Note: follows tim riggins from the pilot throughout the series and beyond. tim/lyla throughout. basically I wrote this because it's the kind of fic I've been looking for. enjoy :-)

{ I own nothing }

He feels different when she's around.

It's been that way for as long as he can remember. Even when she's one half of JasonandLyla, doodling "Mrs. Street" all over her notebooks in class and completely off-limits to him. Even when she and Six are making plans for college and picking out baby names or some shit. Even when Tyra warms his bed (and occasionally his heart).

Even before he knows he's in love with her, he feels different around her. Lighter, somehow. Happier, maybe? She has this way of making him feel like he isn't a total fuck-up, like maybe he's worth at least a little sliver of something, without even trying. She just looks at him and shoots him a sweet little grin and he feels ten feet tall for the rest of the day.

He doesn't know yet how much that look will affect him, and his life, and all the choices he makes.

... ... ...

He's had a hard life, and sometimes he can't wait to get the hell out of this town, but some days he thinks he might stick around, because how much better can it get for him than football and beer and girls in Dillon?

Texas forever, he toasts, and everyone cheers, because it's the goddamn truth.

... ... ...

When everything goes south and all of the sudden Jason Street isn't Jason Street anymore, he can't bring himself to go the hospital. He pretends like he's too drunk to care, but the guilt is eating him alive, and she sees right through him.

You know, Jason's been asking about you, she says, and it feels like she punched him straight in the gut. But he declines her invitation because he just can't face Jay. Not yet. Not when he still gets to put on those pads and play the game they both love while his best friend can't anymore.

It's the first time she ever looks truly, genuinely disappointed in him, and he feels like a piece of shit.

... ... ...

He lets Tyra break up with him because he's too drunk to remember that sometimes he actually cares about her, and sometimes she's the only person who really cares about him.

You're just another mediocre football player who's gonna grow up and drink himself to death.

He knows she's trying to hurt him, but he's too drunk to feel it.

He goes to practice drunk the next day and Coach chews his ass out, so he walks off the field. He figures he's got nothing left to lose, so what's the point?

Until he wakes up the next morning, sober, and faces the reality that without Tyra, without Six, without football, he really does have nothing.

... ... ...

Coach tells him to let himself off the hook, and somewhere along the lonely walk home in the rain, he does just that.

Then Lyla finds him on the side of the road, screaming at him like it's all his fault, and he's right back at square one.

He's never gonna walk again, she sobs, and if he kisses her back, it's because she might be the only other person in the world who can understand what he's going through. He tells himself that's all it is.

He doesn't try to figure out why he lets it go further than that. He's afraid of what he might find if he digs too deep for the answer.

... ... ...

I hate myself for the other night, she says, and she may as well have just ripped his heart out and stomped on it.

Because somewhere between that night and the moment she pulls him into that empty classroom, he's realized he has feelings for her. Real feelings, not just the ones he gets for all the girls he's with. Like, he thinks he might actually love her, if he knew what that was supposed to feel like.

But it's Jason for her, just like it always has been. He doesn't know why he ever thought that would change. They are jasonandlyla, after all, and he's just Tim.

He gets drunk that night and tells himself he doesn't need her. He knows it's a lie even as he thinks it, but he figures he's gotta get used to lying to himself if he's gonna move on.

... ... ...

He shows up in her bedroom because he's tried and tried and tried to drink it away, but he can't get her out of his head. He knows it's wrong, what they've done, but he can't help the way he feels, and he's always been a bit of a selfish bastard anyway.

Lyla, he breathes out, and when she kisses him back, he knows she feels it too, even if she won't admit it.

... ... ...

When she shows up at his house a few days later, it's the first time she's sought him out instead of the other way around, and it feels nice to be wanted, even if he knows she's just using him.

... ... ...

It's exhilarating, sneaking around with her, and he decides he could get used to having her in his bed. He forgets for a moment that there's a third person in this equation, that Street is the common thread that holds them together and that she's not his, not entirely. He supposes that's okay, at least for now. He'll take what he can get.

But then she breaks up with him, if you can call it that, and the fact that she's still Jay's girl hits him like a freight train.

I care about you, Tim. I do, she says.

She doesn't say, but I'm in love with Jason. He hears it anyway.

... ... ...

Without Jay around, it's easy to forget that Lyla's his girl, easy to forget that the third factor in their messed up equation is his best friend. He doesn't know when he lost sight of that, doesn't know when he let Lyla Garrity become more important than his best friend, his brother.

When he thinks about it more, he supposes maybe it was always there, and that makes him feel like absolute shit.

He tells himself that the 'field trip' with Jay isn't to ease his guilty conscience, but because he misses his best friend. On some level he knows it's the truth, but it's hard to think straight with Lyla sitting in the truck between them like some sort of fucked up metaphor or whatever.

As the day goes on it feels more and more like old times, before everything changed, and he thinks maybe this is the way it's supposed to be. When he says that shit about the three of them, that they can get through anything together, Lyla looks like she might not believe it, but Tim's surprised to find that he does. He really does.

Saying goodbye to her in that parking lot feels too final for his liking, but he knows it's for the best, so he just hugs her tight and doesn't let go of her hand until he has to.

... ... ...

Shit finally hits the fan, and he doesn't feel relieved like he thought he might. He supposes he never truly thought Jay would find out, never really thought he'd ever have to face the consequences, even when Lyla shows up at his door all worried. Then Jay decks him at the rugby game, and it's all over.

He's more worried about Lyla than himself, really. She takes it pretty hard on the chin at school, because apparently she's the only one who did anything wrong. Stupid fucking backwards double standards. So he sits with her at lunch, even though he knows he'll be ostracized by association. Let them look, Lyla, I don't care. He thinks he's being all noble and shit until she straight up tells him he's not helping.

He can let her sulk and he can let her sit alone in the cafeteria, but he can't let her quit the cheerleading squad. Maybe his motives are a bit selfish, but he knows she loves it, and he can't be responsible for taking away everything she loves. He can't get Jay back for her – though that doesn't stop him from trying – but this is something he can help with.

The way she hugs him when he shows up at her doorstep makes him feel like maybe he's not a useless piece of shit. She gives him that look, the one that makes his heart flip over in his chest, and he has to walk away before he does something stupid like kiss her and tell her he loves her.

... ... ...

Jason and Lyla are JasonandLyla again, and he wants to be pissed off, but he has no right to be.

... ... ...

He tries to make things right with Tyra because he knows he hurt her, and now that he's doing his own schoolwork and trying not to drink so much, he thinks maybe he could actually be a good person if he tried. He doesn't blame her for turning him down, and he thinks that it's probably for the best. She deserves better.

Maybe he's maturing or some shit, but he knows this mess is all his fault, and he's got to live with it.

... ... ...

JasonandLyla get engaged.

The not-drinking-so-much thing? Yeah, that seems like a fucking stupid idea right about now.

... ... ...

His dad turns out to be exactly the kind of asshole Billy warned him about, and he feels like such an idiot that he lets some meathead from the bar kick his ass just to prove himself right.

... ... ...

His friendship with Six finally starts to mend itself, and he feels like maybe he's getting his life back on track.

... ... ...

He fixes Jackie's gutter because he's got a soft spot for the kid.

He sleeps with her because she's starting to rely on him a little bit, and he likes knowing she trusts him, knowing she needs him.

When she breaks it off, she says it's because Bo could get hurt, and he hates her a little bit for making him prove her right.

... ... ...

He gets an assist on the game-winning touchdown at State, and Lyla and Jason watch him from the sideline and Billy and Jackie and Bo watch him from the stands, and he wonders if there's ever been a better feeling than this moment right here, tries to soak it in because who knows if he'll ever get it back.