Almost
Title: Almost
Author: etgoddess
Fandom: Original Series
Pairing(s): OC/OC
Rating: T
Summary: He is the most painful almost.
Author's Note: An original one-shot. Music credit goes to Amy Shark's Adore. Cross-posted to Fiction Press.
It’s the little things
(I’m just gonna stand with my bag hanging off my left arm)
The minor discomforts she’ll endure to be near him
(I’m just gonna walk home kicking stones at parked cars)
She’ll roll her eyes in disgust at her own weakness
(but I had a great night cause you kept rubbing against my arm)
A few hours feels like a few minutes but carries her through for a few days and the cycle repeats
(I’m just gonna stand with my bag hanging off my left arm)
She rationalizes it’s only when he’s drunk
(get me a drink I get drunk off one sip just so I can adore you)
But that would be too easy - they’re sober, they’re tired, they’re in another town, a different state, baking cookies in a kitchen, huddling in folding chairs for warmth, clinging to each other as they weave through busy Philly streets and he stands just a little bit taller with her hands wrapped around his arm
(I walk the entire street out of town just so I can be alone with you)
And easy is not in his vocabulary
She rationalizes it’s only physical
But he seeks her out for her mind over and over
And she gets more out of their marathon conversations than she has out of entire relationships
(now go when you’re ready)
He lingers, at the bar, in the car after the drive she just had to take, after dinner when all they talk about are exes while everyone else naps
(my head’s getting heavy pressed against your arm)
In bed to watch a movie that no one wants to see, in the parking lot while his fingers tighten on her hip
(I adore you)
She finds insane reasons
(excuses)
To get the group together
She’s been out more in four months than the last four years
(all of my money is spent on these nights just so we can hangout)
And he finds every reason
(excuse)
To touch her
(a tug of her hair and an innuendo and their eye contact makes her body heavy, the press of his hips against hers while he stands closer than strictly necessary to her barstool, his knee propped against her thighs as he stands contorted while they talk)
She loves this only slightly more than she hates it.
She tells herself it is just a game but she keeps playing
(spacing in and out of these dresses I wanna be found by you)
He steps inside the lines of platonic propriety to speak into her ear, and it makes her pull her bottom lip between her teeth and bite, and she doesn’t need to prop her chin on his arm to see who he’s pointing at behind him, and he doesn’t want to choke when her tongue darts out to swipe up her glass, and they don’t have to have an entire conversation with a glance in the middle of a crowded room
(found by you)
She tells herself she doesn’t even know him despite the years between them
(he tells her she’s a liar by the look on her face when she says, ‘I’m fine’)
And she thinks maybe she just didn’t see him until now
And so it goes
(get me a drink I get drunk off one sip just so I can adore you)
They don’t talk about it
(except in the abstract when he offers to be her future blue-eyed baby daddy and she gives him shit for not taking the hint in her hotel key)
But it’s pretty much all she can think about these days and he’s impossible to get a read on
But it only discourages her half the time
(I walk the entire street out of town just so I can be alone with you)
The rest she’s fighting the smile his messages put on her face
And ignoring the way his voice changes,
(his ‘hey birthday girl’ as he hugs her)
The way it drops an octave and snakes up her spine
And the word platonic gets thrown around a lot but they’re not quite friends anymore
(now go when you’re ready)
When he weaves his way through the crowd just to hug her before he leaves, her heart tries its hardest to claw up her throat and hurl itself at him
But she swallows, gulps, presses her face a little harder into his chest and forces it down
(my head’s getting heavy pressed against your arm)
(I adore you)