Uh, yeah. Here, have another NSFW chapter. I don't know where this came from either, but thanks for reading anyway. ^_^

Not Quite There

The young man was temporary.

At certain moments on certain nights, if he sat still long enough with no guitar or Once-ler to distract him and sleep a far-fetched wish, he could feel it in his middle where his lungs only pretended to breathe. His head, too, if he let it reach up there. Most times, he didn't even need to close his eyes; all it took was the right amount of silence and there it was, creeping around the edges of his consciousness. It was very peculiar type of emptiness, something no living thing would ever feel, and it was eager for the moment he would finally let it swallow him.

And he knew that moment would come.

He'd go away one day, plain and simple, and the Once-ler would be really, truly alone and the young man... would just be gone (and unneeded and of course he knew how wonderful that would be). Death was not the right word for it, but disappearing just wasn't the way to describe it either and obliteration gave it more weight than it deserved, made his existence seem like something far more important than it actually was.

Maybe that was why he only let himself cry over it once, sometime during year eight, in the dead of night while the Once-ler himself slept.

Eyes open but seeing little, the man in gray stood with his hands on one of the wood planks nailed over the bedroom's only window, gripping it so hard that a real person would have pulled their fingers back numb and splintered and raw. He was practicing, he thought, getting used to the darkness since that was where he'd go once things got better.

Except he didn't want to leave.

There was no valid reason for it. There was no logic in it that didn't make him feel awful inside, but the thoughts and the darkness and the fact that soon he'd stop feeling anything was really, really scaring him now. That might have been good enough for a human, but the young man was more like a symptom. As long as he was there, so was whatever illness his older self had (and oh, he had one; it was there, plain as day, in his eyes all the time).

And nothing would really get better until he left, because in reality (cold dead reality stupid stupid reality), the Once-ler needed him about as much as everyone needed a thneed.

It was amazing how selfish he was.

The Once-ler frowned in his sleep, shifting uncomfortably in his tangle of thin bedsheets when his counterpart's lips started to quiver. Forgetting his own problems for a moment (if only he could forget them for eternity), the young man had no time to hold in a couple tears as he leaned over the bed frame, reaching to rub the other's ankle. Couldn't have him fidgeting himself awake to see this.

If he kept sleeping, the Once-ler would get up in the morning thinking it was all a dream. Probably.

Hopefully.

Trying to keep himself from sniffling too loudly, the young man kept on petting his other self's ankles in an awkward attempt to soothe him. And maybe it was a good thing that it didn't work, that the tighter his throat got or the more tears that escaped, the more his older self tossed and let out little breathy noises and curled around his pillow like a child with a streak of gray in his hair. At least it was something else to be afraid of, right now in this moment, and then...

Well, now. Maybe the Once-ler wasn't the only one who loved distractions.

The young man clamped his free hand over his mouth to choke back a sob, and he could almost feel the Once-ler's eyes snap open. And he tried, he really, honestly tried to snatch his hand away. He tried to back himself into the darkest part of the room before the other could notice anything was wrong, but then the there was a groan and a thump, and then the rusty little lamp on the bedside table was shining, and then they were staring at each other and why wasn't the young man's body moving.

Eyes narrowed and bleary half from sleep and half from surprise, the Once-ler raised his eyebrows, looking at his companion's hunched shoulders and blotchy cheeks and his hand, which still hadn't moved from its spot on the Once-ler's leg.

"What's wrong? Did something happen?"

His counterpart looked down, finally pulling his hand away, twining both hands together for lack of anything better to do with them. A few more tears trailed down his cheeks.

"I know- I mean, it's nothing. I'm sor-"

"No, it's- it's okay, it's fine. It's just, uh..." the Once-ler trailed off and stared at him strangely, and for a few moments it was as if he knew, which would've made perfect sense but was still awful and terrifying for so many reasons. If he knew, then the young man would never get to go away and nothing would really get better. If he knew, then his life was over, and he wouldn't have been the one to blame.

But then the Once-ler just shook his head like he was trying to clear his mind, tossed the wrinkled-up bed covers off of himself, and spread his arms out in front of him, looking more curious and concerned than anything else.

"Come here," he said.

So this was what it was like, thought the young man as he crawled up onto the bed, let himself droop into the embrace waiting for him. This was what it was like to need somebody instead of somebody needing him (or maybe it had always been that way and both of them were just kidding themselves).

It was both nice and kind of awful at the same time, he decided.

The elder of the two kept himself still at first, just sitting there with the young man cradled in his lap, head pressed close to his chest. One of the other's hands rested right over his heart, fingers splayed out like he wanted a pulse for himself. They stayed like that, legs loosely tangled together, and for a while the only sounds in the room were the young man's hitched-up breathing and the occasional broken hiccup and maybe the Once-ler did know, considering how silent he was through it all.

Maybe the silence was a good thing in general, though; it also kept them safe from the truth.

Eventually, the Once-ler found it in himself to shift the young man in his arms, pulling him up so that his double's head was pressed flush against where his neck and shoulder met. From there, it was a simple transition, not a big deal at all for his hand to move cup the back his counterpart's neck, fingertips fiddling with the edges of his hair.

Except it was a big deal.

It was huge deal for so many reasons, and the swell the young man felt in his chest right then made him break down all over again, since there were a lot of things about this moment he was going to miss once he left.

There were still fresh tears rolling down the young man's face when they finally, finally lost themselves in a kiss that tasted absolutely perfect - bitter and salty and dry. Anything else just would have felt as fake as one of them was, and the young man wanted as much reality for himself to hold on to as possible.

So of course he let himself moan through his last few tears as the Once-ler lowered him down onto the bed and bent to kiss his neck, swapping words of comfort for actions because what was there to say that wouldn't destroy what little they had?

Not that didn't they deserve to have that happen (their audience of tree stumps outside would certainly agree); it was just that somehow it felt like they had time left for all that. No precious moments were being wasted here as the young man gripped his older self by the hair, eyes barely open as the Once-ler kissed and suckled and bit at his nipples until the delusion was keening for more.

Then, at last, the elder spread the young man's legs for him, coaxed him to twitch and leak with a thumb playing at the tip of his member and his other four fingers curled gently around the rest. And of course the man in gray fell victim to a desperate (familiar) rhythm as he rocked into the Once-ler's fist and, eventually, rocked against him, but there was no other way it could have gone. No other way for it to end other than them collapsing together, breathless and sweaty and wet between their thighs.

Those were sure, undeniable facts, just like disappearing or whatever the younger wanted to call it. Everyone would have to bow to facts, sometime.

The young man was temporary, more than a thought but less than a memory, and even if he got even better than he already was at trading fears for grins, he would never be ready for the day he had to go. So maybe the thing was to make himself ready with more times like this one. Times when he could afford to be ignorant of the facts and just focus on the unbridled little feelings, like the way something in his chest splintered to pieces when the Once-ler went to get that one thneed they had, wiped them both clean without a word.

And when the young man did go away forever, that would mean his counterpart was ready to live on his own like normal, which only made him half as happy as it should have.

But he would learn. Learning was a part of life, after all.

In the last moments before he fell asleep on the Once-ler's chest, the young man took a huge, fake breath of heady air, pressed his hand to the Once-ler's cheek, and gave the darkness a wide, vacant smile. In return, the darkness welcomed him, beckoned him forward and he would give himself to it completely one day, but not now. Not for a while.

For the moment, everything was fine the way it was. As good as it could be, in fact, for someone who wasn't quite there.