Sam isn’t Sam anymore. That deer in headlights look has vanished, replaced by an apathetic stare with nothing but sheer emptiness. Even a charade of sympathy felt hollow, Utility was priority, sentimentality was weak.

And you were addicted to it.

You needed him, you wanted him, you dared to say you love him. The giant of a man, once a cherished sheep in wolf’s clothing, now a machine in man’s clothing. He used to be yours, you used to be his—all that matters now is you want to be his.

You want him soulful, soulless, evil, good, empathetic, apathetic—he could hit you, and it would feel like a kiss.

You’re addicted to his coldness. Charmed by his indifference. These things simply wouldn’t compute with him, why on Earth would you be obsessed with what he is? The lack of what he is, more accurately.

So in the dead of night, when the only light illuminating your faces was the flickering streetlights—an eerie dreamy sight—he stared at you like an equation to solve. To decipher why you loved him like the first time, why you loved him like the last time.

Why you needed him like the air in your lungs.

His blunt nails drag down your bicep as he stares into your soul, accusatory, wondering how your soul could allow such obsession with a lack of one. The sting of his nails feels like a match to a sparkler on the fourth of july.

“You make no sense.” He observes. He assesses. “Mm. Masochist?” He’s playing twenty-one questions.