"Right here... right now... right here... right now..."
Title: Opposite Sides Of Forever
Fandom: CSI:NY
Pairing: Mac/Peyton
Challenge/Prompt: 30randomkisses, #28 Blues
Rating: PG
Genre: Het
Summary: I am not your wife and I am not going to die just so that you can miss me.
Author’s Notes: I reasoned thus: 1) I don’t like Peyton and I want her to take her hands off Mac, but 2) I can’t do anything about her. I can’t get rid of her. So 3) I might as well stop fighting it and 4) angst these guys the fuck up. Yes? Go on. Let me make you like Peyton. Also, there are no spoilers except for her presence :)
Just read this. Please?
I want to be the place you call home; I lay myself down to make it so, but you don’t want to know, I give much more than I’d ever ask for.
Keane
I am not your wife and I am not going to die just so that you can miss me.
There. I’ve said it. I’m sorry about Claire and I’m sorry that you lost her but it’s been years and if you want to move on then you need to actually try. Smiling helplessly and refusing to meet my gaze most of the time isn’t trying and if you don’t want to do this, then tell me. Don’t lead me down the garden path on this one, don’t waltz me around if all you want to do is leave me. Don’t do this to me, because I’m not strong enough to fall again.
Was I supposed to step out or step in? Was I supposed to do this or was I supposed to be happy with a one night stand or two and leave it at that? You don’t tell me or show me what you want and sometimes I think you’re just paying lip service to the phrases. You make words of affection cheap and corrupted and it isn’t fair, Mac, it isn’t.
Fall for Stella. Save time all round. She relies on you as a friend and maybe as something more and there are days when I never want to leave your bed or let go of your hand but I can’t figure out if you’d just push me away if I tried to cling to you. You don’t want me to love you. Stella already adores you as a friend or maybe more, you have a rapport and a connection and jealousy’s an ugly emotion, but God, Mac, you deserve to be happy and so do I.
Yes, I pronounce ‘vitamin’ wrong and I call elevators ‘lifts’ and I drink more tea that I do coffee even though I’ve been in the States so long I’ve reduced myself to a stereotype. And no, I don’t own Union Jack knickers, whatever everyone else may think. I’m a coroner and I’m good at my job but I’m a woman too and you make me happy and then you make me weak. I’m a professional and I’m yours and I can’t find the balance. You may find my nationality and my accent sexy or something to be mocked or ridiculously stereotypical but please, whatever it is that you’re doing, don’t think that just because I’m not exactly like you I’m not full of layers and emotions and I hurt just like Lindsay and Stella do.
Sod it, fall for Lindsay. Fall for her smiles and her eyes. She and Danny have all these shades of broken hurt between them that they think no one else notices, because they’re so self-absorbed with how unhappy they are that they haven’t even noticed the way everyone else knows. It’s sweet and it’s stupid. But you could step in and offer to fix her, fix whatever it is that has her smiling and not feeling it, stepping involuntarily back from the corpses of young women, pain in her gaze. I know that you could do it. A pet project, something to amuse yourself with on long evenings. You can’t fix me because I’m not broken.
But you make me hurt.
I’m a good coroner. I see death and blood and things no one should have to see every day but I don’t carry it home with me and I can cope. Those bits I understand, bodies on the slab, pulling out drawers of ice for relatives to sob at the contents. But when I look at you over the corpse I can’t breathe, my breath catches in my chest, you’ve got so much ice in your gaze that I long to find what it is that can make you melt. I want you to like me. I want you to fall for me. I want to be loved by someone, to not feel like every time I kiss you I’m wasting my time. Please. I’m human and I deserve more than this.
At least, I hope I do.
Ignore me. Don’t. You’re intelligent enough to be able to see what you do to me, and you could fix this with a few words and you don’t. I can’t work out if that’s because you’re too blind to pay attention to what’s going on in front of you, or if you don’t know what you want, or if you like having me on the end of your string, dragged along behind you begging you to stop and tell me where I stand.
Let me in. Let me out. You can hear me begging, right? Every smile, every time our eyes meet I’m begging you to confirm something. What am I to you? Because if I’m nothing then let me be nothing and I’ll fall for Sheldon and we’ll have creepy conversations about Y-incisions and mummies and internal organs in bed and we’d probably be better suited. I’m stupid. It shouldn’t have been you. I shouldn’t have accepted your offer of a drink, I should have held out, not transferred to your city, your building, your team. I shouldn’t have done this, but you still can’t hold me accountable. I’m in love with you and it’s as though you can’t even remember my name.
It’s Peyton, by the way.
I’m depressed and angry but you still expect me to smile, puppet on strings, dancing to your tune, I’ve run out of metaphors. They’re overrated, and will you laugh at me if I use the word “bloody” a few too many times? I can’t lose my nationality although maybe you could hold my hand for a while and I could try it. That’s the thing, Mac, that I have figured out in a succession of increasingly late nights. I want you more than I want to be happy. Is that mad? Is that scary? Jesus, I don’t know any more. I don’t know you as well as I’d like to and you don’t know me at all but it doesn’t matter.
End of a long day, your arms encircle my waist, lips against my neck. I like this part. The killers are caught and I’ve showered off the death on my skin and it’s just me and you. I think I almost see the you that you could be when it’s all quiet and we act like lovers. Your mouth on mine, deep and affectionate and you don’t taste like you’re lying. That’s where you confuse me. I don’t know Mac - that’s my whole problem. I don’t know.
Next morning you always make me coffee and I wear your shirts and you smile and it’s all perfect. At work, you’re all shades of professional. We have this absolutely gorgeous façade but I need to know what’s underneath it. If we’re going anywhere or if we’re just playing at this, skin and comfort. Please, you don’t need to be whole-hearted in this, but I need to know that you’re not pretending that I’m your wife when you close your eyes, I need to know that you’re doing this for something other than because you don’t like the idea of going home alone any more.
Help me.
It’s a simple request and something you can organise only too easily. One small step. Two small steps. Oh God, please. Say some words, smile at me like you really mean it, tell people that we’re doing this. Give me a reason to bother with this. Because I’m getting lonely and cold and crazy and I can’t say a word.
You walk into the lab, there’s a body on the table. Dark-haired, if you squint he kind of looks like you. Except that’s madness, is that where you’ve driven me? Your lips curve into a smile that makes my knees go weak, and you tell me you need the results as soon as possible. I want to give a sarcastic reply but I can’t make the words form. I just nod, smile, wait until you’re gone before reaching for latex gloves and a scalpel and trying not to think about you and the way you kiss and what it really all means. But it’s just a corpse and me and I don’t have to think about you. Autopsies aren’t complicated and they don’t want more from me than I know how to give.
Death and silence.
It’s ok.
I can do this part.
Fandom: CSI:NY
Pairing: Mac/Peyton
Challenge/Prompt: 30randomkisses, #28 Blues
Rating: PG
Genre: Het
Summary: I am not your wife and I am not going to die just so that you can miss me.
Author’s Notes: I reasoned thus: 1) I don’t like Peyton and I want her to take her hands off Mac, but 2) I can’t do anything about her. I can’t get rid of her. So 3) I might as well stop fighting it and 4) angst these guys the fuck up. Yes? Go on. Let me make you like Peyton. Also, there are no spoilers except for her presence :)
Just read this. Please?
I want to be the place you call home; I lay myself down to make it so, but you don’t want to know, I give much more than I’d ever ask for.
Keane
I am not your wife and I am not going to die just so that you can miss me.
There. I’ve said it. I’m sorry about Claire and I’m sorry that you lost her but it’s been years and if you want to move on then you need to actually try. Smiling helplessly and refusing to meet my gaze most of the time isn’t trying and if you don’t want to do this, then tell me. Don’t lead me down the garden path on this one, don’t waltz me around if all you want to do is leave me. Don’t do this to me, because I’m not strong enough to fall again.
Was I supposed to step out or step in? Was I supposed to do this or was I supposed to be happy with a one night stand or two and leave it at that? You don’t tell me or show me what you want and sometimes I think you’re just paying lip service to the phrases. You make words of affection cheap and corrupted and it isn’t fair, Mac, it isn’t.
Fall for Stella. Save time all round. She relies on you as a friend and maybe as something more and there are days when I never want to leave your bed or let go of your hand but I can’t figure out if you’d just push me away if I tried to cling to you. You don’t want me to love you. Stella already adores you as a friend or maybe more, you have a rapport and a connection and jealousy’s an ugly emotion, but God, Mac, you deserve to be happy and so do I.
Yes, I pronounce ‘vitamin’ wrong and I call elevators ‘lifts’ and I drink more tea that I do coffee even though I’ve been in the States so long I’ve reduced myself to a stereotype. And no, I don’t own Union Jack knickers, whatever everyone else may think. I’m a coroner and I’m good at my job but I’m a woman too and you make me happy and then you make me weak. I’m a professional and I’m yours and I can’t find the balance. You may find my nationality and my accent sexy or something to be mocked or ridiculously stereotypical but please, whatever it is that you’re doing, don’t think that just because I’m not exactly like you I’m not full of layers and emotions and I hurt just like Lindsay and Stella do.
Sod it, fall for Lindsay. Fall for her smiles and her eyes. She and Danny have all these shades of broken hurt between them that they think no one else notices, because they’re so self-absorbed with how unhappy they are that they haven’t even noticed the way everyone else knows. It’s sweet and it’s stupid. But you could step in and offer to fix her, fix whatever it is that has her smiling and not feeling it, stepping involuntarily back from the corpses of young women, pain in her gaze. I know that you could do it. A pet project, something to amuse yourself with on long evenings. You can’t fix me because I’m not broken.
But you make me hurt.
I’m a good coroner. I see death and blood and things no one should have to see every day but I don’t carry it home with me and I can cope. Those bits I understand, bodies on the slab, pulling out drawers of ice for relatives to sob at the contents. But when I look at you over the corpse I can’t breathe, my breath catches in my chest, you’ve got so much ice in your gaze that I long to find what it is that can make you melt. I want you to like me. I want you to fall for me. I want to be loved by someone, to not feel like every time I kiss you I’m wasting my time. Please. I’m human and I deserve more than this.
At least, I hope I do.
Ignore me. Don’t. You’re intelligent enough to be able to see what you do to me, and you could fix this with a few words and you don’t. I can’t work out if that’s because you’re too blind to pay attention to what’s going on in front of you, or if you don’t know what you want, or if you like having me on the end of your string, dragged along behind you begging you to stop and tell me where I stand.
Let me in. Let me out. You can hear me begging, right? Every smile, every time our eyes meet I’m begging you to confirm something. What am I to you? Because if I’m nothing then let me be nothing and I’ll fall for Sheldon and we’ll have creepy conversations about Y-incisions and mummies and internal organs in bed and we’d probably be better suited. I’m stupid. It shouldn’t have been you. I shouldn’t have accepted your offer of a drink, I should have held out, not transferred to your city, your building, your team. I shouldn’t have done this, but you still can’t hold me accountable. I’m in love with you and it’s as though you can’t even remember my name.
It’s Peyton, by the way.
I’m depressed and angry but you still expect me to smile, puppet on strings, dancing to your tune, I’ve run out of metaphors. They’re overrated, and will you laugh at me if I use the word “bloody” a few too many times? I can’t lose my nationality although maybe you could hold my hand for a while and I could try it. That’s the thing, Mac, that I have figured out in a succession of increasingly late nights. I want you more than I want to be happy. Is that mad? Is that scary? Jesus, I don’t know any more. I don’t know you as well as I’d like to and you don’t know me at all but it doesn’t matter.
End of a long day, your arms encircle my waist, lips against my neck. I like this part. The killers are caught and I’ve showered off the death on my skin and it’s just me and you. I think I almost see the you that you could be when it’s all quiet and we act like lovers. Your mouth on mine, deep and affectionate and you don’t taste like you’re lying. That’s where you confuse me. I don’t know Mac - that’s my whole problem. I don’t know.
Next morning you always make me coffee and I wear your shirts and you smile and it’s all perfect. At work, you’re all shades of professional. We have this absolutely gorgeous façade but I need to know what’s underneath it. If we’re going anywhere or if we’re just playing at this, skin and comfort. Please, you don’t need to be whole-hearted in this, but I need to know that you’re not pretending that I’m your wife when you close your eyes, I need to know that you’re doing this for something other than because you don’t like the idea of going home alone any more.
Help me.
It’s a simple request and something you can organise only too easily. One small step. Two small steps. Oh God, please. Say some words, smile at me like you really mean it, tell people that we’re doing this. Give me a reason to bother with this. Because I’m getting lonely and cold and crazy and I can’t say a word.
You walk into the lab, there’s a body on the table. Dark-haired, if you squint he kind of looks like you. Except that’s madness, is that where you’ve driven me? Your lips curve into a smile that makes my knees go weak, and you tell me you need the results as soon as possible. I want to give a sarcastic reply but I can’t make the words form. I just nod, smile, wait until you’re gone before reaching for latex gloves and a scalpel and trying not to think about you and the way you kiss and what it really all means. But it’s just a corpse and me and I don’t have to think about you. Autopsies aren’t complicated and they don’t want more from me than I know how to give.
Death and silence.
It’s ok.
I can do this part.