Forever
A pool cue cracked on a white ball. It sent the others scattering. A green stripe rolled into a side pocket and Rhiannon straightened to watch the others. Between her fingers, she fiddled with the chalk. "You're a fucked up guy, making me play pool with a broken wrist." Across the felt, she saw her friend burning a cigarette. The smoke added to the haze in Firewater, a pool hall and bar with purplish paint on the walls and low lighting. To illicit sympathy, she held up her splinted wrist. The bones of a Slayer healed quickly. They felt worlds better than yesterday and the day before. She flexed her fingers to get circulation going. She figured an emergency room trip for a busted wrist and a punctured leg was a small price to pay for living through it.

"You're solids." She tossed the chalk and waited for Whistler to make a move.

"Consider it training. Get used to handlin' wood in awkward situations." The hatted man studied the table intently, as if willing mental dotted lines to line up from the cue ball to easy shots. None were completely bankable, but he was undeterred. "Three, side pocket." He eased the cue forward, inching the white ball off the left bank and tapped his target. It touched the pocket and held firm.

He stepped back from the felt, reached over to the raised table and took the soft-pack in his hand. Whistler shook out a cigarette and lit it. "You gonna tell me more about the fight, or just leave it at 'She's dead, Jim'?"

"You want a play by play or something?" It was a little brusque, but she didn't mean it to chafe him. Rhiannon's weight leaned on the pool cue. She watched the table instead of him and gave it thought before identifying her shot. Over in the corner, she looked behind her and then bent to take aim. Her hair touched the felt as she eased the cue along her knuckles and hit the ball. A red stripe bounced off the side. "We can do that if you want. I'm doing those moves in my sleep. Taking hits in my sleep."

She wanted a cigarette, now that she saw Whistler's. After a quick pat-down, she found the right pocket of her pants and pulled them out. The filter dangled between her lips while she sparked a lighter, and then wobbled as she said, "What's that about, you know?"

Whistler dragged on the cigarette as he circled the table, taking in the possibilities. He settle for the two-ball in the corner, made with ease and followed up with the aforementioned one in the opposite. "Not your average kill, is all," he muffled through the filter hanging between his lips. "She meant something to you. Thought you'd wanna be celebratin' with champagne, instead of racking up." He scratched his third shot.

"It's not that simple. I wish it was." Rhiannon hefted the cue and put two balls into the pockets in succession. There wasn't a clear third shot, so she spent it knocking his best shot out of alignment. She straightened her back. "I mean... I spent years dreaming about staking her, thinking it would be some euphoric moment. I pictured the stake going in like an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence. Bang." She mimed the motion with her good wrist.

Anybody but Whistler, she wouldn't admit any of it. She'd either claim it rocked her world or that it didn't signify at all. Whistler would know better.

She flicked her ashes into a tray. "But then it happened and I just felt... tired." Rhiannon slid the glass container closer. "Maybe it's anticlimatic. Maybe she left a vacuum and I haven't figured out how to fill it yet. I dunno." Or maybe, as a distant part of Rhiannon understood, she had respected the vampire. Not her behavior, but her abilities, her cunning and guile. Every hero needed an equal and opposite villain. Those were the physics of supernature.

Seeing the set-up, Whistler blew a curse under his breath. "Suppose that's the real difference between you," he replied. The cue ball banked twice, barely grazing the five. "She'd have probably popped into a bar, bought everyone a round of drinks and forgotten about you in a week. Just shows you're better than her."

The Agent ashed into the nearby tray and leaned back against the wall, awaiting Rhiannon's next shot.

Rhiannon raised an eyebrow. "She wouldn't forget me."

She waited for another person to take his shot on a neighboring table. Then she circled and surveyed from that side. "Though you're right about the round of drinks." Leaning down, she took aim at a blue stripe. It sailed into the intended hole, but it took a ball of Whistler's along. "Shit." Annoyed, she stood up and tended to her cigarette.

"Whatever. What's done is done. I win." She said it dryly and stood on tiptoes, trying to catch the bartender's eye. Once she had it, Rhiannon indicated she wanted two beers. The thing about shooting pool at her boyfriend's place? Drinks were free.

He left his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray as he leaned in for his next shot. For fun, he pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes. "Three-bank, jump over the 9-ball, 7 corner pocket."

Blinded, he pushed forward the cue. The ball dribbled the length of the table and rested against the 13-ball. He peeked up, offering a cheeky grin.

"Can't win 'em all." He grabbed the beers from the bartender and offered one to Rhi. "So what's next for you, oh Chosen One?"

Rhiannon smirked at the showboating. Nice try. He was too cute for words. If he was closer, she would've chucked the brim of his hat.

Then she shrugged. "I dunno." She took a drag and leaned on the table. The cigarette burned low at her fingertips. "I'm not planning on going anywhere, if that's what you mean. There's Lincoln Park. Every week that it sits empty, more squatters move in. Me and Connor are gonna keep an eye on that." She rubbed at her lashes with a thumb. "There's my art, which is picking up. Juliet, if we get back on track. Joseph. And there's always another demon to kill, right?" Rhiannon smiled. "Katherine's got an ass-kicking coming to her and, come to think of it, so does Grace."

She tilted her head and gave him a funny look. "Whyyyy are you asking?"

She didn't need a peek inside his head to know Whistler was holding back on something. It was his tradition to mete out information after same was given. "Well," he sputtered, "I wanted ta make sure in case I needed a forwarding address from ya."

He took the last drag from his cigarette and allowed it to burn out on its own. Then he swigged a large gulp from the beer, set it back on the table and pulled out a manilla envelope from his back pocket. "This is for you," he continued. "The whole United Nations thing is a bust. Too much in-fighting, insisting their own people can do better. So it's your severance."

Rhiannon set down her cigarette and pool stick. She took the envelope and turned it, but she didn't open it. Frankly, she didn't care about the contents. "Fuck the money, Whistler." It hadn't been right to take it anyway, not with the way Whistler never called for back-up. "Why would you need a forwarding address? You know exactly where I am. Ten minutes from you."

It didn't take a genius. She knew him like herself. She just wanted him to speak. "Say it." The Slayer didn't cut him slack. She didn't look away. The envelope crinkled in her hands.

"I was up in the Corridor today. You know, steps and columns. Been there once, got me my job back. Which I appreciate." He exhaled. "I'm taking a break. A leave of absence."

"Are you now?" Rhiannon bit her tongue. Then her teeth ground together. It wasn't anger. It was just the best way to control a reaction. She stubbed her cigarette and looked up. "When and how long?"

Whistler didn't want to have this conversation. He knew the knot in his stomach was shared by his best friend. "A year. Maybe two." He paused. "Leased a boat. Gonna sail to the Caribbean, off to Europe. Maybe spend some time in the Greek Isles, Turkey. Take in the sights for once, ya know? Rather than being dragged around."

The Agent kept his eyes locked on Rhiannon's. "That a bad thing?" Please say yes.

Rhiannon laughed. "For me or you?" She fidgeted with the cigarette butt and mashed all the ashes into oblivion. Now she wished she ordered something stiffer than beer. Like a bottle of vodka. Whenever he left, it felt like a black hole opened in her stomach. Whistler, the bridge from her childhood into adulthood, from her life as a regular girl into a Slayer of eleven years. He was a major reason she hadn't given up years ago. And she couldn't label him. She called Joseph her lover, Connor her best friend, Kris a sister. What was Whistler? Something language didn't have a word for. When he left, the floorboards shifted and threatened to give way. She questioned her ability to make it across unsteady ground.

"For me, yes. It's an awful thing. For you?" Rhiannon pressed her lips together and tried to breathe. Don't be selfish. Give him what he deserves. "No. It's a great thing."

Always, she held him back. As a teenager, she pinned him in place with lonely eyes. Now, it was guilt, but while Rhiannon's life built in new directions, Whistler's stalled out. He was more than her mentor. He was a person. He deserved everything.

Whistler's unspoken fear was the day that would come, a dark cloud upon which Rhiannon wouldn't need him any longer. Which was stupid, ugly, and completely untrue. He knew that in the base of his skull, wrapped around his heart. They were more than friends. The bond shared couldn't be broken by distance, time or act of Gods.

So why was it so hard for him to consider leaving her side, even temporarily?

"I'd ask you to come with, but we both know that answer," the hatted man chuckled. "And uh, while I'm supposed to fly out to Miami on Thursday to pick up the keys, I could postpone it for a week. Or a month."

"Don't." Rhiannon couldn't seem to put that cigarette down, or look at him any more. "If you stay longer, you won't go. Either you'll chicken out or I'll cave." She made herself put down the cancer stick. "You deserve this. You don't belong in shitty motel rooms." Her shoulders raised and she stuck her hands in her pockets. "You've spent enough time in those, taking care of other people instead of yourself." She tapped her foot against the carpet.

You don't have to take care of me anymore. So I'm gonna take care of you. I'm gonna let go.

She raised her head. "Never think I don't want you here."

"Well that's good." His eyes were slightly moist. "'Cuz my condo closes on the outskirts o' Lincoln Park in September of '16, and I'd hate to think I don't have a friend to come home to."

Rhiannon frowned and ran her finger over the wooden frame of the pool table. "Promise you'll keep a wavelength open for me? A cell phone's not gonna cut it out there." She was asking him to stay open to her, to hear if she closed her eyes and tried to send him a message. The way he used to. "I promise I won't unless something's really bad." She knew it wasn't brave. She ought to swear to stand completely on her own, and make him do it, too. But the idea of not having a way to reach out to her oldest friend killed.

"I'll always need you." She held her breath.

Like you need to ask? "Ditto," he whispered. "And fuck that emergency bullshit. I expect weekly updates." Whistler took another gulp of his beer. "'Sides, who else would I trust to pull my ass outta that Turkish prison?"

Rhiannon's mouth twisted. "Annnnd what are we doing in a Turkish prison?" Taking a cue from Whistler, she picked up her beer and took a few swallows.

"Unjustly arrested for the attempted smuggling of artifacts that, in the wrong hands, could bring about an apocalypse?" He couldn't hold the straight face. Whistler busted out in laughter. "Kidding. More likely calling someone's mother a camel. But you get my point."

"That's not nice." She scolded him with her eyes and drank more. "I might let you rot for a few weeks." Setting down the mug, she picked up her pool cue and stalked the table, in search of the next great shot. It came in the form of a yellow solid sliding into a corner pocket. "Goddamn, that was beautiful." She surveyed the landscape of the game and tried to send another into a pocket, failing miserably. But that was alright.

She came up behind Whistler and put her cheek on his shoulder. "I'm going to miss you until it aches."

His brain said 'They have an ointment for that' but Whistler wisely cut it off before broadcast. Now wasn't the time for wisecracks.

"Never far away, Rhi-Rhi," he offered. "Second to the right and on 'til morning, that's where you'll find me. And if the condo isn't ready in 26 months, you'll find me on your couch.

"I'm gonna miss you more than I could put into words." Whistler leaned his head back slightly, refusing to move another inch.

Her brain said 'Not surprising. Your vocab has twenty of them' but Rhiannon used the shut-off valve. She smiled. He was her oldest, dearest everything.

"Whistler, are you proud of me?" She thought about that vacant lot behind the 7-11, full of weeds and litter. Her very first vampire and stake. Her first cigarette. The best car rides of her life. All the affectionate insults as she grew up next to him.

That was an answer he'd never censor. The Agent turned to face Rhiannon. "Lest the stars turn dark, the Earth stop turning, my heart lose its fire; ever shall I be proud of you, Rhiannon Isabel Lee."

She folded her hands on his shoulder and placed her chin on them. "Wow." A smile. "That's the most eloquent and sense-making you've ever been." She kissed his cheek and pulled away. "I love you more than french fries." A wink as she circled round the table. "Now prepare for more ass-kicking. You're not leaving town without a footprint."

"I love ya more than hats." It was true.

"If you really wanted to kick my ass, Rhi," Whistler spoke with a gleam in his eye, "you'd do it the old-fashioned way." 3 ball corner pocket. 4, ricochet off the 12. "With one hand tied behind your back."