So, my IPS muse decided to prove it existed by slapping me in face with a handful of plot bunnies. This one will be a two-shot, one focusing on Marshall, the other on Mary.
It's kind of character analysis, not a bunch of plot. I dunno, maybe no plot!
/|\
Granted, he plays a dangerous game, loving a woman like Mary. Loving Mary. A woman who would probably never see him the way he sees her. A woman whose very definition of love was derived from the way in which she believes he platonically loves her. A woman who so completely and totally has him by the heartstrings, but doesn't know and most likely wouldn't care.
Was it bravery or stupidity? Love or the just idea of it? Was the love what kept him there or pushed him to leave on the darkest nights?
Either way, he played chicken every day of his life because he was a coward. Yes, he was determined. Well, he used to be. Five years ago, he would have looked you in the eye and told you he loved her and one day she would acknowledge it. He stands in front of a raging bull with nothing but a strip of red cloth because he's afraid to sit in the crowd. He loves an oblivious woman in the shadows because she'd beat the living shit out of him if it ever saw the light of day.
Now he's holding out, leaving it all on the line, being brave because he's a coward. Or is he being a coward because he's sick of telling himself he's brave? Tired of steeling his resolve to just kiss her, damn it, and then backing down.
You've got to have a steel gut to fall in love with a woman like Mary, after all. But he never acts on it and she may never know him by his love for her.
He's worked with her a decade, loved her for most of it.
He's afraid to leave, because can he handle that change? Will he survive a life without her? Will she? He's terrified to stay, she obviously has no intention of noticing what's right in front of her anytime soon.
He's a coward.
He starts to tell her. Tell her that he cares, that he loves her, damn it. But he ends up backing off because it is the human condition to fear change. He starts to say something, to make his body just lean in and kiss her, but he's too afraid of losing what he's got to try for something more.
He starts to leave; gets all the way to the door, too. But she claims to need him and he holds out, hoping someday that'll be true. Some days it is. Mary's the strongest woman he's ever met, but she's seen things and been through things and sometimes she just needs him to follow her and she walks off her troubles. He's written up both transfer requests and resignation letters more times than he can count, because of her. They all end up in his shredder. He doesn't want to follow her. He wants to walk right by her side.
He hides in relationships with women he doesn't and probably cannot ever love. He hides behind pretending to see them like he sees Mary and he cowers behind I love you's that he knows he doesn't mean. He conceals himself behind meaningless lunch dates and holidays across the table from someone else.
He seeks a filler in his work. Maybe, just maybe, if he works a little harder, keeps this or that witness just a little safer, he won't notice that the other side of he bed is either empty or filled by someone who he just doesn't even want there. If he tackles the bad guys a little harder, he can ignore the suffocation he finds walking next to her every day.
Some days, he wishes he could love her like she thinks he does. He wishes he could love her like she were his sister and that thinking of her the way he does would feel like some insane incest. He wishes he could make it believable when he tells observant witnesses that there is nothing there. Aside from her father (Who was around all of, what, seven years?), he's probably the only man ever to love her without a price, especially without expecting to go to bed with her.
When his family asks, he tells them he hasn't found her yet. While her comes across to them as 'the one,' what he really means is Mary. He hasn't found her, he hasn't found how to tell her that he is so all-consumingly in love with her that he wants messy, even though he's a bigger fan of neat and tidy than she is.
He's such a damn coward.
But he plays this dangerous game, loving her over her shoulder and stepping back when she notices him there. Trying to wear his heart on his sleeve when the lioness in her will only tear it to shreds in the first moment of a bloodthirsty rage. Why's he gotta always be the prey?
Maybe it's best like that. Then he can love her how he wants, however quietly, without repercussions. This way, she can't find him out and accuse him of anything. She can't be angry, she can't consciously deny him.
He denies when she suggests that he has a thing for her. She says it like it's the most ridiculous thing on the world, and it's ice water to his gut. He laughs it off, uses the current girlfriend as a cover-up, and insinuates that it's exactly as ridiculous as she says it it.
Coward. He's a coward.
This game is going to kill him. She's already got his heart between her teeth, poised to demolish it, and she's just about got his sanity, too. Good. Maybe if she takes his sanity, he'll do something he won't regret as much as he thought he would.
He keeps playing. He's not sure what hope actually looks like these days, but he assumes he's got none left, regardless. It's been ten years, can anyone have that much hope? He throws in hand after hand, bluffing and occasionally calling her out on her BS, but she winds most rounds. He doesn't dare look over at his chips, for he fears he's almost out.
He keeps playing because it's a habit he doesn't care to break, a pain he's forgotten how to live without. He might even have a little hope left too.
He's so brave.
/|\
Remember, you and the review button are best friends.