Amy Lane

Hammer does not think he will make it through this next winter. His breath comes short in his chest, and it takes much effort for him to get up and dressed. My body is still creaky and sound, but with every labor of his breath, I think that my heart will not endure. Enduring were Hammer__ gift, not mine, and I will not endure a life in which he does not laugh by my side and touch my hand, wish for the best things for me, and rejoice when I have them. My sturdy, blessed, stoic Hammer__ow can life be, without him?

I know these are only dreams. I know these days are long past. I wake to a dream in which Hammer__ breath has stopped, and mine with it, and hearts have gone to a quiet sunny meadow with the sweetest little cottage in the middle, with a millwheel and a stream. Our bodies will lie tangled until they become earth, like roses twining so closely there is no beginning and no end, and only the shades of beauty that were their growing.Every dream I ever had as a child has come true, simply because Hammer loved me. Perhaps this one will too.

Hammer", I finished lamely, as he waited patiently for my thoughts to find their voice, "we have got to find better words for the things we have in our hearts.""Words seem to be weak things," he murmured into my hair, and I could only hope our hearts would prove stronger.

The scarf could go on and on and on and on, and it could be the harlot-red banner of shame that wrapped him up and kept him warm when the nights grew lonely and cold.

Rico laughed a little, feeling helpless. "Is your life always this...I don't know-""Tide of chaos washing ashore on the beach of what the fuck? Yesh.

Krissa, tough Lady Krissa, who had stood by impassively while Areau vomited out ten years of bitter addiction, wiped her eyes and offered Areau Mrs. Wrinkle__ pie in comfort, and it suddenly occurred to Areau in the strangest, most dreamlike of ways, that his pain was not the only pain on the planet.

It looks like two alpacas fucking, mostly," he said apologetically. "Of course, sometimes, the boy can't get his boy parts past the girl's furry ass, and he needs a little help, so then it looks like two alpacas fucking while their handler's giving the one on top a handjob.

It takes a truly great man to see that he__ been wrong and to apologize for it, even in the face of the obvious.

The army don__ teach enlisted men how to fly,_ I said, trying to hold onto my dignity. __e gotta do that for ourselves.

...every vertebrae on his back was a prayer bead under my hands.

'I can get mad all I want, but they don't mean it. They love me. Sometimes, some creatures, when they get cornered, they forget who loves them and think everybody's the enemy. You don't just leave them alone, cold and afraid, because their instinct takes over and it's wrong. You don't if you give a shit, you know?'

He'd always known that shit rolled downhill, but he never knew tears did the same thing.

So, he, uhm, all ac/ac, or a little ac/dc?" she asked, blushing, and Chase's grin about swallowed his face."He claims to be ac/dc," he said, watching her face light up completely.

hope could betray you__ut if you had no hope, life could actuallysurprise you in the best of ways.

My knitting is simple", he said again. _ can make anything you want with it, but it will always be simple.

That night Tommy kissed him and eased his way into Chase__ body so gently that when Chase came, his vision washed in white, not red, and it did for him what sex with Tommy always did for him: set him free and let him fly.

They made love until Chris had to leave for the airport, without sleeping at all. After Chris had left, wearing wrinkled jeans and Xander__ sweat and seed on his skin, Xander flopped back onto the bed and looked miserably at the clock.

I was asleep for almost ten years. And then this big goober with all these fucking weird animals moved into my house, and I was suddenly awake.