Word Count: 890

He wasn’t sure what made him sit out on the fire escape that evening. He sat in loose jeans, a button down shirt open down to the third button, one leg hanging through the railing. His hair flowed free of any bindings around his head. The breeze was cold, but he was on the side of the building it wasn’t so bad. He leaned his head against the glass of his window, silver eyes closed. It was so odd, not running around energy collection. There were so few times he got to purely be himself, in all his mortal human glory.

At times, he even missed it. He missed having no idea of the war in the dark, in the alleys, of the consequences of his actions. He’d just been a bass player back then. Everything seemed so entirely simple. So simple, that he marveled in how he could have even existed in such a world. How could Merric Holinger, Captain Jarosite of the Negaverse and esteemed energy collector, have ever been anything but part of the Negaverse?

Then Odette turned everything upside down.

A smile graced his lips as he thought of her. Their first meeting had been so very awkward and so very creepy. But something had… blossomed from it. Something had taken a hold of Merric with such ferocity that he found himself head over heels in love with her after just a few months of them dating. She was awkward, and weird, and stuck in the past, but at the same time incredibly kind and gentle. Her curves helped fuel the passion, but it was who she was a young woman that held him to her. He was bound to her in a way he couldn’t explain.

She was his everything, and anything he could ever wish for.

“… Do you remember when we were just kids and cardboard boxes took the smiles from what we would miss? School yard conversations taken to heart, and laughter took the place of everything we knew were now….” he sang softly, his bass voice vibrating throughout his chest. In all honesty, he’d found he loved singing more than just playing the bass. Perhaps that was because of Odette. He wanted to sing every song for her, no matter how deep his voice was or how flat it would break.

“I wanna break every clock, the hands of time can never move again. We could stay in this moment… for the rest of our lives. Is it over now, hey is it over now… I wanna be your last first kiss… that you’ll ever have. I wanna be your last first kiss…” His voice raised in volume, to help it from breaking. His silver eyes opened and he looked at the building across from him. He pictured Odette with her nose buried in a history book (it just seemed like it was something she’d do) or making his clay figurines. His heart swelled as he thought about her, fueling his voice. It stayed at its soft , bassy pitch.

“Amazing how life turns out the way it does… We end up the worst the only ones we really love…” He smiled ruefully. His mind turned to when she’d confessed and he’d taken his rage out on Swany. He looked back on it now, and that had been a brutal battle. He would have broken all her limbs if the damn senshi hadn’t gotten through his anger. Heh. Damn senshi.

He sung the chorus again, the same rueful smile on his face. Albireo. That senshi… that senshi was turning everything upside down again. She was fun to mess around with, to tease. But nothing beat Odette. Even when she vanished for a month. Even when he’d bitched her out. She always was there. Always. She was beautiful, so beautiful. She’d melted his heart after Alex had frozen it solid. He wanted to lock her away and never let anyone else have her. Keep Odette all for himself.

He wished, so wished from the bottom of his heart he could tell her who he really was. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. She’d hate him for it. She’d run screaming from him. She’d never be able to love him, not knowing what he ran out every night and did. So he kept his secret from her, and would until the day he died.

He finished the song, his voice never wavering from all the notes, “I wanna be your last first kiss… for all time…”

Maybe when this war was over, maybe when things calmed down, maybe then… maybe then he’d ask her what she thought about spending the rest of her life with him. It was a fleeing idea, one that just sounded good in his head, but wasn’t quite practical as of yet.

But someday.

If they all survived this, and the Negaverse won.

He’d ask her.

Merric glanced behind him to read the alarm clock and sighed. He pushed himself up from the fire escape and crawled back into his apartment. Time for sleep. He had school in the morning, plus band practice and energy collection that night.

And s**t.

He hadn’t even thought about what to get Odette for Valentine’s Day. The teen let out a groan and hung his head.

It could be dealt with in the morning.