The Odd Couple

Allen finally did it. As much as he didn't want to. As much as he wanted to make things work, again. As much as he didn't like it, again. As much as he truly wanted to make things work, again.

Cleo went too far.

So, Allen finally broke up with Cleo. For good.

He pulled himself up from the floor, using the table that had braced him against the immensity of Cleo's Underfolk strength. He thought now that it would have been better to just hit the wall instead, given that his back hurt almost as much as his ribs.

His girlfriend -- former girlfriend -- dropped her furious tone as she registered he was in actual pain.

"Oh, oh fuck Allen I didn't mean to! I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" She sounded sincere, like always.

He pushed her hand away. "Don't touch me!"

"Let me just help you up."

Allen fumed. "Fuck off Cleo! I said don't touch me!"

Cleo knew she fucked up. She had yelled at him before and threatened to break up. Sometimes she had actually gone through with it for a few days. But it had never been like this. As an Underfolk, the sheer amount of strength she possessed could devastate him. Between and Below had a smaller difference than Cleo and Allen did physically.

Allen's now ex-girlfriend tried to backtrack, like she always did. "Look, I don't know what happened. I just-"

"You fucking hit me, Cleo!" Allen winced, ribs protesting like someone had shoved an ice pick up and between them. Every breath opened up new avenues of stabbing pain he didn't know could exist. The pain made his head spin. "Fuck, Cleo, you really hurt me."

Seeing her personality so artificially shrunken down to win sympathy made his hands clench in anger. The seven-foot Underfolk who could break him over her knee, whose horns could touch the ceiling, who could bench press a car, was trying to act small to manipulate him. It was more insulting than it was funny. It made his hands clench into fists.

"I'm sorry," she said in a small voice.

Allen's body went rigid to yell, making his ribs flare and his breath catch, but he forced the words up his throat like a growl. "No you're not! You fucking hit me! And you say I'm unreasonable? I don't want to be walked all over and you hit me?! No, fuck you Cleo."

"Allen." Her voice held a warning tone. She always got like this when he fought back. There had always been the implicit threat that they would get into it physically if things went too far. But until tonight that line had never been crossed. Her stare hardened as he brought himself up straight, ribs screaming with pain. He ground his teeth together. Fuck this bitch.

"Allen what?" he growled back in a tone more hostile than hers. "What are you gonna do, hit me? Again? You can go back Below if you're gonna act like this."

She broke as she realized he wasn't backing down, even injured. Despite the seventeen-inch difference in their stature, Allen had never felt bigger than in this moment. Cleo seemed so much smaller when she didn't think she was going to get her way. "Look, I'm sorry."

"No you're not; look at you. You just fucking warned me to shut up."

"Yo-"

"No, that's it Cleo; we're done. For good."

She scoffed. "You don't mean that."

Allen set his jaw. "I do. I'll come by for all my stuff this weekend. I'm going to the hospital now."

Cleo leaned forward and put a hand on the table at Allen's back, bringing her face close enough for him to feel the heat of her body. "Oh, the hospital? What, did your pussy little body get its ribs broken? Wonder how that happened, huh?"

"Below, what is wrong with you?! Fuck off!" Allen tried to push her away, but his side flared with searing pain and he sucked in a sharp, painful breath. Cleo just smirked, coming back to her full height to tower over him with a smug expression.

"Well, seeing as we're broken up, I don't have to sugarcoat everything. You're a fucking pussy. And you like getting pushed around." She emphasized her point by pushing his shoulder with two fingers. Allen shied away from her touch, but wasn't in a position to avoid it.

"No, Cleo, I don't. I don't mind on most occasions because I really thought you respected me deep down." He brushed her fingers away. "But today proves you really fucking don't and I'm done with you. This is finally, really, goodbye."

She shrugged. "You can come pick your shit up in the street tomorrow. That's where it'll be."

Allen turned to leave. "Please don't do that."

She held an arm out to stop him. "Oh 'please' now is it? And just a minute ago you were all 'fuck you' and 'rabid cunt' at me."

Allen threw a hand up half-heartedly in exasperation. "Fine. Do whatever the fuck you want with it. I don't care. I'll just come by this weekend and get whatever you don't destroy."

"Fine by me." She raised her arm like a toll gate and he started for the door. "See you then. Maybe with a new boo thing with a big cock this time."

Allen spun around on heel and felt an ember in his guts rise into his throat as a roaring flame. "You know, Cleo? You know what! You're a-" He stopped.

Just do it, Allen! Just lay the fuck into her! Tell her she's a piece of shit! Tell her she's a sad, lonely little person whose only redeeming quality is her body. Tell her she'll be alone forever, that she'll abuse everyone who loves her because she's a thoughtless, lying sack of shit! Do it! You said you wouldn't let her get away with this! You swore you-

Shut up.

He looked away in shame. He would never stoop to that level. "You're a really selfish person, Cleo. I don't know what I saw in you."

"A lot more than what I see in you now," she shot back.

He left without an answer of his own.

Three weeks went by. Allen ended up not getting any of his things from her apartment. He didn't want to see her, not with the way he felt about it all. He ended up with three broken ribs, not seriously broken, but enough to make his life inconveniently miserable. It was hard to even lift a gallon of milk, for fuck's sake.

On top of everything, he knew that despite what she'd done to him, there was a strong chance they would just get back together if he saw her again. They had a cycle that usually ended and started where they were now, like an orbit around the sun finally reaching the same place it had been a year ago. It was always the same.

Well, had always been the same. Hitting him was a first.

Someone told him once that it took a month to break a bad habit, so he figured that was a good place to start. Go one month without seeing her to let his feelings dissipate some and his head clear. It felt shitty being alone every night. His friends Nick and Evan came over a few times to get him out, but he just ended up at home, alone, wanting to call Cleo and ask how she was.

He didn't expect to feel as angry as he did when Cleo shot him a text out of the blue saying 'I'm sorry.' and nothing else. In response, he wrote a veritable book back to her, shut his phone off, and didn't pick it back up for almost two days.

Probably because of that, she had come to his house in tears, saying she was sorry. He told her to leave, flat-out, not wanting to deal with an enormous crying Underfolk on his front doorstep. Surprisingly, she acquiesced and left without any commotion, still crying.

A week after that, he answered a call from a number he didn't recognize.

"Hello?"

"Please don't hang up." It was Cleo. Of course it was Cleo. He didn't get random, unsolicited calls unless it was someone he knew. And this time, it was someone who had been trying to talk to him for nearly a month. The silence stretched on for a few seconds before he finally pulled himself together to make a decision on the issue of their breakup.

Allen let out an exhausted sigh. "Okay, talk."

The Underfolk on the other side of the city sucked in a short breath. "I know you won't believe me if I say I'm sorry, but I still have all your stuff..." He heard another sharp breath, and then a sob. Her voice came close to breaking. "I don't know what to do. Please talk to me, Allen. Please?"

"Look, I said we were over. I cant go through all that again." His tone softened. Even with his ribs still sore and the fresh memory of her looming over him like a titan of malice, he felt bad.

"Can I at least give you your stuff back?" She sobbed once. He could hear her choking down whatever else was coming up after it. Allen felt the urge to console her. A few weeks hadn't been enough to make him forget that he still loved her. Just hearing her cry made him want to reach out and tell her it was okay.

Be strong, man. Tough it out. "I'll come get it," he said finally.

Cleo sniffled. "Tonight?"

"Sure. I'll be over in an hour. Is that good with you?"

"Okay."

Allen added, "I'm just coming to get my stuff, okay? Nothing else."

"That's fine." She sounded disappointed, but resigned to it. Allen hung up and deflated into his couch, tossing his phone onto the coffee table. This was going to be a rough night. He knew himself better than to believe it. Seeing her cry was going to pull at him in a way that only Cleo could.

She just looked so pathetic when she cried. Her whole body shook. Her face turned bright red. Her voice broke. Everything about it was in such stark contrast to her muscled, seven-foot frame. It just looked so wrong. Allen didn't think he could physically hurt her, at least not with just his hands, anyway. She was strong enough to brace herself against the wall and let him do pull-ups using her horns as handlebars. Making her cry just felt wrong; it made her so weak and vulnerable.

There was no way he was going to be able to just get his stuff if she cried.

And she, with certainty, was going to cry. A lot.

Allen didn't want to admit it, but he needed something to disarm Cleo when he went there. Him going over there wasn't just going to be for his stuff. He knew that as well as Cleo did. Especially now that she was guaranteed to cry, he didn't have it in him to just do nothing. But the end of that road led to them stuck together on the bed and a lot of bad decisions.

Allen needed something to break the cycle.

That something, as it turned out, was iath tar. Something from Below that a doctor had given him when he hyper-extended his wrist and it wouldn't calm down. It made him too weak to move, let alone hurt his wrist any more. For Underfolk, it was used recreationally as a tone-down drug. Cleo liked to mix it with booze and then get frisky.

Allen poured the entirety of the container into a half-empty bottle of whiskey and shook it until it was mixed in. He topped it off with more whiskey. Cleo wouldn't care; she'd probably just be thankful that he brought something to take the edge off of having to listen to him say they weren't getting back together again.

Allen gathered himself and went to Cleo's apartment across town. In the parking lot, he sat staring at her door for several minutes, trying to build up the mental fortitude to tell her no. She got genuinely hurt when he was upset with her. He had to find it in himself to hold out and stand by his decision. He knew himself better than to walk in and expect to have the ability to get his things and leave, sure. But did he have the strength to go through with staying broken up now that he was here?

Yes, Allen. You do. Now go in there and quit pussyfooting around having to see your ex.

He got out of his car, bag soon to be full of his personal items in hand, and walked up to her door.

It swung open before he could knock. Cleo stood there, disheveled and rubbing her eyes with two fingers. They came away wet.

"Hey."

Her mouth tightened slightly. "Hey Allen." Cleo stepped aside so he could enter, closing the door behind him quietly. It was a stark contrast to how she normally let him in, throwing him over her shoulder and marching into the kitchen to eat. Usually he came over around dinner time, so there was something to snack on while they cooked.

She just stood there by the door while he looked around this time. It looked the same as it did the night she hit him, only...less clean.

"Is it all in the living room?" he asked, seeing two boxes stacked together against the couch.

"Yeah. I boxed all your bathroom stuff and clothes up. Everything else is just there with it."

"Thanks."

The Underfolk put a hand up to shield her face from him and let out a noise he hadn't heard from her before. "I can't do this. You...just lock up on your way out. I'm sorry; I can't."

"Cleo wait-"

"I'm sorry." She pushed past him with purposeful lack of force and went to her room, slamming the door behind her. He took a step to go after her and then stopped himself. No, Allen. Get your stuff. Leave. You're not over her yet. Breaking his actions away from his feelings, he went to the two boxes that held his stuff and opened them.

Inside, he found the tv he'd let Cleo borrow for the last few months and a myriad of other little things he kept here. All his toiletries were stuffed into his bag of shaving accessories, along with a few bottles of charcoal scrub he'd bought Cleo for her birthday.

He set those aside and continued through the next box. This one was filled with stuff that he'd bought for her over the course of their entire relationship: band posters, a few engraved stones, a steel necklace, among some other knickknacks not worthy of note. He slid the box aside and sat thinking how he could go about doing this with as little interaction with Cleo as possible.

Come on man, this is bait. She's using this to get you-

Allen just stared at the contents of the box. Cleo remembered every single gift he had ever gotten her well enough to sort it from her own stuff and put it all in a box to return to him.

Allen, you know she didn't do that to trick you. She did it because she feels like they're not hers anymore. She's not conniving, not on purpose, anyway. She's just trying to do this right. By her standards it's not hers to have. Just be cool.

Allen stood up and went to Cleo's bedroom door, knocking softly as he heard her crying into her pillow on the other side.

"Hey, there's some stuff in here that's yours."

She sniffled. "What?"

"Yeah. The whole box with the posters. Everything in there's yours."

"You bought them," she explained with a cough.

Allen rolled his eyes at the folly of it all. "I bought them for you. They're yours. I don't even like Starborne or Krastor Redux."

"You can take them," she insisted. "Sell 'em or whatever; you paid for it all."

"Look, Cleo. I know this is hard, but I don't hate you. I just..." He put his head to the door and heaved a sigh in resignation. "I need to be in a relationship where I'm respected, Cleo. Where I matter."

"You matter to me." Cleo opened the door a few moments later. "You matter to me more than anything."

Allen was struck immediately by her red, swollen eyes. Her face was so flushed it looked like she had an allergic reaction to something and just let it go. Everything about her looked sick and weak, like the woman who could break him in half with one arm had been replaced with a fraction of herself made out of glass.

Seven feet of muscle and meat and she looked as frail as a doll, crying and shaking like guilt was eating a hole in her guts. Allen looked away, but clenched a fist and came back to his original goal here tonight. He could do this. But he could do this...more gently than he originally planned. Seeing her like this and doing nothing would just be wrong.

Still, he was determined to make her understand their position. "Then why didn't you treat me like I mattered? Why did you hit me? You know you could literally break me in half by accident."

New tears rolled down her face as she looked at the floor. "Because I'm a selfish doof and an asshole."

"That's no excuse," Allen shot back.

She just nodded without looking up. "I know."

Allen put his face in his hands and let them drop slowly, feeling guilty himself for even being a part of the defeated mess in front of him. "I don't hate you; you know that. I just can't get involved with you when I feel belittled and hurt every single day."

"It's hard to see when you're the one doing it."

Allen set his jaw at that. "I wouldn't know."

She finally met his eyes again. "I know you wouldn't. You're not like that. And I know you said you'd be in and out, but, um, you think I could help you take your stuff to the car?"

Allen bit his lip. He knew this was going to happen. The second he saw her cry, he knew he wasn't going to be able to make this an in and out job. But, that's why he came prepared. He knew himself better than to get stranded of his own doing.

With a nod, he gave in. "Sure. I guess that means we're going to sit down and talk after all."

Her features livened up some. "If you want to. If you don't then-"

He waved her trepidation away. "That's where this is going anyway." He unzipped his bag and pulled out the bottle of whiskey, shaking it with a placating smile.

"I guess you knew I was gonna ask, huh?"

"I did date you for over a year."

They settled in and talked about how they both felt for a few hours, Cleo starting with her fifth of whiskey and moving on with a couple more from the cabinet, Allen with shots of vodka after hard truths. All in all, it ended up being far more cordial that he expected, for the most part. Cleo actually seemed contrite and ready to be cool about it.

Allen sat up and took a deep breath, gauging his level of inebriation. "Alright, Cleo, I need to go for real now."

She pouted. "Aw, come on! It's only like six! Lets just do pizza and a littlelot more booze. I've still got all that schnapps from the holiday party that never happened."

"No, seriously. If I stay any longer this is going to go too far." Allen rubbed his eyes and watched his vision swim a little. Bad sign.

"Oh?" Cleo said suggestively. "Do I still have that magic spark for you? Even broken up?"

"Cleo, don't do this." Please don't.

"Why? Because you don't have the self control to say no?" She scooted closer to him on the couch, arm around his shoulders.

"No," he answered quickly. Her fingertips nudged his cock through his pants and it came to life almost instantly. He looked down, embarrassed. "Yes."

Cleo licked her lips. "I always did like it when you didn't want to up front. Then I get to work for it."

Did she... Are you for fucking real right now?! "Is this really how you say you're sorry."

"What?" she replied innocently.

"I said we were over," he said with his voice growing firmer with irritation.

"And? That doesn't mean we can't hook up," came the casual reply, ignoring him.

"So that just means you'll blatantly ignore what I asked when I came over. No talking. No sex. No making up."

She gave him a firm rub on the thigh, teasing his erection enough to make him shiver. "Was I the one that brought over liquor and said fuck the rules?"

"I did that much for you because I'm not some heartless bastard."

"Well I'm a horny bitch, so what are you going to do about it? Huh?"

Allen stood up, almost throwing himself to his feet. "I'm going to leave."

Cleo followed, looming over him. "Is that right? You going to walk out now?" Her fingers found his chin and he whipped his face away from her hand.

"See, this is what I meant! If you're just going to belittle me then I'm out. I'm done with this. Forget being friends you dick."

"Wait, I'm sorry!" she tried lamely, but it was too late. Allen set himself against her now. This hand was overplayed and he wasn't going to be the victim here anymore. He was done walking headlong into her lies over and over and over and over again. It was time to break the cycle.