Cold Water
By: sorrel_rowan
CATEGORY: Episode Related
SEASON/SPOILERS: Major spoilers for “Unending”
WARNINGS: None
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Dedicated to the GW crowd, as usual, and the party we’ve been throwing for the past twenty four hours or more. Specifically, Stef, for transcribing the above scene. You asked, I provide. I must stop reading modernism, but I couldn’t think of any other way than stream of consciousness/free-indirect to make this work.
Title from Damien Rice, album 0.
AUTHOR’S WEBSITE:
http://www.fanfiction.net/~sorrelrowan
“I guess, no matter
what, life is too short.”
Sacrificing I know. It happens without warning, it’s a disregard for what future I should have for the greater good. But the fifth race, we’re that now. Mostly because of a lack of the first four. Thor is gone, the Asgard are gone, the world – the universe – has shifted beneath us and you came in, trailing a lame excuse behind you. Every minute in the Asgard archives is hard and compulsive. I can’t stop even if I want to.
“I agree.”
“What are you doing?”
“Something we should have done a long time ago.”
I’m pushing you away while an irrational, cold thought seeps into my head. Why didn’t you kiss me? Why go straight for my buckle? It’s not something I can process. It’s rational and calculated. I’m aware of being angry, of words slipping out unthought and unedited for once. Before I know it we’re arguing but you’re not fighting back and I’m lost, determined that this time it won’t be a game.
“Do you honestly want
an answer to that question?”
Tough, it seems like you’re getting one. Taken us long enough to strip this to the bare bones of what we are. And that’s different. You’re conniving, you’re manipulative and I’ve seen these tricks before. I’ve seen more than I’ll admit and I’m tired of what you’re trying this time. I sent you packing once for this. I’m out of character, I’m ranting and I’m rapidly losing control. I’m saying things I’ll regret and not when you can’t meet my eyes at breakfast tomorrow because you’ll storm out now, you’ll walk away without looking at me but tomorrow you’ll meet my eyes with a smile and too blank eyes. Or you’ll punch me. And I’m not sure which one I deserve if any.
Oh so now you’re sitting on the edge of my bed. Am I imagining the way your shoulders are tensed? Am I seeing the way your neck is held intentionally high, the way your back is arched as if I’m holding a gun to it?
“I mean, yes, yes,
you've proven yourself to be trustworthy...on a professional level and for that
I am very proud of you. On a personal level? Vala, come on, give me a break!”
Everything, everything I’ve ever wanted to damn you for is in my mind and laid out in front of you. Every time I’ve gotten burnt, every innuendo. And I am proud of you on a professional level, and as the friend I thought you were becoming. Images are blurring through my mind, laced over by you sitting with your back to me, images mixed up between all the betrayals, the irritation and your competency. You earned this place, but not your seat on the edge of my bed.
“I mean, at best,
you're an emotionally unstable wreck...but I'm not saying I'm much better. I'm
not saying I'm much better!”
I’m not any better. Arm’s length works for us both because we’re both screwed up to the highest. There’s a memory thrown in like a book on the Ancients sitting in a public library For Sale stack. You like me tied down, you saunter in and then you pause. Overcompensating, as per usual, you virtually bounce onto my lap and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. One Life to Live? You came up from Earth to talk about One Life to Live?
“There was a time when
I thought I would never get over my wife. I mean, the idea of...being hurt that
way again...but I've finally gotten to the place. I've finally, for the first
time in a long time, I've gotten to the place where I actually feel like I
could get close to somebody again.”
I’m saying the words and it’s a backwards thing. I think
before I speak; I speak before I think. Everything’s inverted, the beggars are
dancing on the streets of
“But not in a million
years, a million years, would I ever possibly consider that person being you! I
mean, we are so completely opposite and wrong for each other it's not even
funny.”
It’s not funny. Nothing about this is funny. You, sitting there, probably thinking about what scam – that’s unfair of me and I know it. You’re sitting there dreaming up witty leaving lines. You’re sitting there wondering what you can ask Sam to conjure next. You’re thinking about desert for dinner. And don’t tell me otherwise.
"And the worst
part, the worst part, is that you know that."
I know that. You know that. Right?
It’s blindingly obvious to anyone with eyes. I know it; you know it. I know it, therefore you know it? Surely. I’ve never accused you of stupidity.
Probably the one thing I haven’t. But I won't feel guilty for saying this, even if you're not listening, even if you're just sitting there.
“And this whole flirty, sexual thing that you do is just your way at having a laugh at my expense.”
Honestly, honesty goes two ways. There’s a voice in my head that sounds like yours. No it’s not, because, Daniel, it’s not always about you. No, it’s not. And this is more you. Is it deliberate? Or don’t you like how I could see the textbook case in you, the wild card? Or is it because I can see how you’re not the textbook case? It took me longer to get there.
And if I’m smarter than you – more mature, wiser, slightly more stable – then why should it bother me?
I’m angrier with the voice in my head and it sounds like you so I’m louder.
“So, I'm so sorry if
I'm not more appreciative of that...and I'm so sorry that you're bored.”
You walked in trailing lame excuses. Why else? You certainly aren’t interested in the Asgard – you weren’t just in it for the baubles at Glastonbury – and you’re too busy with streamers to care about the Ori now – you knew you might not come back, you knew you might not want to.
“But don’t pretend you
that it’s anything else.”
Because it can’t be. You play games. You’re manipulative, conniving and you don’t know me. You don’t know me. You put your hand beneath my chin when you knew I was throwing myself into the fire. You don’t know me. Two friends and co-workers. We work together.
“And don’t act like you’re hurt.”
You are. It’s knowledge that makes me stand up straight and lose my grip. You are. I know it from the curve of your back and the height of your neck. I know it because I know you. I know it from my lack of a bloody nose. I know it from a thousand little sensations that burn and imprint on my mind from the curve of the fist that you won’t raise to the stillness I can’t account for. I know you. And I know you’re not pretending. Or at least, I think I know. But I've thought that before.
You didn’t come up to the ship to talk about One Life to Live. I’m an idiot, I see subtext for a living but missed it in your innuendos.
“Look at me.”
And don’t ask me to explain. I don’t have the words.
You have defensive mechanisms, textbook and so do I. You have no morals but you do. You’re a walking paradox and you wear pigtails. Don’t pretend it’s anything else because you’re complex enough. Don’t pretend it’s anything else because then I have to stop being selectively blind. I’m ready to be close to someone again; I already am; I didn’t see you until you were in front of me, undoing my buckle because you can’t kiss me. You can’t kiss me, it’s logical if anything about us is. You can’t kiss me because this blistering epiphany – don’t pretend it’s anything else, you can’t deny it – is ripping the last layer of the veil, blowing the last escape hatch, we're gone in everything but words.
You’re crying. I’m borrowing with a steady hand and a racing heart.
“You better not be
messing with me.”
Whatever this is, we’re not playing anymore. We haven’t been for a while, but it’s a comfort to pretend we can be. But we’re not playing, and it’s in the wetness on your cheeks.
Don’t ask me to explain. I don’t have the words.
** The End **
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