dead, did any promise he made to him matter? He honestly didn’t know.

Paris kissed him, hard and deep, and Roan knew this was it. He wanted to stop him, to break that fucking hypodermic, overpower him to stop him from doing it … but he was going to die. He had to respect that Paris wanted to do it this way, not wait for his final, fatal transformation to a tiger.

Roan was shaking as Paris finally showed the needle, and he realized that Paris was shaking too. “I love you,” Roan told him, and it was almost a plea.

Paris touched his face, stroked his cheek. “Oh sweetheart, I know. And you’re the only person I’ve ever loved. Remember that.” He then looked at his left arm, bared over the cover, and made a fist tight enough that a vein stood out in stark relief. With a hand now steady, he plunged the needle into the vein with the slightest hiss of pain, and injected the toxic drug into his bloodstream.

Roan grabbed his face and kissed him softly, trying not to cry and perfectly unable to stop. Paris let the empty needle drop on the carpet and kissed him back, looking at him with sleepy eyes. “If there’s an afterlife after all, I’ll see you there. I‘ll save you a good seat.” He laid back and closed his eyes, and Roan held him, unable to keep the tears from flooding out his eyes.

It should have been world shattering, something that came slamming down like a heavy mausoleum door, but that wasn’t how it happened. Roan laid there listening to Paris breathe, his breaths becoming shallower, his heart rate becoming slower. There was a muscle spasm, much like the kind you sometimes got inexplicably when falling asleep, and his breathing continued, but with more space between them.

And then, he simply stopped. He exhaled, and he just never inhaled again. Roan kept waiting for it, waiting for the thud of his heartbeat, but when he caught the faint but unmistakable scent of death from his skin he knew it was never going to happen. Paris was gone.

He sat up, looking down at him. Paris’s face was slack, peaceful, like he was sleeping … but Roan’s nose was telling him what his eyes refused to see. He couldn’t deny it. He threw back his head and screamed, a sound from the pit of his soul that quickly became a roar so savage and forceful that it didn’t just scour his throat but tore it up from the inside out. As the lack of oxygen finally made him stop, he could taste blood in the back of his throat.

He reached for the phone, feeling dizzy and disconnected, the tears finally drying as he called 911 and reported that his husband was dead. The operator tried to get specifics, but after giving his name and address he hung up. He pulled on his boxers and stumbled downstairs, hearing the phone ring as the operator called him back. He didn’t answer it. He just turned off the stereo - that was unexplainable to the cops - and collapsed on the sofa, feeling like an empty husk of a human being. He bet he was hollow now; he bet if you pushed on his chest, his ribcage would collapse.

He had no idea how long it was between the phone call and the siren screaming arrival of the ambulance; time had lost all meaning at this point. Nothing seemed real. Was he still sleeping? Maybe he was. He liked to believe he was.

A male and female duo of EMTs arrived, ones he vaguely recognized but couldn’t place, and then Dee in civilian clothes showed up and took over, telling them where to find the bedroom upstairs before gathering him in a solid embrace. “I’m so sorry, Ro,” he whispered, squeezing him tight. “I’m so sorry.”

How had Dee showed up so fast? He probably had alerted people to tell him if a call ever came in from this address; Dee had lots of friends. Had he gotten Paris his lethal injection? It probably didn’t matter; Paris could have gotten it anywhere. He had had lots of friends too.

Dee wasn’t the only one who had tagged his name and address, though. Gordo and Seb, their morning coffees still in their hands, showed up to take the standard report. This wasn’t a cat crime, this was the usual routine stuff done by beat cops, but he imagined that Gordo was trying to be kind to him. A further apology for how he sometimes used to treat him and Paris.

The official story was easy to report, and no one questioned it. Roan was vaguely aware that Paris, who had been sick and in a lot of pain lately, had gotten up this morning and retrieved a painkiller to help him sleep. Roan wasn’t sure what, as he was pretty much asleep, but he woke up a short time later, smelling death and finding Paris dead. It would have been a bizarre story for someone who didn’t know what being infected was like and who didn’t know about his sensitive nose, but Gordo and Seb knew, and they didn’t ask any further questions. If he’d known they were coming, there’d have been no need for him to remove all the other drugs from the house and hide them - they weren’t even going to attempt to search the place.

He was right. Both Gordo and Seb extended what seemed to be genuine sympathy as they closed their notebooks, and while Seb went to talk with the EMTs bringing Paris down the stairs, zipped inside a body bag atop a stretcher, Gordo asked Dee - who’d been sitting beside him the whole time he gave his bullshit account of how Paris had accidentally overdosed - if he was going to stay with him (like Roan wasn’t in the fucking room). Dee nodded and said he was, and Gordo nodded back before telling Roan to call if he needed anything. Gordo’s eyes could barely settle on his face before he quickly looked down at the carpet. Looking someone else’s grief in the face was one of the hardest part of the job.

They all left, save for Dee, whom he heard making a cell phone call, telling someone on the other end of the line that he was taking the day off and wouldn’t be in today. But Roan wasn’t rally listening as he let himself fall over on the couch, boneless as a doll, waiting for his body to die off as surely as his heart had. He wished he believed in an afterlife; he wished Paris really had too.

T.S. Eliot was right after all, and it wasn’t surprising, just disappointing. If he could have felt anything at all it might have made him sadder, but he felt nothing but empty and cold. A wasteland in humanoid form.

This was how the world ended. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.