no spoilers, 2590 words...PG for OMGkeeseeng.
The Space Between
She frustrates him. With her hurried way of walking and her curt way of speaking. She always seems to be in a rush to get things done (though she does not bustle...no she is far too efficient for that. She makes hurrying look graceful and haste seem productive), and this is something he just never got the hang of. Why was she always so uptight?
Sign this, sir. Complete that, sir. Done with those, sir? Here’s a few more.
Why can she never just relax for five minutes? Even when he wishes to just sit and talk with her a moment—over tea, he even offers, and he hates tea!—she cannot sit still. He would stop time for her, and she would insist he start it up again.
Is it so difficult for her to find the patience to listen to him…?
You cannot quit me so quickly
Is no hope in you for me
No corner y’could squeeze me
But I’ve got all the time for you, love
He frustrates her. With his dillying and his dallying and his procrastination, it drives her barmy with images of slovenly rot, and she cannot stand to entertain such an undignified image of him. And what’s more, is she knows what will inevitably happen if he dawdles too long. She’s seen it. He larks about his office like an unsupervised child…toying with things not intended for play and rearranging items that were fine just where they were. And that’s no way to get the day’s work done.
But what bothers her…moreso than his realignment of the feng shui in his office, is the dark look he will sometimes get in his eyes. He broods when he is still, and this troubles her. Because the brooding leads to the moping and the moping inevitably leads him to the bottom drawer on the left side of the desk where he keeps his Scotch.
And he lies when he opens it, and he tells her it was just one drink, and he insists it’s not a big deal…but she knows it’s a lie, and he knows she knows…
So she keeps him busy instead.
He doesn’t appreciate this, she understands…but she would rather keep his mind off murky reminiscing and his fingers out of the alcohol. There is a balance between his light sense of humor and his morose and almost sinister fretting…and she does so hate it when things tip too far in one direction.
Particularly that of the latter.
The space between, the tears we cry
Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more
The space between, the wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep us safe from the pain…
And sometimes when it’s raining outside he feels particularly lazy, and she can sense this the minute she walks into the office to find him cradling his mug of coffee with his head pillowed on his arm. She attempts to irritate him out of this state by poking fun at how useless he is when it rains. And he hates the term ‘useless’ and she knows this and he knows she knows this and that’s probably why she uses it anyway because it’s a very effective weapon.
Sometimes if it’s not raining and he’s feeling lazy, she will lift her palm to the ceiling and offhandedly remark that perhaps it’s going to rain later because the colonel is napping at his desk again.
He quickly gets to work at that point.
By God she frustrates him…
He supposes perhaps it’s like a game for her to see how much work she can pile up on his desk before he gets so overwhelmed by it that he is left with no choice but to stay in the office all night. And he twists in his chair and he tugs uncomfortably at his uniform and he rolls up his sleeves and chews on his pen…and he remains there in his chair until the sun comes up over the hills again to crow maddeningly that tomorrow has come! but the colonel hasn’t finished his paperwork yet.
But then it seems to him that this is a very stupid game because she stays there with him all night as he tugs at his uniform and chews on his pen…and she brings him coffee and he supposes that maybe it’s less a game and more a test…
…and then in the long run he doesn’t really care what it is so long as he gets through it and she’s still there in the morning.
Will I hold you again?
These fickle, fuddled words confuse me
Like will it rain today?
We waste the hours with talking, talking
These twisted games we’re playing…
She stares hard into his face sometimes, as though she could will his expression to change, but it never does. Regardless of what he’s doing, his eyes are unreadable and his mouth a small, thin confident smirk on the lower quadrant of his face. Be it the court-martials he has sat in on or the State Alchemist assessments he has graded…grumbling over the small-time indictments he signs or forwardly facing the dire consequences of his own actions on the field…she can never quite fathom what he’s thinking. And this frustrates her.
It frustrates her because she knows they need each other. In a world of war and mistrust, they are each the other’s island—the other’s touchstone in a sea of uncertainty. But how can they truly trust one another when there are yet so many secrets between them?
She stomps her feet sometimes.
There is a gap between where she is and where she wants to be. A chasm that keeps her from bridging the void that keeps her on one side of knowledge and the opposite bank of understanding. She wants to know him, but he won’t let her. And there is a wild glint in his gaze that suggests that perhaps he never will. And he thinks he saves her pain this way when in fact all he does is compile it.
We’re strange allies
With warring hearts
What a wild-eyed beast you be
The space between, the wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep us safe from the pain…
He just frustrates her so! There are times she thinks she could just seal the rest of the world away with how much he means to her…and she likes to contemplate whether or not he actually feels this way in return. And then she gets so very flustered by her own ponderings because she just cannot figure him out. There have been rare nights when she is perturbed and dispirited and it is so unlike her that he breaks character and touches her arm. And she whirls and hisses in her fiercest voice that by God he makes her so angry sometimes and why the hell can’t he just make up his mind and decide something for once??
And he wants to shout how he adores her and he cannot live without her—but of course shouting is very unseemly and coarse and thus he cannot permit himself to do that. And this frustrates her even more because she hates that he cannot drop his professional façade in her presence.
And they whisper ferociously and they snarl and gnash teeth and the minutes turn to hours that they have been squabbling over who is right and who is wrong and eventually they end up forgetting what the hell it was they were so angry about in the first place…because it’s never really so important as the ideal that they remain as they always were anyway. Because apart they are lost, but together they are strong. And together there is nothing they cannot face, because their unspoken faith and solidarity is far more ironclad than any argument, regardless of the subject.
They could fight over the meaning of life itself and then realize the answer was right there in front of them the whole time.
He has held her but once. That is all she would allow.
And oh how he longs to be permitted such a privilege again…
And if only he knew that all he needed to was ask…
Will I hold you again?
Will I hold you…
Look at us spinning out in the madness of a rollercoaster
You know you went off like the devil in a church
In the middle of a crowded room
All we can do, my love
Is hope we don’t take this ship down…
Will I hold you…
Look at us spinning out in the madness of a rollercoaster
You know you went off like the devil in a church
In the middle of a crowded room
All we can do, my love
Is hope we don’t take this ship down…
He wishes he knew what went on in her head. She does not wear her emotions openly, she never has and he assumes she never will. It’s just not her style. But sometimes he fears she puts up an extra layer of mask for his sake.
He knows. Oh, for the love of alchemy he knows. He knows she would not look back in question if he asked her to die for his ambitions. He knows she would not hesitate to end her own life to save his. He knows there is not a single thing he could ask of her that she would utterly refuse.
Take a chance, take a bullet…it didn’t matter to her. Take a spear through the heart or a knife in the back. She would have bled herself dry for him, even though he would never ever ask such a terrible and disgusting act of her.
More than anything he just longs to be with her, but she seems so very bent on just being there for him rather than with him that he just shuts down sometimes.
Doesn’t she understand?
He needs her. Beside him. Not behind him or before him…not weathering the storm or baring the brunt of flame. All he really wants is to be allowed a look into her heart. But if he asked that she would probably just tilt her head and lift one eyebrow and give him that look like, Silly Colonel. There are more important things than love.
But they both know that isn’t true.
She would sooner cut her heart out of her chest than permit him direct entry into it
And that scares the hell out of him. After all, what the hell did he do to command such loyalty from a woman like her? From a being like her? She was more than human; he was convinced, because no human by any definition he knew would do for another human what she was willing to do for him. And he wonders if she has any idea just how much she scares him?
The space between, where you smile and hide
Where you’ll find me if I get to go
The space between, the bullets in our fire fight
Is where I’ll be hiding, waiting for you
The rain that falls splashed in your heart
Ran like sadness down the window into your room
The space between, our wicked lies
Is where we hope to keep safe from pain…
He’s having a bad day. Outside, the rain pours down over Central like a blanket of gloom and pelts the roof of HQ with a smatter of raindrops that sound more like a barrage of pins and needles than harmless water.
It hurts his ears.
She strides into the office, and he waits for the obligatory crack about how useless he’s going to be today, resting his head on his arm and poking his coffee mug with the end of his pen—which is frayed and sharp from being gnawed on. He waits for it…and is more than a little startled when it doesn’t come.
The remark doesn’t come.
And he lifts his head suddenly, his eyes heavy and shadowed and punctuated by deep smoky circles beneath them, and her brow furrows and she sets the day’s quota of ineffective forms and meaningless letters on the corner of his desk. Her brown eyes are deep and sad and covered with a wet film this morning, and this alarms him.
The office door has been closed behind her.
He moves to stand and opens his mouth to ask what is wrong with her—for surely there must be something terribly out of sorts to keep quiet the snide ‘useless’ comments!—and she lifts her chin, silently pressing him back into his seat with her gaze and he reaches up to tug his collar with a single finger, feeling bothered.
She rounds the desk and stands beside his chair and he looks up at her without words, his black eyes narrowed in question as she slides out of her jacket and reaches out to cup his chin in one soft, cool hand. And he makes no sound when she leans over and wraps her lips around his, her hand snaking up into his hair and gripping it tightly like she fears he might slide away. Unquestioningly, his hand moves to her neck and she quickly pulls away, and he gasps, his mouth still ajar and the taste of her tongue remaining on his.
Her jacket has fallen on the floor.
“This is wrong,” is all she says, the wetness in her eyes now running down her cheeks, and he shakes his head firmly.
“Right and wrong aren’t important,” he whispers, his fingers finding her hand though she tries to keep it out of his reach. He pulls her toward him again, and her body tenses at his touch. His jaw is clenched, his back tight and his chin jutted forward and into her bosom. “Trust and necessity are what’s important,” he insists almost inaudibly into her body, and she inhales, her breasts conforming around his face through the tight black shirt she always wears. “I trust you… I need you… That’s all that is important.”
And for a moment, she feels like the gap between them has closed, and perhaps all she needs to do is step across the fine crack that proves it was there at one time.
She will protect him from everything. Even if that means protecting him from himself. And he will let her, even if that means condoning her haste. She will allow him his dark moods and he will permit her anger. She will love him and he will lead her. He will love her and she will follow him. She will press him onward and he will continue forward with her.
And that is all they need.
Her head drops down into his hair and her arms wrap around his shoulders, and she steps forward so she stands between his knees with his chest against her abdomen and his heart beating wildly against her ribs.
And suddenly, time has washed away the sands of frustration and left them with a clean and empty stretch of ocean that reaches the horizon and beyond.
And it’s an infinite space.
But this time they both stand on the same side of it.
Take my hand
’cause we’re walking out of here
Oh, right out of here
Love is all we need dear
The space between, what’s wrong and right
Is where you’ll find me hiding, waiting for you
The space between, your heart and mine
Is a space we’ll fill with time
The space between...
* fin *
’cause we’re walking out of here
Oh, right out of here
Love is all we need dear
The space between, what’s wrong and right
Is where you’ll find me hiding, waiting for you
The space between, your heart and mine
Is a space we’ll fill with time
The space between...
* fin *
phew! okay. sorry i've taken such a hiatus on writing, guys... i know some of you are still clinging to Pegasus... ^^;; heheh. actually, i'm going ot be revamping Pegasus, because i've had some brainstorming sessions with my FollyFamily and we've come up with some awesome ideas. so one of these days i'll get to incorporating them.
hope you liked this one. it was a little...different than the way i usually write...but i like how this piece came out. there was something very real and...gritty about it. i was pleased. it' smuch more stream-of-consciousness than usual, so it's almost a little... i dunno... runny to me. but i was still happy with it for the most part. thoughts?
and here is a link where you can DL the song if you like. it's a great song. dave matthews pwns my soul in the face. the first time i heard this song it made me cry... and roiai just makes me think of this song...so this is a songfic i've been meaning to write for a long time now, and just couldn't wrap my brain around how to do it.
till now. hee... ♥
DMB - The Space Between.mp3
i'll be popping it up in my journal one of these days...