Note: So. . . I feel like a total dork, but I'm really only posting this because I forgot to put it as complete on the last chapter, and it feels silly to be like OH YEAH WHOOPS, so I figured I'd just go look at Mammon's half of the relationship real quick and drop it here before changing this thing to complete, eheh.

She has to match up.

No, more than that.

She has to surpass him. She has to surpass everyone - it's nothing personal, and he knows it's not, and somehow that's more infuriating than it should be. He should take it personally. It should matter to him. It shouldn't just be a relentless smile, an unending acceptance of everything that's wrong with her.

In his arms, she feels smothered.

Alone, she feels starved.

And when it comes right down to it, she'd rather starve than rely on anyone.

Nights are always the same, and she clings to the routine at the same time as she despises it. Wants him awake, at her side; wants to stop waking up to find him curled around her, already asleep.

Can't imagine his smile there to greet her first thing in the morning, first thing in the evening. It's already too jarring to wake up with someone there, in her head, in her room; she can't imagine waking up in the middle of the night to find him still there.

Slipping out of bed; letting minutes, hours drift by while her mind stretches out in the darkness like a monster grown too large for it's cage.

Fon doesn't see her as a monster. The thought makes her cheeks flush more than anything else - even the idea of them having sex, which she's sure hasn't even crossed his mind.

She's not a monster to him. She's not the threat.

She wonders what that leaves her with.

Her heart aches, and if she closes her eyes, she can hear it, pounding out he loves me, he loves me not, he loves the monster, he loves the mask, he loves me, he loves me not, so she doesn't.

Forces them to stay open, forces herself to not even blink.

Alone, she feels starved.

With him, she feels smothered in everything she's missed out on.

Frankly, she'd rather starve.

Sometimes, he has fights - regulated, controlled. He's picked up his life from exactly where it left off, as effortlessly as he breathes. She waits up for him, drinking coffee, even though she hates how bitter it always comes out. Thoughts chase themselves around in circles, flashing still frames up like the afterimage of a flash of lightning, or a room when the lights go out unexpectedly and all at once. Pop, pop, pop.

He has no doubts in her. The truth of that is harder to accept than the threat of losing, he threat of never having a competition in the first place.

If there's no competition, she doesn't know where she belongs (but if there's no competition, she doesn't have to stay tense and angry, on her guard, on her feet).

She'll fall out of time if she lets go of her hand. With the whole weight of her existence on his shoulders, why doesn't he mind? If she can't bear the weight of a hand or a glance, the impression of someone's mind as it rests on her for a moment, and no longer, how can he hold the entirety of her in his arms, and how long can it last?

How long does anything ever last? Sometimes she loses track. Drifts away from the real world like anything in her head will make it more bearable.

Relentlessly, he pulls her back. Says she can leave at any time; never thinks she might not want to.

Even when he falters, he never fails. How can he, how can he?

He smiles when he gets back, pauses in the doorway, and she wonders if he's waiting for her to come to him.

Indignantly, part of her shrieks denial.

Someting beneath that, softer, quieter, wills her to stand up.

He never gives her enough time to summon that much courage; instead, he crosses the room to her, pours himself a cup of coffee as well (without asking, she notes, like she has no reason to refuse. And really, she doesn't.)

"I don't know why we drink that stuff," she says, flat, hollow, and yet his eyes seem to close in something pleasurable, something she can't quite touch yet, not without getting burned, "Neither of us like it. Mu~."

"I'll make tea tomorrow," he promises, "But if Viper made it, I can't find any fault."

She could name all of them for him, but alone, she'll starve. In his arms, she'll be smothered with things she can't let herself be attatched to.

The ultimate technique; the one thing he could never win against.

And somehow, she wants to see him win.

Wants to be smothered, suffocated in all his unrelenting acceptance.