[p]iano, for you.

[&Ismirshalen]

When he felt the man's lips against his own, he did not pull back. In fact, he openly accepted the other. It started out tentative, but then grew and became passionate. Everything happening around the guard became a haze, even the music he was playing seemed to dim and become obsolete. It was strange. Before he could never imagine doing anything like this with Dr. DeVrais. Their first kiss had been terrible, an utterly sick joke, but everything was forgotten to him right now. All reasoning was forgotten. All he wanted to do right now was press his mouth against the therapist's own. The feeling of the man's hot flesh against his was erotic. His own face was burning with passion. Blood pounded through his ears. His hand gripped the other's more tightly, and he marveled at the way his body seemed to be a perfect mold against the therapist's own. All of the pain and agony he'd been feeling lately was washed away in this blissful moment, because now he was connected, now he was whole.

The kiss was better than any he had ever shared with his now dead wife.

His eyes opened a sliver, and he admired the other's face. The doctor's dark eyes shared the same feelings Ismirshalen was experiencing. He blinked slowly…

And suddenly realized what he was doing.

He was kissing Vincent DeVrais.

His hand slipped from the other's grasp, and in a jerky movement he tore his mouth away from the other, breathing heavily and raggedly. His wide blue eyes stood fixated on one of the piano keys, and he stared at it in horror. His heart beat rapidly in his chest, so forcefully that he was feeling nauseated and like he was about to pass out. And like he was about to throw up. A cold sweat beaded on his forehead. Thoughts raced feverishly through his head. What had he done? The question kept repeating through his throbbing skull at a sickening speed.

Ismirshalen stumbled off of the pianist's bench, nearly tripping and falling flat on his face. He couldn’t meet the eyes or even look at the therapist. He staggered out of the room, blood pounding in his head, in his ears, in his chest, in his fingers, everywhere. He finally made it to the bathroom. He locked the door behind himself. He leaned against the wall without turning the lights on.

He felt completely disgusted with himself. He didn’t want to ever look at himself again. He didn’t ever want to come out of the bathroom again. He couldn’t ever face the therapist again. His head hurt. His heart hurt even more. He felt broken, torn, and utterly confused.

"W'hat have I done?" he whispered in a horrified voice. He couldn’t even stand the sound of his own voice anymore.

A thudding noise echoed from the bathroom as the man started slamming his head against the bathroom mirror.

[VinnNAY]

Vincent slammed his head onto the piano in one movement and felt himself fall apart right there along with the off-key noise the impact created. He had to take his arms around himself in an embrace just to make sure he wouldn’t just shatter into a million pieces just then. He couldn’t recall a time he had ever felt more miserable and embarrassed. He was crying so hard he started shaking.

The other man had seen him naked countless times and that didn’t seem to bother the immodest man as much as this did. It was worse than just seeing skin. It was like he took off his skin and Ismirshalen saw the true him. Had he ever shown that to anyone before?

He was confused. It was confusing.

Their ‘first kiss’ was nothing but hate. But now he didn’t know how the other felt about him at all. Did he hate him? He was sure he kissed him back, anyways. He was a good kisser…

«Oh, Michel Glasscock, I think I love you…» Vincent sobbed into the moist keyboard. What did he know? If anything he loved everyone. He said that to all of his countless girlfriends. This time it was just a little different. Had he reacted this strongly then? Perhaps.

But maybe it wasn’t all that different because he ended up crying himself to sleep. Like usual.

[&Ismirshalen]

A few hours later, Ismirshalen finally left the bathroom. After the first few impacts of his face against the mirror the throbbing in his skull had escalated into a migraine, and finally he had simply fallen unconscious when his body could no longer take the self-abuse. Now, his face hurt terribly. He hadn't bothered turning on the lights to see what he looked like now. He hadn't applied his makeup like he normally did around these wee hours of the morning. His eyes were red-rimmed and raw from the time he'd also spent crying.

Right now, he was at the stove and frying two servings of eggs to go with the toast, sausages, and fried potatoes that made up his idea of a normal breakfast. No expression at all was on his face. He felt numb. His head was throbbing. It hurt for him to think about anything. When at one point his hand accidentally slid over the hot stove, he didn’t utter any sound of pain out loud. He didn’t even wince. Every new addition to his pain was hardly noticeable anymore. In fact, he welcomed it. He felt like he deserved it.

He was so confused. He didn’t know what to think anymore. He couldn’t trust himself. He felt like he'd betrayed himself. His heart felt like someone had ripped it apart. It ached painfully in his chest. He'd felt like this once before in his life, with the women he'd thought had loved him… Love.

The therapist probably hated him. He didn’t know. He just didn’t know. Trying to make sense of what had happened only brought him unbearable agony.

The kiss was everything he'd ever needed. The kiss was everything he'd ever hated. He was appalled at the thought that he had… enjoyed it. He was so confused. His hands shook as he put the overdone eggs onto their respective plates. When he went to pour himself a mug of coffee half of it ended up spilling onto his hand and burning it even more. The man almost choked up, but not from the pain. He cleaned the counter. He put the two plates at the kitchen table. He sat down in his chair and stared at his food. He was hungry, but at the same time he wasn’t. He wanted to starve himself. He wanted to torture himself by making himself stare at the food in front of him.

Silence enshrouded the room as the guard sat there, unmoving. He wished that the therapist would come and kick him out. He wanted to die.

His heart throbbed painfully in his chest. He had to hug himself tightly to keep from dissolving into tears.

[VinnNAY]

[[IT WAS JUST A LITTLE KISS GUYS!]]

Vincent felt like he let Ismirshalen down. As his therapist it was way out of line to do such a thing. He could feel Georg’s searing words, now. Homosexual lovers. He felt worthless for making his patient feel worthless. Maybe he should just leave him alone, now. He cared about him too much to do this to him. Even if it hurt him to be away from the guard. He felt bullied. He would do anything to be the one who was bullied instead.

Stupid fan. It's all your fault.

Vincent’s face arose from the piano’s keyboard. He could only imagine the key shapes all over his forehead. That’s what he had hair for he supposed. In fact he was feeling very dirty. Rarely did that happen. He may not be able to clean himself emotionally but he could do it physically. It was pretty much as good as it was going to get.

The bathroom was open. As he entered it he could feel Ismirshalen’s previous presence and could hardly keep himself from throwing up. However he hadn’t eaten anything substantial for days and it would result in nothing. In fact he’d probably dropped too much weight to be healthy. Even if stress makes you gain weight, Vincent felt thinner than ever. The mirror proved that.

This time along with his usual array of hygiene (Washing his face/teeth) he dunked his head into a tub of water and tried drowning himself. He eventually gave up after four minutes and made his numb way out of the salle de bain. He smelt food.

Ismirshalen was making little dinner? He had to shuffle his feet to get himself to move towards his existence. The pitiful kitchen was so much more substantial with the guard in it. The dripping Vincent was horrified to see what his actions had done to the man’s beautiful eyes. He barely made it into the chair across from him. But he could only stare straight ahead at the other guy. He seemed to be taking it better than him (on the outside). He kept thinking of things to say to the other but he could only go through the motions of trying to say something. Nothing could come out. Well at least he tried.

[&Ismirshalen]

When the therapist entered the kitchen and sat down, Ismirshalen didn’t bring his gaze up from his plate. He could feel the other's eyes on him. The silence hurt more than any words that either of them could have said. The therapist didn’t say anything. He himself couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t even look at the other man. Darkly he remembered when what seemed like forever ago the man had jokingly asked him if he was autistic when he wouldn’t meet his eyes at their first therapy session. He felt autistic now. A lump formed in his throat. He swallowed it. Another lump formed. A choked hiss of anguish escaped his mouth, and he tilted his head downward until he was looking at his legs instead of the plate. His long and now greasy hair draped in front of his face. He embraced the extreme discomfort he felt about being so lacking in personal hygiene. If he wasn’t sitting in front of the therapist, he'd have started slamming his head into the table, too.

The food was growing cold. Neither of them had made any move to eat it. This trend didn’t change as time went on. He had known while he was making it that it was completely pointless to do so. He'd done it out of a desperate need to distract himself.

The guard rocked back and forth in his chair. Trying not to have another mental breakdown. Who was he kidding. He'd never stopped having a mental breakdown. He didn’t know if he'd ever be able to put himself back together again. He certainly couldn’t do it if he was left to his own devices. He desperately needed the therapist to hold him together right now. But at the same time he desperately didn’t want him to. If anything, that would just make things worse.

His heart. He wanted to tear out his heart. It was unbearable. It felt like it was rotting inside of him. He hugged himself tighter, shaking with the effort.

The phone rang. Its shrill voice violently penetrated the room's silence. Ismirshalen took this as an opportunity to further distract himself. He unsteadily got up and went to answer the phone.

"Hello?" a voice asked. "Is Mr. Linnaeus there?"

"You're speaking to him," he replied in a voice that sounded like it was being scraped across sandpaper.

"Ah, well… Due to your sudden absence, we've had to have you fired."

What he heard made his mouth go dry. But he was otherwise numb. The news was meaningless to him.

"…Is Dr. DeVrais there?" the voice asked when it became obvious the guard wasn’t going to respond anytime soon. "I'd like to speak to him."

Ismirshalen walked across the room to where the therapist was sitting. He handed him the phone stiffly. For a moment his eyes flashed over to make contact, but then broke away just as quickly. They looked tortured. The guard reseated himself at the table. He leaned his forehead against the edge of it. He had been fired. Of course. The thought of losing his job had completely escaped his mind. It was so ironic to him. How when he hadn't needed a job, he'd had a job. Now when he needed one, he didn’t have one. But he couldn’t bring himself to care. In fact, he found it to be sort of funny. A small laugh escaped his mouth. He stopped before it could develop into a maddening outbreak. Because that's what it would have turned into. It wasn’t really funny. It wasn’t.

He forced himself to focus on something else. Like what was being said over the phone.

[VinnNAY]

[[The italics are English translations]]

Vincent numbly took the phone in his hand and pressed it against his bony face. His eyes hurt and he could only stare with his colossal orbs half open and straight forward. It was like one forth vision. He let out a long quiet sigh before finally saying a slow, defeated «allô?» .

He got what he deserved he realized as he halfheartedly listened to the sudden barrage of patronizing words. But the only ones that seemed to make sense to him were the ones saying that the guard was no longer a guard. So he did get him fired. He flicked a look at the other sad man in his kitchen feeling his heart sink. Of course he got fired. He’s a nobody in this harsh industry. If only they knew him like he did. That was always the case. But he could deal with people. Even though he was too sad at the moment to mess with the screaming lady’s brain on the other end of the line he could still convince her to rehire his Izzy.

Once he was sure that she was done lecturing him he took this as his chance.

“But, Mademoiselle,” Puh-leez bitch He pleaded. “Ismirshalen is very assidu, Uh, diligent,” You’re fucking with the wrong man you fat Australian whore.

More denial of Vincent’s claim on the other end of the phone was produced.

“His house juste burnt down!”

… Wish it was something that sounded believable, too.

Vincent was clearly becoming one of the less favorite around here… Did he sleep with her sister or something?

Some time later they came to a conclusion that Vincent’s paycheck would be cut to get Ismirshalen a job as his secretary-bodyguard.

Vincent looked at the other guy across the table after setting the phone down on the table.

"I... I got you a job as a secretary."

[&Ismirshalen]

He couldn’t hear the whole entire phone conversation because obviously he was only present at one end of it. But he got the general gist of what was going on. The therapist was trying to get him rehired.

But he didn’t know if he wanted to be rehired.

Since the moment he had torn himself from the other man's mouth, his mind had started questioning the idea of him staying in his company. He hadn't wanted these thoughts at first. The thoughts of what could have happened, of what could have been, were much too fresh in his mind. The happiness he'd felt while pressing against the other. But 'reason' soon had him doubting himself. Doubting his relationship with the other man. Doubting his relationship with himself, questioning who he was. Soon his mind was teeming with these degenerative thoughts. He hadn't been able to escape from them. They made sense. They made sense to him.

He shouldn’t stay with the therapist. He should leave, he should go back to living by himself. Staying would only bring pain. Staying would make him worse. Right? Because the therapist probably didn’t really have any feelings for him. He was more likely a repeat of his wife. He was French. Wasn’t that reason enough? He'd always had a huge distrust of the French. Whatever had caused him to change? It was madness. Staying was the path to madness, not help. His old thoughts were reinvading him. You don’t need help, remember? the Ismirshalen from a few days ago said. The Ismirshalen from before he'd met the therapist. You're perfectly fine. He's just messing with you. He'll bring you up, but then he'll throw you back down right when you think you actually mean something. He'll let you crash and burn, and you'll never be able to get back up.

Who was he supposed to believe? It was tearing him apart. A part of him wanted to stay with Dr. DeVrais. Wanted it more than anything else in the world. But the larger, older part of him had other opinions on the matter. The old Ismirshalen. His opinions were more important, right? More accurate. He'd lived his whole life on the principles set down by him.

So you call fermenting inside your house for over a decade living? the new Ismirshalen asked. But he was too small. He was confused. He really didn’t know what to believe anymore. He had to cling to something.

He had to leave the therapist. It was the only resolution that was being laid on him with any force at all.

At that moment the therapist's voice broke into his thoughts. He'd gotten him a job as his secretary. Ismirshalen stiffened where he sat. He bit his lip. He struggled with his thoughts. His emotions. His agonized heart. But he couldn’t trust himself anymore, damn it. His emotions meant nothing. Listen to reason. Abruptly, the former guard pushed himself up from his seat and away from the table. He faced the wall, in the opposite direction of where the Frenchman was sitting.

"I… I can't stay with you…" The words he was saying felt like they were coming from another person. "If I did I'd…" Finally he managed to turn around and make eye contact. His blue eyes, formerly expressing of all of the emotions twisting him inside, were now cold as ice. "I'm sorry."

Underneath his thin flesh armor, underneath his frail ribcage, his heart broke.