A/N: Umm. I'm breaking out of my Criminal Minds comfort zone again.I'm trying my hand at another IPS fic. So here goes...
Disclaimer: I don't own IPS. Quite frankly the thought of owning Mary scares the begoodness out of me. She has a gun and she knows how to use it. : ) I don't have a Beta so all errors are my own.
Sleep refused to claim him as Marshall stared at the ceiling, his mind racing. A process that was customary for him. Thinking. He was always thinking. His eyes wandered over the shadows of the raindrops dancing across his bedroom ceiling, as slivers of moonlight escaped through the slats of his meticulously placed blinds. The cool night breeze came in rolling waves, each time making the skin on his exposed chest raise in goosebumps, with the exception of the burning heat coming from the palm resting against his sternum.
Mary. He was always thinking of Mary. Thoughts of her consumed him, day in and day out. She plagued his every thought, every second, every day for years. Even at that moment, he was satisfied and relatively content, but that in no way suppressed the disgust, the disappointment in himself, and the guilt. The guilt was tremendous; it was on equal footing with the perpetual longing.
His fingers lazily traced the bare back of his bed-mate. Long fingers dragging idly along the spinal cord. Fingernails lightly scratching at the smooth, silky skin. But it was...wrong. Wrong because he longed for something else. Smooth chocolate skin was what he caressed, all the while longing for sun-kissed. Dark long tresses were what he fisted, all the while wishing his fingers were entangled in corn-silken yellow. Deep brown eyes are what met his, when all he wanted was those damn emerald green ones. Theresa is who he held, and yet all he could think about was Mary.
It wasn't new.
Over the past four years any experience he had with a woman he took to bed was the same. He made love with them and thought of his partner. It was inevitable and it always felt wrong. Wrong because he never took to bed the woman he most desired, and wrong because it was in no way fair that no matter how beautiful the woman he was with,he always thought of Mary. He respected women and admired them, so with each evening of debauchery he found himself physically satisfied, emotionally spent, and morally compromised.
He vowed to take less women to bed. He didn't want to put himself or the handful of female acquaintances through the heartache. He wasn't emotionally available, and that was becoming abundantly clear. His lips turned up in a slight smile as the soft snores tickled his ear. It was abundantly clear because of Theresa. He'd never expected to get on her good side again. Their first and last date didn't go so well and the weeks after left a tension in the office that was palpable. He never knew why it went wrong, not until that damned day of Mary and her cowboy diatribe...
He had spent the last hour sitting at the nearest pub, with every intention of drowning his Mary sorrows in Scotch. Thus far, he had only finished off one drink and his second remained in front of him untouched. He stared at the glass and fiddled with the little napkin it was placed on,absentmindedly tearing little pieces of it and rolling them into tiny little balls. He chuckled darkly, knowing that his ulcer, appropriately named Shannon after the woman he loved and the stress inducing "other Shannons" that came along with her, would be very thankful for the lack of excessive drinking.
The bar stool beside him scraped against the granite floor as his coworker sat beside him. "Bartender,I'll have what he's having" she said coolly, when the bartender approached her.
He sat quietly at first, waiting for the slightly disgruntled bartender to slide her drink across the wooden surface before stalking off to the other side of the bar. A chuckle escaped him as she grunted in displeasure at what she assumed was poor service.
"They call themselves 'Mixologists' now," he responded evenly as he finally raised his drink to his lips and took a gulp, wincing as it burned his throat.
Her response was a snort before she followed suit."Remind me to never step foot in a foofy bar where the bartender needs a special title to make himself sound better. Call a spade a spade I say." she punctuated the statement with a raise of her glass, before sipping the liquid and letting out a satisfied sigh. She stared straight ahead for a bit, seemingly savoring the burn of the liquid, as it slid down her throat, before she placed the glass on the counter abruptly. " You know...you're pathetic Mann," she sighed matter of factly, as if it were a commonly acceptable notion.
"Ahh Theresa, you're finally speaking to me again," he went back to playing with his drink, watching the liquid swirl around in the glass. He felt her shrug, noticing out of his peripheral vision that she too fiddled with her own glass.
"I don't hold grudges...for long, Not my thing, too...ridiculously feminine."
It was his turn to snort as he studiously ignored the twang of self awareness in the pit of his stomach. "I don't understand why..." he started hesitantly, straightening himself up from his slouching position over the surface of the bar, and spinning around to face her.
"Don't understand why...what?" she inquired in her raspy voice, slightly worn from what he presumed was a long day of negotiations and number crunching. "Why I briefly stopped speaking to you or why I think you're pathetic?" She turned her stool to face him, her dark chocolate eyes boring into his blue ones, a glint of amusement in them.
"Both, actually" he answered truthfully, more grateful for the company and the conversation than he would ever care to admit.
"You're usually an intuitive man, Mann" she started, not hiding her enjoyment at verbal plays on his name. "What do you remember about our date?"
He pulled back from the bar, ran a hand through his hair and sighed before leaning forward again, encroaching on her personal space his eyes, clouded with pure sincerity, penetrated hers. "I remembered going out to dinner. A smorgasbord of food...French food,"he clarified with a curt nod. "A trip to the art gallery, engaging conversation, a risque dress..." He quirked his brow at the thought, a lascivious grin pulling at his lips despite his best effort to remain serious. " I remember having a good time, and ending it with...promises of more."
Recollection took ahold of her and a slight blush inflamed her cheeks, followed quickly by a flicker of sadness flashing through her eyes so quickly that a less perceptive man would have missed it. She gulped noiselessly before slipping back into her reserved yet confident bravado. "Ahh. See, I recall a lovely dinner with a lovely man, that part is accurate. I also recall a lack of mutual conversation."
His brow furrowed as he frowned at the statement. He knew on various occasions he had been known to dominate a conversation or two, be it discussing a case, or merely running off many a useless and mundane facts about any and everything but he didn't recall doing it that particular night.
She must have sensed his confusion because she went on without a hitch." It wasn't that you spoke so...often, Mann. I knew enough to know that you're ridiculously verbose-"
"So I'm pathetic because of poor conversational skills? It didn't seem that way on your doorstep," he interrupted, flashing a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes.
She shook her head, " It was what you spoke about..." She sighed flicking her hand in the air in aggravation. "Mary. When we weren't debating about philosphers, it was always Mary. She's all you talked about, every discussion, every little fact in some way, shape, or fashion had to do with Mary. And the kiss that you're alluding to, on my doorstep?" she paused and took a long gulp of her drink, masking her slightly dejected face with a bemused one."It wasn't so great when it was her name you were whispering."
His eyes widened as the realization washed over him. His shoulders slumped once more as he slouched against the wooden surface, burying his head in his hands and rubbing his face, in the process mussing his hair. "Oh God, Theresa. I-I didn't know! I'm so sorry." He scrubbed at his face once more before turning to face her, uttering heartfelt apologies.
"It's fine Mann," She shook her head slightly as her voice softened. "Marshall. Really it is. All's forgiven." She smirked at him though it didn't quite reach her eyes, reaching out to fix his now disheveled hair. He didn't seem to be buying it , and remembering how troubled he already was, she patted his hand before clearing her throat and pulling away. "Of course, since I've forgiven you, that means drinks are on you tonight." She tried smirking again to quell the guilt she sensed was eating away at him.
He nodded in acquiescence and signaled the "mixologist" for another round, beer this time, both remaining silent until the bottles were placed before them.
Theresa chose to break the silence first. "I was never really upset with you. Not really, anyhow." She felt tingly all over, sensing that he was scrutinizing her in confusion. She forced herself to pull away from her task of scratching designs into leftover condensation on her bottle. " I was upset with myself. I knew how you felt about Mary...", her voice trailed off as she gave him a tight smile.
Marshall ducked his head down and smiled in response. He took another pull from his beer before staring intently back in her eyes. "It's that obvious, huh?"
"Painfully so," she replied, nudging him with her shoulder when she noticed the faraway look on his face. "You know you two are the only partners in the building who come with an instruction manual. We pretty much know we have to sugar manage Mary and listen to you spew insignificant facts." She paused to take a sip of her drink before continuing, "There's even an ongoing pool on when you two will hook up. You remember Eleanor?She's running it," they exchanged a glance and both chuckled quietly amongst themselves.
The laughter subsided as her face tightened in seriousness. "I'm going to say something and I swear if you so much as breathe a word to anybody," she let the threat hang in the air, raising a brow until he nodded. "I think you and I have a lot in common Marshall. We both go after things we can't have," she whispered softly before turning away and sipping on her beer.
He cast a lingering glance in her direction and tried to ignore the way her hand shook and the disappointed look on her face. All may have been forgiven, but it certainly hadn't been forgotten. He couldn't miss the residual hurt that slipped through the walls of stoicism she tried her best to hold up, and it left a dull ache in his chest that he tried to ignore."Is that what makes me pathetic?"
"As someone who cares..." she stopped abruptly, shaking her head free of the month long sting of rejection that still hadn't quite gone away. She tried again. "As a friend, let me give you some friendly advice. You 're not pathetic because you want something that you can't have. You're pathetic because you keep giving her an out, Marshall. You keep flowering her with subtle hints and innuendo. You plant ideas and notions in her head and talk in circles without getting straight to the point. Mary's a direct person, you have to give her the bottom line, the end result. Damn, you have to corner her …." she grabbed his forearm and fixed him with a glare, giving an encouraging nod when his eyes met hers.
"I mean really, Marshall, 'messy'? Was that the best that you could do?" she heaved an exasperated sigh. " Metaphors and analogies..." she muttered to herself, waving her hands up in the air and looking to the heavens for strength.
His eyes widened a bit at the realization that she was aware of his fall from grace. "You heard about that?"
"Marshall I seen it! That was...rough,"
"What else am I supposed to do?" he mumbled quietly, tampering down the fresh wave of humiliation rising up in him. He felt protective too. No one really understood Mary the way that he did and to outsiders he could only imagine how that scene in the bullpen made her look.
"You tell her how you feel. No holds bar. You tell her that you love her," Theresa whispered quietly. "You're afraid. Afraid that she'll run away from you...afraid that she'll push you away and you won't have her there anymore," her voice trailed off as a former colleague of hers waltzed past. She nodded in acknowledgment before turning to face Marshall again.
"Newsflash Marshall, she already knows how you feel about her. She isn't oblivous, Marshall. You of all people should give her more credit than that. That's why she conveniently took off in the midst of your little speech. As long as you give her an open window, she's going to tear out of it like a bat out of hell. Stop giving her the open window! You two will never get anywhere if nothing is being said."
He felt his chest tighten as the air suffocated him. He wondered if that was how Mary felt when he psychoanalyzed her, read into her soul and left her feeling exposed and vulnerable. It wasn't the greatest feeling in the world.
" Trust me, Marshall. I get it. She's afraid. You're afraid. Neither of you will take a step forward.I just think that, for now at least, you either tell her how you feel. Really tell her how you feel...or you try to move on. At least until she's ready, if she's ever ready. It's not fair that you're so unhappy, Marshall. Y-you deserve to be happy."
He gazed at his colleague. Let the whole of what she said sink in. He knew she was right, her words were a mere echo of the little voice that had been ringing in the back of his head, pleading with him to take heed to it's advice. His advice. The same advice he would have dished out to any person who came to him with a similar scenario. It was different. Having the words come through an alternate way, through another person. The fact of the matter was, he didn't exactly have a sounding board. Mary was his best friend. It made it difficult to seek love advice from the object of his affection.
"You deserve to be happy too," he said quietly, noting the way she stiffened. Defensive .Alert. "You get it because you've been there," It was a statement rather than a question.
"I've been there," she confirmed, a tight smile and guarded eyes directed at him. She let out a shaky breath as she acquiesced to the unspoken "What happen?" pouring through his liquid blue orbs. "I was too late telling him how I... He died."
Marshall gave her a sympathetic smile and reached out to clasp her hand in his and gave it a comforting squeeze. He silently admonished himself for being so drawn to guarded women with an aversion to affection, as she pulled her hand away gently after a few seconds. Her posture grew more rigid, soon back to it's usual reserved stance. She cleared her throat quietly and the vulnerability retreated behind the stoic wall he had become accustomed to.
"I'm sor-" he began, grasping for those last few seconds of openess. He'd be damned if he let them slip away, not on this woman too. His already battered and bruised ego couldn't take another hit that day.
"I think I should be going," she interrupted abruptly, rising from her seat.
The familiar twinge of hitting a brick wall, an emotional barrier,overtook Marshall suddenly. He nodded in understanding, his lip curving into the slightest of smiles.
She cleared her throat and lingered at his side briefly, akwardly. A gentle hand touched his shoulder before she headed for the door. She came to a standstill before turning around to face him, slightly surprised that he was still looking after her.
"I lied. Drinks weren't enough, Mann. If you really want me to forgive you then you have to buy me dessert too,"`A coy smile played on her lips. "I'm thinking cake. Red Velvet."
An olive branch. She slipped effortlessly back into familiar territory, banter and the false air of superiority. If he looked closely enough he could discern the vulnerability in her as she waited for his response.
"I'd prefer German Chocolate." he said with a smirk. She let out a small sigh, of relief perhaps, one that he probably wasn't meant to hear, and rolled her eyes at him while grinning. He slid a few crisp bills across the counter and slid from the barstool,making his way towards the exit to meet her.
She weighed the options, a hankering for German Chocolate suddenly overcoming her, not that she'd ever admit it out loud at that point. "We share." she said with finality and a shrug while sauntering out the door Marshall held open for her.
It wasn't pie,but it was something...
A clap of thunder startled him out of his trip down memory lane.
That night was the beginning of a new friendship. Nearly every night for the two weeks that his best friend was away on vacation, he spent with Theresa. Their relationship was easy, not easy as breathing like his relationship with Mary. Not even close, but it was easy enough. She was easy to talk to, when she was up for deep discussions that was. She was fun and witty, and...broken. There was that too. It took him awhile to dissect her, but she was definitely broken, or perhaps torn was a more accurate term. She hid it better than most people he knew, almost as good as...
She was perceptive too, more perceptive than he probably would have liked. She knew instantly that something was wrong the day after Mary returned. The day he overheard that message from Faber. He still couldn't believe that arrogant jackass would leave such a detailed, unprofessional, message on Mary's workline. His gut told him that Faber did it intentionally, to rile him up, to piss him off. A dog marking his territory. Mary merely shouted out a few obscentities and deleted the message, casting a poorly masked look of embarassment and shame before spouting off a "What are you looking at, Doofus?" He caught Theresa's sympathetic look from across the room. As sympathetic as she could muster while maintaining her professional stance. She mouthed "drinks?" and he nodded in agreement before falling back into his bantering with Mary. It was forced, a bit strained on both ends, but they continued that day as they did any other day.
He and Theresa never made it to drinks. He somehow managed to talk her into coming to his place. She wanted to talk and he...he just wanted to forget. She seemed to understand that night, unspoken words thrumming between them, as warm skin met warm skin, lips meshed, limbs intwined, and tears,sorrow, pain,and lonliness were interwoven between them. A pattern that they seemed to have formed for over a month now. They didn't have a way of defining themselves. They were friends, more than just friends, but they weren't dating either. Friends with benefits. The fact was she was still haunted by guilt, pain, and the ghost of a lover she never got the chance to actually love. And he was still irrevocably in love with a best friend who was afraid to take the leap of faith with him.
"We're a pathetic pair, you and I." he murmured`into the still of the night, casting a glance in the direction of the sleeping form beside him.
"Hmmm," she mumbled into his shoulder.
"I'm a Lonely Woman's Will..." he sighed, referencing the lost love of his new friend. "Owww," he grunted as he felt her elbow collide with his ribcage.
"I'm a Poor Mann's Mary," she responded with an equally exasperated sigh.
He pulled her in tighter and pressed his lips to the crown of her head, allowing the slight hesitation she always had before succumbing to the affectionate gestures. She was right. He was learning how to not feel so guilty about that, just as she was learning how to let someone care for her. It wasn't exactly what he wanted, who he wanted, but for now that was okay.
~o~
A/N 2: Okay I know it wasn't awesome M/M goodness, but let's face it. Marshall needs somebody while he's waiting for Mary to come to her senses. A whole lot of good Mann is being wasted right now. Oh, and prior to last season starting Fred was saying that Marshall was supposed to get a love interest. The only thing I seen was him calming down a witness and him checking out Theresa's butt on one occasion and joking around with her (in which she responded frostily) on another occasion but that was it. So I assumed he had a fleeting romance of some sort with Theresa. shrugs