People who write love stories like to say that love is the most powerful force in the world. They like to say that love can move mountains. That love is all you need. Love conquers all. Love is a beautiful thing that makes the earth spin round and can, on occasion, even do such improbable things as bring people back from the brink of death, because love and death are polar opposites.
Except they aren�t.
James knew. James only had to look at Kirk�s face while he slept and he understood fully. Kirk looked sweet when he was asleep, far too young pillowed in a soft mass of curling black hair. Almost like one of those horrible, kitschy paintings that people hung up in their houses, the ones that didn�t overtly have anything to do with Jesus but nevertheless dripped smarmy middle-class Christian virtue on everything via the slumbering face of a prepubescent shepherd clutching a lamb.
James wondered if that made him the wolf lurking in the background.
He tried not to look at Kirk too much anyway, but particularly not when he was asleep. In some strange way, he felt most vulnerable when Kirk didn�t know he was watching. Maybe because he didn�t like to admit that even when Kirk was virtually unaware of his presence, he could hold James�s attention more firmly than anything else around.
Was that little pang in his chest love, or was it just a heart attack? Who fucking knew? Who fucking cared? It was all the same to him. Love. Death.
