DA fic: Light a Match in a Dark Room

[tea_and_ink]

Title: Light a Match in a Dark Room...
Author: Paola
Rating: PG
Word Count: 587
Disclaimer: If I owned it, FOX would have had nothing to do with it. Trust me. Also? I'm poor, so if you sue, you'll waste your time.
A/N: completely and entirely un-betaed, so feel free to point out to me whatever you feel should be pointed out.
Summary: you don't appreciate what you could lose, until you realize you don't have it.

Light a Match in a Dark Room

 

She lays her head on his shoulder, her breath warm against his collarbone and he wishes it meant to her what it means to him. He wishes she’d reach up and wrap her arms around his neck, hug him tight so he could feel her heartbeat drumming a counter-rhythm to his own, like the ultimate metaphor to their very existence.

 

He wishes she’d give him something more, something that would make this more real. But there was the problem; this wasn’t real, not for her, at least not in the way it was for him. And once again there they were, so close in the same couch but miles apart just the same.

 

Sometimes he wonders if they weren’t better off before, when he wasn’t her friend and she wasn’t this close.

 

Perhaps he should do something about it, something like reach down and kiss her. Maybe that’d freak her out and she’d go back to hate him, as long as she hated him there was no reason for her to come back here looking for comfort.

 

Maybe if she wasn’t so close anymore he’d be able to breathe again.

 

Or maybe he was just loosing whatever little mind he had left. Perhaps he should just sit and wait for it; it was bound to happen, she’d either get tired of it and walk away on her own; or she’d take notice of the oceans between them and decide to close the gap. Whichever way was fine with him, whatever her decision was he’d live with it.

 

Why was he always waiting for her?

 

It had been brought to his attention at some point, this nasty habit of his, this being several steps ahead of everyone else. Never until now had he seen such a skill as a disadvantage.

 

‘This is OC’s favorite TV show’ she whispers ‘and I still don’t understand why’ he clears his throat, smart-ass remark dying on his lips when she reaches down and tangles her hand with his, measuring the size difference, and it’s so innocent. Too innocent, his mind supplies.

 

He wishes he could kiss her hand, finger by finger and he wishes she were his, so he could do it without fearing possible bodily harm.

 

He wishes she had  never smiled at him in the first place (who’d have thought him so weak!); he wishes he couldn’t recognize that sparkle of acknowledgement in her eyes every time she looks at him. But then again he’d never been one to deny reality.

 

And this was reality, as real to her as it was to him. If it weren’t, then she wouldn’t keep coming back every night to watch TV in his couch, and drink cheap beer and laugh at the world they were born into.

 

He wonders if maybe this is how it begins. It is possible that this is how it all started with Logan so long ago. He wonders if this means it’s his turn now. Or maybe he just wishes it does.

 

He’d never been good at this wishing thing, he was a man of action, a man who made his own decisions and wishes were just that, mere ideas and hopes, dreams that were absolutely out of his hands. He was many things before Max, and now he is so much more. And less.

 

Max was good at restructuring his limits. And he was good at giving in to her. This whole situation was so utterly pathetic and yet, so very like them.

 

They were pathetic, apparently.