About last night....(Keira)

[Maxim Vasilijev]

"I can't Max.....Please don't ask what you do not want to know. What I am too afraid to say."

The young man studied his friend for a moment. Her words just didn’t make sense to him. Since when had Kei ever been afraid to tell him anything?

Was she in some kind of trouble? That was it. That had to be it. She was in some kind of trouble and was trying to protect him.

And by the way her hands were shaking, it was a heck of a lot of trouble. He had never seen her react this way – ever. His expression of anger slipped away, as did the hurt as it was replaced with pure concern. He reached for her hands, taking her coffee mug from them and setting it down before his hands encased hers, engulfing them with their difference in size and seeking to reassure her.

"Let's go back to normal ok......There’s too much at stake."

His head settled next to hers as they sat there in couch, Kei leaning back against his chest, his hands covering hers as they folded over her midriff. He could smell the sweet scent of her hair – her shampoo, likely, mingling with the lingering scent of smoke from the bar they had been in the night before.

“Kei, you’ve got to talk to me about this.” He encouraged. His head bent a bit closer to her cheek, and he gave her a gentle kiss along her jawline. Kei, he knew, was a woman who sometimes folded to a gentle touch. It happened whenever they fought – a hug from him, a gentle tug on her hand – it could often quiet her. And maybe a bit unfairly he used that knowledge right now.

“Whatever trouble you’re in, we can take care of it. I’ll help you…”

[Keira]

“Kei, you’ve got to talk to me about this.”

She had settled comfortably into his arms, the familiarity of the hold lending her strength. There was never a moment with Max that she did not enjoy, even there arguments put her at ease. Not that she liked arguing with him but because with him it was safe. Kei was always sure of where she stood with Max. That was until all of this had come about. His words made her heart stutter to a sudden stop. He was not going to let it go, he would insist that she tell him just what she was holding back.

“Whatever trouble you’re in, we can take care of it. I’ll help you…”

It was with his next words that she realized what he meant. He thought her in trouble. That she was holding back, not her confessions of love but some trouble she had found herself in. She wanted to take the easy way out, needed to in fact. To just say she was in trouble and leave it at that. But to lie to him in that magnitude would be unforgivable, not only for him but for her as well.

Kei let her head rest on his broad chest taking comfort where she could. The next few moments could be her last with him and her heart knew it. Either he would just accept what she had said before or he wouldn’t. But Kei was not going to create a lie, though she was still unwilling to tell him how she truly felt because that could mean loosing him too.

"Max.....I am not in trouble if that is what you think. So please let’s just drop it and start over." Her soft words held a tone of begging.

[Maxim Vasilijev]

The fact that she was hlding something back and would not tell him hurt him more than anything else in the world could have. Had she told him she only thought of him as a friend it would have affected his heart far less than her withdrawing from him. He had not confessed his feelings for her to protect their friendship - an honest open relationship that he valued above all else.

And to have Keira pull back like that - to withdraw something she had always freely given to him....well that hurt.

His jaw set slightyl and he might have tensed just a bit as the shock of painful reality set in.

"Sure." He replied quietly.

"Yeah, of course we can." Because starting over it was - for surely they werent picking back up on where they had been - for if they had she would have been sharing what was going on.

There was an awkward silence for a moment before he made an effort to....start over.

"So..." He began, searching suddenly, awkwardly, and for the first time, for a topic to discuss with his longtime best friend.

"Have you thought about finding a job?" This seemed a neutral enough subject to broach.

[Keira]

Kei could feel the waves of hurt coming from Max, she could see it in his eyes. Her steely resolve to hide all that she felt for him almost crumbled. But to tell him the truth of her love might only hurt him more, might in fact drive him away. Kei looked into his face for the longest time, her eyes searching, her heart wedged there, making them glimmer.

"A job? You know I have enough to get by for awhile without....." Kei stopped, he had asked a question that made no sense and she knew it was a question to cover the awkward silence that would follow. Had she damaged the only thing she had ever put her faith in? Had she pushed him from her even without telling him her hearts desire?

Kei moved forward, her hand brushing across the stubble of his cheeks, her thumb grazing his lip. Like her the simple touch between the two usually healed, and she hoped it would be the same with this one. She could not bear loosing Max....Not again.

"Max......I....." Kei threw her arms around his neck unable to let the words fly. Burring her face in his neck she wept as she had never wept before. The tough girl who hadn’t cried for any reason, who had cried over Max more than the death of her family. She wept and clung to him as if her life depended on it......Whispering how sorry she was.....

[Maxim Vasilijev]

Maxim was confused. Extremely confused. As Kei flung her arms around him and cried as he had never before heard her cry, he could not for the life of him figure out what was going on. Except that maybe inside a part of him was crying, too. Crying because something that had once been was….no more.

Gone was the ease with which they interacted with one another. Gone was the ability to just say what was on their minds. Gone was the comfort of just being there together.

As she wept, it was a natural instinct for his arms to wrap around her, for a hand to gently rub her back to soothe, for another hand to entangle in her hair and hold her head to his chest as she cried.

“Its going to be ok, Kei.” He whispered, though even as he spoke the words, for the first time in his life he wasn’t truly sure. Once upon a time he had been able to make everything ok. But now…something was different. And he wasn’t sure how to either make it all go back to the way it was, or where to go forward from here. How to go forward from here.

He wasn’t really sure what else to say. The word okay had taken on a new meaning. Once it meant things would go back to normal – now the word okay would mean…well it would mean that they would find a way. A way – whether it was different or returned to what it used to be, he could not know.

They remained like that for some time, Kei weeping until her eyes were dry, and Maxim shedding his tears on the inside. His stomach was balled into a knot – feeling a heart ache he had never known that he could feel.

“Maybe….” He began, each word more painful than the next, “Maybe we just need a little space from one another. Maybe…well, you know, things are just…different now. We’re not in school and we’ve been on our own for a while and maybe we just…maybe we needed to take this whole finding each other thing a little slower.”

He hated saying it. It wasn’t what he wanted to say, and it sure as heck wasn’t what he felt. He didn’t want to have space, he didn’t want to have time – he wanted – well he wanted his best friend and he wanted her to be his lover, too. And he couldn’t have both. And the way it felt right now, he’d be lucky to even be able to salvage the friendship part.

(ooc: I pm’d you about this, just so ya know. )