Notes: Written completely involuntarily. Seriously, it just popped itself out there when I was trying to write a response to one of piper_trickster's Awesome Anons, Jinx. This is the first actual fic I've written since 2003, but is not at all the first plot-bunny to attach to my head and feed on my brain-meats. Unbetaed and ungrammatical, with ridiculous amounts of italics (and parentheses, which I love), second-person wtfery, and semi-angst?

Suggested listening: If it Kills Me (From the Casa Nova Sessions) ~ Jason Mraz

You knew it'd catch up with you one day. Not like this though. Not on the run; not as a hero who'd always be remembered as a villain (and a two-bit one at that); not for love. So stupidly in love you couldn't even think 'til it was too late. You'd always been able to leave everyone else behind, but not Piper.

Physically couldn't, now. Obviously. You could always get away before: Up in the air, out to Cali (and back again, and hadn't that been a trip), sticking closer to the guys or taking jobs far and wide. Became a fuckin' g-man knowing Little Lord Socialist would hate it. (Okay, so you hated it too [Sometimes. Maybe. It had gotten better without that huge weight pressing on your mind] and it had backfired majorly. Now being a great example.)

BUT – and there was that "but", it was always the butt of the joke – he kept coming back; faster than even [Not-So]Lil' Boomer's 'rangs (that still hurt, Piper take ca~are of me), like the most impressive yoyo trick you ever devised. The one that could trip up and hold a Flash, and took you weeks of practice before it did anything more convoluted than leaping up and smacking you in the face. It wrapped around you and through you, twisted up inside you until all you could do was spit out curses, hoping to keep it away. You knew it was lame or stupid or pointless or – let's be honest at the last, at very least – D) All of the Above.

You kept at it anyway because what else were you gonna do? You're the very antithesis of type to begin with, not quite "tall, dark, and handsome". Alright, so two outta three ain't bad, but you've never seen your Hart with anyone but. (And doesn't it just burn that the only one you remember is the one with your name?) And by now you're well acquainted with the taste of your 'Walkers. That joke, all those fucking jokes. You've sounded so forced to your own ears all this time, how come Piper couldn't hear it?

Well, it won't matter soon – it matters now – 'cause it's you or him and there's nowhere to hide; nowhere you'd rather be than facing your love, making the leap, blood in your mouth from biting your tongue. You're making this statement, even if it kills you.