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[MiniKitty]

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I have no idea when it's going to change.

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For weeks now, Levan just lies in bed. Complete apathy. He refuses to eat regularly. Probably back to underweight. Usually he has two packs of Synth per day, but now it is one pack every second day. At least he still hydrates enough. He does not care for a daily routine anymore, and yet he still showers, gets dressed, and then just goes back to bed. He barely talks. Mostly just complaining about how cold it is - in the middle of summer - and asks to be left alone every now and then.

He hasn't been downstairs a single time in the past weeks. Didn't leave the Den. Didn't socialize with anyone except Monique and me. And that only because we share a bed. Of course we knew why he was like this, and despite our best attempts to distract him, console him, or even seduce him, his mood remains unchanged. Deeply depressed, to the point where his detachment from reality makes me wonder if his other issues are going to resurface. He once told me about something that could be best described as Multiple Personality Disorder. Something he said that was no longer an issue. I didn't want to dig deeper, simply because he is my boyfriend, not my patient.

Right now, I am wondering if he is either of that.


The least I can do is be here for him. So, that's what I do. While he just lies there, I am next to him, with a little space between us, and read my books. I thought about getting back to the university, so I grabbed all the books I knew would be relevant for the next semester. And then I realized that nothing of it matters, and switched to slightly more amusing belles lettres. "My completely normal daily chaos", "Fame", "Small Town Manhattan", then "Why not?" and "The Frenchman". I must admit finding myself in a back and forth between wanting to do more with my life and questioning why. Sure, stories are amusing, but in the end, they describe situations just as well as memes do. It all boils down to catering to my intellectual needs. Fake needs. My parents were always proud of my intellect, and so was I. There is something satisfying to standing out from the crowd. Yet, the more I grasp the reality of things, the more it feels unreal. My entire life was turned upside down when I met Levan, and now nothing makes sense anymore.

I spent my life on this little planet. Denver is... blessed in many ways. Low crime rate, mostly ignored by previous wars and conflicts. A good mix between suburban living and the giant facilities run by Ageira, LPI or Cryer directly or indirectly. Many smaller companies, some tiny family companies. Denver might not have the reputation, but in reality it is the Cambridge of Liberty, just with corruption instead of buckteeth and alcohol instead of tea. Living here in David's Hollow was certainly sheltering me from all the horrors up there. A few miles higher in the sky, laws barely matter anymore, and someone as docile and cute as Levan turns into a murderer, just like that. Give a man a weapon and suddenly he feels empowered.

Not that it was his first time.


Nothing is as it seems. Governments are corrupt. Companies want people to buy their products, no matter the cost. Even the most idealistic people seem to corrupt with power. It all follows the same pattern. Fate handed Levan a gunboat, and this seemingly innocent kid murdered criminals left and right. Not for justice, not for self defense. Not even for the money. Out of anger.

I wonder, if I choose the pursuit of improving my skills, studying, becoming a certified psychologist, with degree and title, where would it get me? With Levan having shared his fortune with me, money will never be a concern to me anymore. Going back to the university would not be required to make a living. It would be nothing more than to indulge myself. I wish I could claim that the prestige of having a title wasn't appealing.

But nothing good would come from it. Intellect is not a blessing but a curse. That's why I'm here. The Den provides me a home without worries. And if circumstances would be different, Levan would tend to my desires and needs. Here, I can spend day by day without progress in any direction. Without worries. Without goals. Without ambitions. I merely exist, with my basic needs covered. The truth is, this is what I desire the most right now. A simple life. A pretty boyfriend. Simple meals, simple lecture, simple life style.


Middle of the night. Clear sky. Hot. I don't know how Levan manages not to sweat despite being fully clothed. I had to go downstairs to get a can of cold O-Fizz. A honest blessing. The hot air began to condensate, a layer of cold moisture forms on the can, with little pearls of water getting conjured out of nowhere. As I walk upstairs again, I can't help it. Had to hold the cold can against my cheek, slowly rolling it across my forehead. Opened the door to the balcony wide. I knew Levan would complain, but he has to cope with it.

I move back to the bed and get on it. Monique is sleeping on the other side, behind Levan. He just listens to music on his PDA, ear buds in. Blanket covers his lower half, shirt and leather jacket his upper half. At least he didn't wear his beanie in bed. I scoot a bit closer to him as I open the can and let the cooling liquid surf down my throat. The can ends up empty sooner than I imagined and I put it on the night stand. It was only natural that I felt the immediate urge to burp, so I turned away from Levan to ungracefully release the gas from my mouth. I never knew whether he cared for it, but I certainly appreciated that he never burped. Obviously, not because he finds it as disgusting as I do, but because his water-and-synth-paste-only diet didn't really give him anything to burp out in first place.


I lay down and tried to close my eyes. No need to cover my body with the blanket in this heat. If anything, the warm wind was refreshing to the touch. What a good life. When the summer heat is my only concern, I am blessed. And all it took was being at the right place, at the right time, to fall in love with the right person.

I turn my head to the side, and slowly open my eyes again. Levan looks at me. I can hear the music blasting from the ear buds right into his ears. His expression was impossible to read. A true pokerface. Obviously to me, he was still depressed. The forced separation from Kris was a huge deal to him. There was no way to solve the situation, and the only thing he could do to help that poor sod was to stay away from him. And Levan couldn't help but feel guilty for how things ended up like this.

I ran out of things to say to make him feel better. Out of things to do to make him feel better. He wasn't in the mood for intimacy lately. Monique and I tried it several times in various ways to distract him, but it never worked. When a man doesn't give in to seduction, something is seriously wrong. It was the only thing he did for joy. No alcohol, no drugs, no expensive food. Any other guy in his age would play video games, but even those aren't interesting to him. The only other passion I knew about was his interest in stargazing. And that passion lead to the escalation with Kris.

He hasn't touched his harmonica in a long time, and his violin flew out of his ship when he fought this Rogue gunboat and barely survived it. In a way, the only thing he did was existing. I sometimes thought that Monique and I did just that now, given we don't need to worry about basic needs anymore. But the two of us still indulge in our passions. He, on the other hand, doesn't. Pure apathy.

And I have no idea when it's going to change.



Nevertheless, the least I can do is show him that I am here for him. I place my hand on his, intertwining my fingers with his. My guess is that with his reduced calory intake, his body doesn't heat up too well. The only way his fingers can be cold like that, and the only way he avoids sweating while being fully dressed. Of course it was his natural defense mechanism. Something he learned to do on Pittsburgh. His clothes are his armor, and being dressed means he is prepared to act immediately. On Pittsburgh, he wasn't allowed to show any weakness, as others would immediately exploit it. He never fully revealed what horrible things were done to him over there, but he hinted at enough to make me understand why he feels incredibly uncomfortable when being naked for longer than the duration of a shower or a bath.

I take his hand and lead it up to my lips, placing gentle kisses on his fingers. He blinks shyly in response, as if awakened from a stupor.

I keep his hand close to my lips, warming it with my own hand. Then I lead it right between my clavicles, placing my hand on the back of his hand to warm it up from both sides. Once again, he averts his eyes sheepishly.


His other hand vanishes in his jacket pocket for a moment and the ear buds stopped emitting music. Once again, it turned out to be another night of us staring into each other's eyes for a while, not saying anything. I didn't expect him to do anything beyond that with his current mood. I rolled on my side to face him better. He freed his hand from my grasp to pull me even closer, placed his lips on mine for a second, his hand on my side. The sudden touch made me shudder involuntarily. Not in a bad way, though.

I am sorry for being such a bad boyfriend.

Him saying that made me blink a few times. To say this relationship was within my personal ideal parameters would be a lie, but it was not bad at all. He was not bad at all. Not perfect, but not bad. Levan was a good boyfriend. In a way. If one didn't mind sharing.


You're not a bad boyfriend.


Or being with a murderer. There is a phenomenon among spacefaring people. Planetside, people have a lot more respect for the law and the value of a human life. In space, where people hide behind shields and armor and big guns, without being able to see who they are fighting, the value of human life equals nothing. Everyone thinks they are justified in what they do up there.

I know that Levan did the right thing. Liberty Rogues are dangerous and evil. I don't think there is a single unquestionably morally good thing coming from them. They pirate, they extort, they murder and enslave. When he blew up the Brutal Capitalist, he even saved the lives of the crew on that LPI ship. That is a morally good thing, right? A win for the good guys. Less bad guys to cause harm, assuming they all died. So, why would one have an issue with it? With Levan going around, playing hero.

This cute guy. Handsome face, big naive eyes. An entire head shorter than me. I think my cognitive dissonance about it stems from the fact that I can't help but think he didn't do it for the right reasons. He wanted to kill Rogues. Have his katharsis. What happened on Pittsburgh made him lust for revenge, and that was one of the opportunities to enact revenge. And just like that, he killed who knows how many people were on that cruiser. And we all celebrate it in ecstasy.

If one was going around planetside and killed dozens of criminals just like that, that person would be considered a criminal and a murderer. If one does that in space, they become a hero. And in space, this happens every week, if not every day. And more often than not, the criminals win. Levan had another fight with a Rogue gunboat with a funny name in New York and barely won. He almost died there. He could have died there. Now he is here, in bed with me and Monique, staring at me, kissing me as my legs slip under the blanket to intertwine with his.

His sense of morals is chaotic at best. He has no idea about the value of things. On Pittsburgh, he never learned about the value of a credit. He had no money. The only currency he had were water and synth packs. WaSPs, as he keeps calling them. Then he escaped Pittsburgh, and suddenly he has more money than most people would be able to accumulate in ten life times. I went to the supermarket with him and he looked at things and often asked me "Is this supposedly expensive?" - and we usually laugh it off.

We don't have jobs like the common person has. No need for that, since we are both financially independent now. I think he still doesn't comprehend that a regular person would never be able to even get to see Curacao from space, especially not from the surface. The common person doesn't have a gunboat. A hovercar at best. The common person doesn't run his home like a club. The common person doesn't have two girlfriends and a boyfriend. The common person wouldn't sleep fully dressed.

But he does. And I can't help myself but find him so much more interesting than the common person. Apart from him being attractive and adorable, I think this detachment from regular values made me fall in love with him. It fascinates me. Most people have their thinking limited by rules, be it the law or what media and society indoctrinate us with. Get good grades in school, study, get a job, have one partner, marry, get a car, build a house, make babies, go to class reunions, show off what you got. The pattern of society. Fulfill all expectations.

I don't like the pattern. And he doesn't follow it. I kiss him again, more passionately. He reciprocates. The spark was returning.


My biggest fear is that he could end up like Kris. A chain of bad decisions without any way of turning back. The poor guy has a bounty on his head now and vanished. And Levan can't do anything about it. He simply can't. The only good thing about Levan being depressed about this forced break up is that he hasn't been to space since then. But frankly, even with my selfish desire of wanting to keep him here, there is no benefit in him being depressed like this. My only hope is that he will recover, and ideally, still stay here, planetside, and not run off to go on new space adventures, or even get himself into even more trouble because of Kris.

Our breathing gets more unstable. The sounds of our kisses were quite loud. Monique would probably wake up if this escalated. Not that either of us cared.


Biochemistry is quite the interesting topic. I toyed with the tought of studying it at the university, for good measure. Since I met Levan, the psychological aspect of intimate relationships became a fascinating topic. To think that the established trust of two, or more, lovers results in a mutual appreciation of the combined perception of the other with, literally, all senses, is quite intriguing. I never thought about it this way before. I guess my previous boyfriend really failed at making me appreciate such things.

I hear Levan talk and feel warmth. I take in his scents and feel familiarity. His shampoo, his perfume, his comparatively weak body odor, the scent of his tooth paste, the scent of his clothes. The sound of his little moans and his laughter. The taste of his lips and his tongue. The touch of his fingers on my skin. The way he blinks at me, looks at me in the middle of the night or when we lie on the balcony. My appreciation for him engulfs every sense, to the point where I can't think straight and do things I wouldn't do normally.

We stop kissing. His arms are wrapped around my body, my legs around his legs.


I don't know what the future holds for us. No idea, really. He'll probably go to space again at some point. Probably still chase for Kris. Probably end up being with other women again. Probably kill more Rogues. Probably get himself painted as target. Possibly die way too early. Possibly without a notification. He will just disappear from my life. Nothing I can do about it.

I guess I can really just appreciate the time we still have.

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