He may have loved him.
Once.
Almost.
Always.
It doesn’t matter. They have a job to do, and it’s bigger than either of them. Somebody has to be to blame.
It might have been the theft of a crate almost a year ago that singled the beginning of the end, never mind the fact that they cleared every trace of the event (and the man who caused it) from memory. It might have been the dwindle in productivity as the corporation focused their efforts on a whole town full of targets. It might have been a loose word, or a late report, or a half-finished book of crossword puzzles left in a locker for anyone to find, or it could have been all of these things. Or none of them. The man who is not all doesn’t suppose he’ll ever know. Neither or them will.
They started working together some years ago, and he does his best not to think about if often. Far easier to focus on the job in hand than to chase the memories that slowly dissolve like snow on the desert ground. Because searching for the answers he’s sure he must have once known is a dangerous game. What he does remember is this, though. A shy smile, and the hope that they’ll have each-others’ backs expressed through half expressions and aborted words. The strange knowledge that this is someone he can trust.
The man who is not tall does most of the work. This is no bad thing. He likes it, even, the challenge of having to pull extra weight to ensure that management notices no failings in his partner. He tells himself that having to learn to work with someone new would be inconvenient, and that his partner’s failure might call his own work into questions. These are safe justifications, safe lies to tell himself.
What he doesn’t think about is this. That he can no longer imagine doing this job with anyone else by his side. And that it is, in its small way, a rebellion. By choosing to protect his friend, he is proving to himself at least,, that he is still his own person. It doesn’t matter that no one else will never understand. It doesn’t matter that even this proof comes in the form of fathering the corporation’s interests. It’s enough.
One New Year, when there is no work to be done, and he has drunken more than he should have known to, he tells the man who is not short that this is the greatest gift he could have ever given him. Himself. Or at least he tries to. His partner doesn’t understand (Oh Lord, there’s so much he doesn’t understand), and he never tries to explain himself. Some things are better left unsaid.
He will regret that, later.
The corporation own him in more ways than one, and over time the man who is not tall looses the will to hate even that. He has his work (and his extra work, that tiny flare of obedient rebellion) and he has his partner. There is no need for anything else. He should have known that he would never be allowed to keep both. So it’s hardly a surprise when they are called to the warehouse. Even as his heart hammers a protest against his ribcage. There’s only one choice he’ll ever be able to make.
“Somebody has to be to blame,” says the supervisor, holding the power of non-existent mountains in that brief moment.
“I understand,” he says. He understands what must be done next, and he understands that, if he ever had a choice, that it’s long since passed him by.
“I understand.” says his partner. He doesn’t. He doesn’t and he never will.
They drive out into the desert and he lies when his partner asks if everything will be okay. One last kindness. One last rebellion. It’s the least he can do for the man whom he may or may not love, and who gave him back a piece of himself simply by being. It’s not enough but it’s something.
The man who is not short stands in the sand wastes and looks towards the sky. His fingers stretch into the abyss, straining towards something only he can see, and he ends it as quickly as it must have once begun. He tries not to hear the thud of the former man on the sand. He tries not to see the crimson as he hurriedly wipes the knife. This is not the first time he’s done this, not the second or even the fifth but somehow the colour surprises him. It’s never been so vivid against the sand before, so accusing.
It never had a name before.
He sits in his car, and he may or may not cry. He may or may not have loved him. It doesn’t matter. No one will ever see the tears (or their lack of falling) and there is no him left to love or be unloved. There is only the job. It’s bigger than all of them. And someone must always be to blame.