It's not working, you know.  He thinks this as they lie on the couch, stretched out and bunched together because the space is just enough if they pretend to be one person instead of two.  We're just falling into this faster than we expected -- honestly, I don't see how things can one-eighty and go back to normal.  He passes the tips of his fingers over her hair, the thin threads catching between the spaces the way she slips her arms around his torso from behind, laughing in his ear.

I do want to be friends.  The air passes in and out of her so thinly he blinks and wonders if she's still breathing.  Her leg moves and twines with his, she always does this with her own pillows.  I do want us to compete over Tekken on Sundays, your fingers practically killing my controller because you hate losing just to prove you can win once in awhile.  He moves to kiss her forehead, but decides against it, he doesn't want to wake her just yet.  And if she's just pretending to sleep, at least he can pretend that he knows and she won't be sure.  You always choose a female character to beat the crap out of me.  It's not really Michelle winning, but you.

She smells like forget-me-nots -- he knows the scent because he was the one who poured the powder down her back.  That got him playfully punched on the stomach.  And then kissed afterwards, her smile between their mouths, her eyes half-mast but brilliant.

I'd let you win, you know.  His fingers brush her bare shoulder.  She hates wearing sleeveless because she thinks it doesn't suit her, but the off-shoulder blouses do, he likes the cotton ones best because it makes her touchable and he can pick her up anytime he wants to.  To convince her that the nine inches between them matter.  I'd let you win because you do that little dance when you do, and you stick your tongue out at me because you love it when you rock at something or another.

Or maybe it's because you haven't won anything since the old Mario Brothers.

He feels her left fingers twitch a little at his side, that arm is draped over his waist, her bracelet the cord he loves wearing around his neck.  She always does that, takes his trinkets just to make him laugh.  He'll grin and call her a pest, because he knows she likes to try his patience, just to see if he'll get fed up with her and leave.  That's really stupid, you know, luv.  He shifts, worrying a little that her hand won't have any feeling when she wakes up.  Her right arm is there, beneath his back, not really bothersome, but something he can't really forget.  Like her, when he's gone away for awhile.  Leaving's stupid sometimes.

He remembers her singing Sarah MacLachlan's Do What You Have To Do, the way she always sings it while she's washing dishes and she thinks no one's listening.  The way she she sits on his lap when she knows he's bored with the tv.  The way she turns away from him because she doesn't like him seeing her cry, but wants him to hold her anyway.

It's no use.  Not working.  He feels like the papers she stuffs carelessly in her bag when she's rushing because she only has fifteen minutes when she needed thirty.  He feels torn and frayed and ripped unintentionally.  Like the night before he has to leave and she won't talk to him because she doesn't want him to go.  Or when she does and he knows she's just blocking out the words because she'll be the one to drive him and see him off.

They haven't said 'I love you'.  The words scare them both.  Him, because he knows he'll mean it.  Her, because she means it for him, but she's afraid she's still partly inlove with someone else.  They don't say it because she's afraid of looking over his shoulder when all she wants is to see him.  They don't say it because he understands that she needs to be completely sure and he wants to stick around to influence her to choose him.

She murmurs his name and turns her face into his shoulder, he knows she's awake.  He can feel her waiting, and he imagines her lashes slightly bent out of shape against his shirt because she's wondering if he's awake.  She won't look at him.  He knows she doesn't like being caught with sentiment and sleep hanging like cobwebs over her eyes.

He smiles and turns on his side so they face each other, his arm around her waist, supporting her because the couch can fit one person but not two.  The back of her right hand touches his right cheek.  She's feeling pins-and-needles because of the way her fingers look slightly inflated and pinkish, trembling because the blood is rushing back and making it cold.

In about three seconds she will turn around, her back touching his chest, his face resting on the nook between her shoulder and her head, and they will both look at nothing at all.  Her eyes, he knows, will glance off to the right, as if to look at him.  His eyes, will focus on the side of her face.  They will be framed by the tv screen until one of them decides to speak.