Work Text:
The Other
by demon-faith
There was something different about the way you walked in that day, a little swagger in your step and a flourish as you hung up your coat. The water cooler news had it that you had got lucky, I knew it from a faint glimmer in your eyes. It struck me then, an odd flutter in my chest, but I pushed it aside, did my job, gently chided you when you distractedly drifted off in Lou's office.
It was only later that I realised Diane wasn't bothered, seemed oddly happy - my mind raised two to the three and found sixteen. Of course, it had been building since you'd met, more so since Sarah had departed the scene, but that didn't stop me feeling oddly sick, setting down a mug slightly too hard on Diane's desk and causing her to start.
She gently tried to coax it out of me, but I didn't even know where to begin, how to explain the ridiculous, unprofessional crush I had on my subordinate to his new girlfriend. Girlfriend.and everything that entailed. I just kept seeing the tatty sofa of your apartment, the one I'd deposited you on when I'd shepherded you home to wrong side of sober. I could see you sprawled over the throw, eyes glazed - but not from alcohol, from her.
But that was dangerous, and it was cast aside - good spies wear blank eyes, and you couldn't find an objectionable speck in mine. Not that you tried - I didn't exist for you that day, I'm not sure anyone did, just your special someone, and I avoided the labs for a week.
Then, it happened. It was meant to be malicious, back-biting, snide. It was the single greatest revelation of my life, far surpassing my mother's divorce and scraping over kissing Darren Nix in a rundown Cypriot warehouse.
Somebody told me you were one of them, batting for the other side, bread buttered in some alternate plane - somebody told me you had a boyfriend.
It should've hurt but it didn't. I'd had enough of hurt and this.this was good. You weren't be oblivious clean-cut protégé; you were my beautiful friend who wasn't so straight after all.
This was the taste of hope.
END