Work Text:
It was the small moments that broke him, more than the big ones.
Two plates in the dishwasher instead of one. Tidying the kitchen on autopilot, and going to bed alone, wondering if he had been able to keep his mouth shut just once, if Shane would have stayed.
It was the breakfast food that he had bought in anticipation, picturing a lazy morning, that was never used. Discarded, still in its package, because he wasn’t hungry.
The t-shirt that wasn’t his on his floor, that he threw in with his own clothes, only to be confronted again as he placed it, neatly folded and tucked away in a drawer, even though it was two sizes too small, on the off chance that its owner might return.
There were five lingering cans of ginger ale in his refrigerator until finally he put them in his pantry, on the floor, behind the grocery bags where he wouldn’t see them anymore.
This wasn’t him. This wasn’t anything.
His patience was worn thin, but none of it made sense.
The anger was mask to the hurt, because if he wasn’t so lazy, so ineffective at controlling his own actions and impulses, then this would never have happened. There was no explanation for why this should hurt so much, other than one he was unwilling to consider.
And the worst part of it all was that this was so completely one-sided. He thought he was in control, but he found himself drowning in a world where every news channel seemed to be filled with Shane’s smiling face, proving to him just how much this wasn’t anything.