Title: Amber Tinted Memories
Author: MelWil
Fandom: Spooks
Rating: PG
Spoilers: 5.1. Please don't spoil past 5.2 in the comments
Summary: Malcolm prefers to drink wine.
Malcolm drinks wine. Not too much, of course – he is the paragon of moderation. But when he drinks (and they all find it necessary) he tends to prefer a good wine.
Colin drank beer. He could wax lyrical about beer – spend hours talking about clarity and hops and clean tastes. He used to talk about setting up a home brew operation, to experiment with a boutique beer, but he could never find the time to go through with it.
They were all time poor.
There was no time to indulge in hobbies or passions separate from work. No long stretches in which to read favourite books. No time to reflect on movies or plays, if you found the time to see them in the first place. No hours to watch the clouds go by.
No moments to tell people how you really feel.
Malcolm wished they'd enjoyed more of those moments. He wished he'd told Colin that he appreciated him, as a workmate and a friend. He wished they'd laughed more. He wished he'd said the words they'd always avoided.
He wasn't sure what they shared, not really. It was something more than friendship, and yet it was nothing more than that. He knew Colin better than he knew himself, but they barely saw each other outside of work. They had been trapped inside a world where their work consumed everything – time, relationships, themselves.
He had been sure that it would be a temporary thing, that some day they would come to their senses and they would work it all out. He was certain that they had all the time they needed.
The time wasn't supposed to run out.
He poured himself a glass of beer and held it to the light, wondering what he was supposed to be looking for. He drank the glass until it was empty, wondering why Colin drank it so readily. And yet . . .
And yet it was the sweetest drink he'd ever had.