A/N this came from having Lilac Wine on repeat. Which is where the titles and quotes come from, pick your version of it, whichever one you like more, I prefer the Jeff Buckley version the best, but if you want the full lyrics, just google "lilac wine" and you get them. So don't own that or the characters either. Enjoy it though!
He poured another tumbler of scotch as he listened to the song on repeat. It was the best thing about CD's, you could just listen to one song over and over and over again, and he'd been doing that for a long time now. He couldn't count the number of times the song had gone on. He couldn't even remember where he first heard it, he guessed it was her.
Her, the reason he was drinking himself into oblivion. She would like the song, despite how sad it was. She liked sad music, and she would like the guy who sang it, rock with a hint of country, with a lot of sadness. The song seemed oddly fitting for exactly what he was doing. Drinking himself into a stupor over a woman who was far far away.
It wouldn't be so bad if he never saw her, it wouldn't be so bad if she was still all the way across the country, and not someone that he had to face every single day, knowing that she was in love with someone else, that she belonged to someone else, that she would never think twice about him, that she never did before, and that she especially wouldn't now that she had the love of her life.
He laughed when he heard the line for the umpteenth time, "When I think more than I want to think, I do things I never should do, I drink much more than I ought to drink." Every time he allowed his mind to wander it wandered onto her. Here he was again, thinking more than he wanted to, thinking about her, and drinking, downing glass after glass, not caring about the consequences.
He just wished he had the very liquid that the song was about. There was only so much whiskey could do to make you see what you wanted to see and be what you wanted to be. And for him, it wasn't enough, he wanted to see her, he wanted to be the one that she would love, not the dapper young detective, obnoxiously cute farm boy who waltzed in and waltzed out with her heart.
At least for the singer, his drink brought her to him, at least in his mind. He, he just found himself pining away for her all the more. The drink of the song brought her back to the singer, he just wished that drinking enough would bring her to him, even though he knew it wouldn't, there was always the vain hope that maybe, just maybe, she would love him, that maybe, just maybe, she would see that the boy who had stolen her heart was just that, a boy, the suburban king, the antithesis of what she wanted to be.
But yet, she loved that damned kid, and she would never love him. Not the way he wanted her to. He knew he was her closest friend, but yet, he had always wanted more, from the first time he saw her almost a decade ago he had fallen in love. And when she started working there, he thought he was in heaven. He put up with all of her boyfriends, and remained the one that she clung to for help, perfectly content to be her shoulder to cry on, secretly gloating each time one of her relationships would fail.
He felt for the singer, he had so much raw emotion in his voice. He knew exactly what the man was going through, he knew exactly what the other man was feeling. The feeling of unsteadiness, where you have no clue which end is up from the way love has you in it's clutches. He poured another glass toasting the torture that is love.
Sweet, heady love. That's what an optimist would say the song was about. They would completely miss out on the deep, dark message of the song, the pure unadulterated pain, the aching longing for someone who would never love you, the desperate hope, drinking yourself into near death because it is the only way that you can have her is in your twisted dreams. Longing, wanting, pining, paining for the one you love, knowing that the only time she is your arms is in your head.
He knew better, he had lived through the song, he was living the song, another glass was downed with ease. He frowned as he realized that the bottle was running low. Hadn't he just bought that too? He downed another gulp of it, giving up on the glass entirely, just a waste, really, no point in using it without company.
He reached for the remote for his stereo, turning the song up. The words pointing out what each button did had long since been blurred along with everything else in his vision. But it didn't matter to him, he didn't need to see, it's not she would be coming over. If he closed his eyes and let himself drift off into dreams he could see her.
Always, it was the same vision, her walking towards her, long dark hair that shimmered and shone framing her face, those honey colored eyes loving and expressive as she walked towards him, and they embraced, but just as quickly as the vision appeared it disappeared, it faded in and faded out all the same.
It was the only time ever had her, it was why on dark lonely nights he found himself in his house all alone, drinking and drinking to induce those wonderful visions. "I drink much more than I ought to drink because it brings me back you." That was the line in the song, the one that had first caught his attention. And he had rewound the song and played it back from the beginning, paying attention to the lyrics this time.
And every line seemed to fit his relationship, if he could call it that. She knocked him out, he found it hard to think in her presence, the only thing that kept him sane was his work, and he threw himself into that to prevent himself from letting her get to him, but yet, she still got under his skin, and she would do things that she never knew affected him, little gestures that were intended just as between friends, but that meant so much more to him than that.
But he would never have her, she was in love with another. And here he was spending another cold lonely night, downing a bottle of scotch trying to drink away the memory of her. They would never make it as lovers anyway, he wasn't good enough for her, he came with too much baggage, Woody, he was young, fresh, he hadn't suffered, he was ready for her. He could never be ready for her, he could never be recovered enough to love her the way she needed to be loved.
He could love her with his whole heart, but she deserved more than that, she deserved more than him. It was crazy to think that she would ever love him, not when she had the utterly perfect Detective as her other choice. It was a decision that required no thought whatsoever. Young, handsome, nice, humble, all around great guy, or him, the old, broken, cynical man that he was, who tried to wash away his problems, who honestly never quite knew what it was that kept him going.
The song was beginning to drive him crazy though, the same way she did. He shut off the stereo and collapsed against the couch, closing his eyes and letting the visions of her lull him into a deep, solid slumber, trying to forget about the fact that she loved someone else and just having her in his dreams, wishing she was here with him, but if she wasn't, the dream version of her was just as good.