(A/N): I really don't know what I'm trying to accomplish with this fic, other than I wanted to write something more heavily stream-of-consciousness and also something that encapsulates the universal ache of the unfinished, unsaid, etc. I ship Skye and Jeffrey as hard as anyone but I feel like Birdsall could just as easily take them in another direction and leave us haunted by what could have been. So. Basically that's what I've written. Prepare yourselves.
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This is a love story.
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Look at them. Just look.
You have been, for years, watching as they grow and change and leave the sweetness of childhood behind, as they strike out for unfamiliar places and greater worlds, as they push beyond the old, rotting boundaries in favor of something brighter.
You have been watching these two since since the very beginning; since the hedge; since that headlong smack; since smoldering chocolate-chip cookies; since the bull; since their first laugh together; since that wonderfully disastrous piano lesson, that wonderfully disastrous flutter of sheet music and flying fists; since Jeffrey's escape; since that day, the last day, when he came running, running, running at them like demons were on his heels because waitstopdon'tgoIneedtosaygoodbye; since Skye hugged him once more, for luck; since until next time.
You've been watching our Skye and our Jeffrey and shaking your head and maybe laughing a little to yourself, because god, can't they see it, can't they see what you see? What I see? The signs, the little trail of breadcrumbs they've been leaving each other all this time?
Secret hints, signals towards that unexplored terrain, hints that whispered—no, shouted, yelled, screamed—kiss me. Kiss me. Signals towards the kiss. A trail of breadcrumbs leading them to each other.
You've been tracking their lives, peering in on them from time to time to see just how they are getting on, and maybe, if you are lucky, to see them making progress—creating wholeness out of fragmentation, assembling a narrative out of disparate pieces that will finally make them understand what is there. What is waiting for them if they just—
If they could—
If they would only—
Well.
And still, you don't give up hope. Because they will, they will kiss, they must kiss.
Because there have been so many moments—and you've seen them, you know, you feel it—when Skye looks at Jeffrey, when Jeffrey looks at Skye, and their breath…it sort of trips over itself, and their stomachs, they quiver…and if they were just brave enough to leap off the edge their world would go up in bright flames, molten and magnificent, like so much potassium thrown into water.
I'd like to tell you your hope is not in vain.
But Skye and Jeffrey are older now. The lines of anger, loss, and grief have carved themselves into their flesh. They can't remember what it was like to be clumsily exuberant youth, still in the throes of that giddy, aching longing; that glowing, tender hope.
They have laid it to rest. They have buried it deep. They have forgotten.
But you and I, we have not. We're still here. We're still waiting.
Even though this isn't our story, even though it is the story of a kiss that might have happened, could have happened, a kiss and everything else it would have brought, everything Skye would have promised, everything Jeffrey would have given.
Watch, watch as it plummets, cold and heavy like a body, watch as it falls in the land of the kisses never had, where it belongs.
If this were a romance novel, there would be fingers entwined, rosy cheeks, and a dizzy exchange of oxygen. If this were a romantic comedy, our Skye and our Jeffrey would realize at the last, breathless moment what it all means, what they mean, and they would turn and run and pull each other in for that final triumphant collision in the midst of a world gone white. If this were a dream, Jeffrey's iris would be universes for Skye to fall into and her mouth would be his catalyst.
But this is not a dream. It's not a romance novel, it's not a movie. It's the story of a kiss never given.
But if it had been.
Well, if it had been—it would have been incredible. I can't tell them how Skye's mouth pressing against Jeffrey's would feel like an impact, knocking the breath from his lungs. How his groceries would drop to the pavement, a scatter of oranges and avocados and leaking milk. How everything would go very quiet, then very loud—a sudden roar of trembling want bursting to the surface. How he would go limp, falling toward Skye, who would bracket his skull with strong palms and push him back against mortar and brick without breaking for air. How their heads would become tingling dark spaces void of all thought, because the whirl of lips and teeth and tongue and oh god oh yes oh finally would turn them to ash.
I want to tell them all of it, but I cannot, because I am the narrator and I exist only to tell you that they should have, could have, might have, but didn't.
This is the story of a kiss that never was. A good kiss. A superb kiss.
Not a kiss.
The kiss.
The kiss that would have changed everything.