summary. Jess. Season 2. He knew that his wall had come crashing down. Oneshot songfic.
disclaimer. Nothing but my ideas.
song. Over My Head (Cable Car) by The Fray.
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I never knew
I never knew that everything was falling through
He didn't want to admit it. Didn't want to give in to the fact that the wall he had been carefully building up for years – hell, his entire life – brick by brick, stone by stone, whatever – was about to come crashing down.
That everyone I knew was waiting on a queue
To turn and run when all I needed was the truth
It had been the only thing he had ever really taken care of, that wall. The only thing that he ever worked hard on, put any effort into at all. It was really quite pathetic, he realized with a grim smirk. The only thing he cared about was building a wall between him and any feelings, any emotion. He guessed that with a basket case, alcoholic, drug addict mother, it wasn't that uncommon.
But that's how it's got to be
It's coming down to nothing more than apathy
But she knew he was better than that. Ever since he had come to this ridiculous town, she had always known he was hiding behind the wall. And, truthfully, it scared him more than anything ever had before.
I'd rather run the other way than stay and see
The smoke and who's still standing when it clears
No, he decided. No. It wasn't going to happen. She wasn't going to ruin everything he had worked so hard for. If she knocked a couple of bricks down, he would stack them back up twice as fast.
Everyone knows I'm in
Over my head
Over my head
Because girls didn't affect him. They just didn't. It was a fact that anyone who had ever met him knew. He was the one to affect girls, not the other way around. Seventeen years and the rules had never changed. Seventeen years and he should be able to handle this by now. He could. He had to.
With eight seconds left in overtime
She's on your mind
She's on your mind
But then she showed up, and he felt like he was suddenly playing a different game. He had been thrust into the midst of it, and no one had bothered to explain the rules, or even tell him what god damn game they were playing.
Let's rearrange
I wish you were a stranger I could disengage
It's just a game, he repeated to himself, over and over again, just a game. And he wouldn't let her win. He would win just like he always did.
Just say that we agree and then never change
Soften a bit until we all just get along
But then her face appeared in his mind, and it was so difficult to remember winning when all he wanted to do was hold her. When he wanted her to run to him when she was upset. When he wanted to be the one to dry her tears, and tell her that it would be okay. When he wanted to be the one that she trusted, that she believed in.
But that's disregard
Find another friend and you discard
This was unbelievable, really. Fucking unbelievable. Because she would never trust him, or believe in him. More, she couldn't. He refused to let it happen. He would just break her. She was so small, and fragile, and innocent, he would just snap little pieces away bit by bit, and neither of them would notice until there was nothing left. And then he would do what he always did, what his father always did, what his mother always did. He would run. And everyone would know that he was a coward.
As you lose the argument in a cable car
Hanging above as the canyon come between
He slammed his fist down on the cold counter, and felt like the pain had transferred straight from his hand to his heart. Jesus. Since when did he care? Why had no one slipped him the memo saying that he had suddenly changed?
Everyone knows I'm in
Over my head
Over my head
She was exactly what he had spent his whole life guarding against. He was exactly what she could never be with.
With eight seconds left in overtime
She's on your mind
She's on your mind
No one besides her really thought he could change. Sure, some of them said it, and some of them wanted to believe it, but she was the only one who actually had any faith in him. And he tried as hard as he possibly could to hate her for it, but he got the opposite result.
And suddenly I become a part of your past
I'm becoming the part that don't last
I'm losing you and it's effortless
Perhaps the only thought scarier than his wall breaking down was the thought of never seeing her again. More than once he had woken up in a cold sweat, images from nightmares of her leaving fleeting through his jumbled mind.
Without a sound we lose sight of the ground
In the throw around
God, he sounded like such a stalker. He shut his eyes and tried fiercely to add another layer of bricks onto his wall, anything to make it hold up just a little longer. But when he closed his eyes, the images of her just got stronger, and he could hear her voice, and it was driving him crazy.
Never thought that you wanted to bring it down
I won't let it go till we torch it ourselves
He hated how she always came in, always sat at that particular stool if she sat at the counter, always ordered coffee no matter what mood she was in. He hated her always being there, because it made it all the more difficult to forget her, now that everything in the diner could be associated with her. Yet he knew that if she never came in, it would kill him all the same.
And everyone knows I'm in
Over my head
Over my head
The bells jingled on the door and he glanced up briefly. His breath caught in his throat as she walked in, rosy cheeked from the cold and bright eyed as always. Her eyes locked on his, and she smiled.
With eight seconds left in overtime
She's on your mind
Smiling back, he knew that his wall had come crashing down. But maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.
She's on your mind
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