Toby's inner thoughts, set somewhere between 3x05 and 3x07.
There was no way. There was no way.
He could spend minutes, hours convincing himself friends worked for them. Hell, he could do it all weekend. But the second he saw her face afterwards, everything went out the window. Nothing prepared him for the dark, shielded orbs he managed to break months ago. The curves buried under layers of leather he longed to touch, the physical spark igniting whenever he felt her presence, the bold attitude he'd fallen in love with all stifling his oxygen.
Her rejection hurt so much more than Amy's.
With Happy, he knew he'd brought something to the surface inside her. They connected far deeper than tangibly, stretching to the nerves of his nerves.
But he didn't hold on tight enough.
He was the one that ruined it with both her and with Amy. But Amy lost interest, and his world spiraled into hazy blurs of booze, bars, and big gambles. Happy kept him stable. She was a central point he could focus on, hold onto, enabling him to ability to push everything else away. Amy shed from his life, along with the skin of the man he used to be.
Of course, it was all his fault that things never panned out between Happy and him. He betrayed her trust. It hurt even more knowing his pain could've been prevented, if he'd just woken up from that nap. His and Happy's romantic relationship ended before it began, while Amy slammed their story shut after the initial descent to failure.
Just friends wasn't enough for him. Sitting by while she moved never ceased being impossible. Getting out of bed in the morning used to be exciting, when he had something to get out of bed for.
He hated going into work. He hated looking at her and seeing what could've been.
He messed everything up.
And now, having her in his head at every moment of every day tormented him instead of pleasured. She never left. His fantasies, no matter how gratifying, killed him. He would see her, kiss her, touch her, spill all the love plaguing his head and heart. Then the fog would clear. He'd been walking to the edge of the cliff, but even when pain awaited him at the bottom, he jumped anyway, because pushing her out of his thoughts failed.
She did and she didn't directly cause him the hurt. He still loved her, though. He couldn't stop.
His love clawed past the barriers of friendship, shredding his heart in the process. Months ago it stood as the bare minimum. Its impossibly deep embedment grew to merely the stem of the his feelings.
She was his new addiction, his new drug. And his temptation grew with every passing day.
There was no way he could be just friends with her.