I Ache

I ache to kiss those lips. The lips of the man I love more than anything on earth, even my job. The lips of my partner, oblivious to this obsession, and in such need of a warm and passionate caress.

Those lips that are pressed tightly together in frustration and a little pain. I can tell by his expression that his back is the curret ailment, hurting him again in places he cannot reach, and I wish I could walk over to his desk, adjoined with my own, and knead some of the unwelcome tension from his shoulder blades and lower back.

His lower back... Hmmm...

I ache to show him my love in many novel ways, sometimes over and over again. What he does to me so often, and always unaware of the physical state of my body, the proof of my feelings towards him. I want to show him, want him to see and respond to me.

As he rubs his neck, his face breifly contorting, I feel a wave of desire run through my body, delicious and excruciating in the same moment. I want to do that, to relieve the worry and the agony from him. To be taught how to make him happy, to learn what pleases him and how to hold him just right.

So lonely and miserable we both are. I ache to make him mine, to show him love again. True love, though. Love like none he's ever experienced. I want to hold him, kiss and stroke him, fondle, caress, and embrace him... Everything under the sun to prove that I will always be there for him. I want him to look in my eyes and know within his soul that I, unlike so many others before me, would never, ever abandon him. He is my place, my home.

I've heard that you can never go back home, but I've also heard that you can never leave it. I think it's obvious which one I have chosen to believe. The one I need to believe. But how do I tell him? How do I let him know that his name is on the welcome matt? That he's the only receiver to what I'm offering? That these arms are always warm and open to his, that my shoulder is eternally near in case of a need to lean.

"Finn," he starts, his voice surprising me. He looks up to find me already staring back. The heated look in my eyes goes unnoticed, as expected. Yet my heart still hopes that one day he'll not need words of confirmation. That he'll just see. Really see me. For what I am and what I feel. And then he'll know. And that will be that. The moment everything in my heart and my head come true.

"Call it a night?"

I nod. "Sure." And now my brain stops, as is customary. I want to ask him for a ride, for a nightcap, for a night together, for a life together...

But I never do. I've been close, so close that I actually looked into his eyes and formed the first part of the sentence. But his taxi came, and he looked so dreadfully tired... I needed an excuse and I got one. But I didn't get any sleep that night.

I've read that the mind fears that it's dreams will go forsaken once the vile and miserable reality is realized. Could this be why I go home to an empty apartment, an empty bed, and an empty life? Barren because I fear that reality is worse? Vacant because I fear that all my hope and pining for John will be for nothing? That even if he did feel this way about me, our relationship would die, love lost, and then I wouldn't even have my dreams, my future to comfort me? That can't be it.

I try to take a deep breath to calm myself a bit, but there seems to be something heavy pressing my chest down.

Nothing seems worth living for sometimes. Not with this pain ever present.

As I watch him grab his coat, I think of my bed empty for yet another night in almost a whole year's worth of nights. And everyone full of brokenhearted wishing. I can no longer bare it. My stomach heavy and heart sore, I look up to him from my desk, trying to hide the pleading within my voice and eyes. "Coffee?" I ask hopefully.

"Maybe next time," he says, and I think That's what I was just telling myself. "I feel like I'm about to drop."

Knowing that I am a person who loves and sometimes needs company, he tells me that Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson, two other detectives in the unit, are hanging out at a bar a couple blocks away. I smile and thank him saying that I might check it out, but it's a lie. I see enough of everyone but him and he's all I want.

I stand to walk him out, put my own jacket on, and follow him, ready to start the agonizing drive home. The ride I know so well. The one where I'll be tormented every inch of that many-mile drive, only to be racked with anguish once I get to my apartment. Home's no sanctuary when its every cubic-inch is pounding in the fact that no one I love shares the space with me.

I ache to be with this man that I stand beside in the early morning silence. If there was ever a sound of the desolate emotion that passes through me, it is that of my dreary and downtrodden heart pounding weakly, whimpering for his attention.

The cab pulls up and takes him away, leaving me with nothing but the wee-hour light and thoughts of my solitary life ahead of me for a good nine hours. Then I can see him. And try again. Maybe next time, I think. But until then, I ache for him.

I simply ache.

FIN