FicWad

A/N: For those of you who have already decided that you don't really like the O'Kane boys, then you better get all the enjoyment you can from this, 'cause all of the oneshots after this are starring them...Cormac mostly.

Disclaimer: I do not own the lyrics to "Cold Hands (Warm Heart)".

Song Used: Brendan Bensons' "Cold Hands (Warm Heart)".


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Two: Cold Hands (Warm Heart)
Puppet: Olivia Rokit


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Cold hands, warm heart,
We just need some time apart,
And everything will be okay,
Oh no, not again,
Why does it always happen?
It seems like every other day...

“Look, I really don't want to argue with you about this...”

“We're not arguing, Kevin; we're discussing.”

He looked skeptically at me, hazel eyes hooded slightly beneath thoughtfully lowered eyebrows. I could tell he wanted me to change the subject, but I couldn't even if I wanted to; it was too important to ignore.

“I just...I don't like hearing you say, 'some other time' every time I ask if you want to go have dinner or something.” He said after a long moment's silence, bashfully turning his gaze somewhere else. His pale, minutely scrubby cheeks flushed pink in the way they often did when he spoke to me, obviously embarrassed that he was admitting to such a thing.

I never quite understood why he always seemed so shy; I was a little wild, but not that much, right? After being one of my best friends for several years, one would think that he would be used to it by now, anyway.

“If I could make all the other things I gotta do disappear, Kev, you know I would.” I told him with a rueful smile, hoping to cajole him into following my lead and just finding the guts to grin and bear it. It wasn't really my fault that I had a kids' soccer team to coach, cars to fix, and term papers to write, anyway; why should either of us feel bad about it?

He pressed his lips together and ran one big, callused hand through his dark curls. “Sometimes, Ollie,” he said in a voice so soft that I wasn't sure if I had truly heard him correctly, “sometimes I'm not so sure.”

Ouch.

“What'd ya' mean, 'you're not so sure'?” I asked irritably, feeling as if I knew exactly what he was talking about. Was he trying to say I didn't want to spend time with him?

He instantly sensed he'd said something wrong, and at first I thought he was going to back down and give in the way he usually did when I showed any signs of frustration; he was the timid sort without a doubt.

Which was why it was so surprising when he responded without bothering to blink.

“I mean that I think you want this to work, but you're not willing to do your part,” he said slowly, reaching forward and taking my hand in his, “not yet, anyway.”

You're too quiet, I'm too loud,
Now we've hit a storm cloud,
I'll see you on the other side,
Old habits, young ways,
Maybe we're just in a phase,
But we can say we really tried...

“...she's so wild and he's such a gentleman...”

As I strode past my little sister's bedroom I couldn't help but pause and listen curiously to the conversation inside. I really wasn't the sort of person who liked snooping around or eavesdropping, but Izzy and Paige, what with their drastically contrasting personalities yet amazingly strong bond of friendship, were always able to make me laugh.

And I could use a laugh right now; I'd just returned home after a pretty bland date with Kevin and was feeling oddly down.

I wanted to have fun when I spent my time with him, but he was always so tense and nervous when I was in the same general area that the feat seemed to be an impossible one.

At least he'd remembered to kiss me goodnight.

I sighed, feeling very much like a silly little schoolgirl before turning my attention back to the conversation. It sounded like Paige was the one talking, which surprised me; she was the quieter one.

“...I kind of feel sorry for him, ya' know?”

Curiosity ate at my insides as I wondered who exactly they were talking about. The girls weren't really much of gossipers, so I could only figure that they were talking about a couple that they knew personally.

Cam and Becca, maybe? I had always marveled at how the intellectual, quiet, spectacled lad ever found the patience to deal with the hard-headed Latina; personally, I couldn't stand her. She was so belligerent; so defensive...it was impossible for her to take a joke.

“Yeah, me too,” my younger sister agreed with Paige, “it's like everyone but her can tell he loves her by the way he looks at her...”

Finally, I can't take it any longer; I pushed the door open and looked innocently at them, already armed with a plan.

“Have you seen Dusty anywhere, Izz?” I asked, using my evil cat as a scapegoat.

The girls looked up at me with two pairs of wide blue eyes, and I felt my heart wrench at the shocked, sheepish looks on their faces. Suddenly I was all too aware of who the unfortunate couple they were talking about before was.

...Did he really love me?

And it really shouldn't be this hard,
You know it really shouldn't be,
And if we can only see it this far,
Well then I hate to say it, but it's obvious,
I'm telling you, boy, there's no future for us...

For the rest of the night, I mulled over the question in my mind the way a wolf gnaws on the bone of its prey; memories and recollections of proof of both the 'yes' and 'no' answers were like the small pieces of meat sticking to the small piece of the animal's frame. I ate them up with equal eagerness, wondering how younger girls like Paige and Izzy could see it but somehow I couldn't...

Was that why he was so edgy?

But that wasn't what love was, was it? One was supposed to be comfortable when they were with the one they loved, weren't they?

But what did I know? I had certainly flirted with boys before; that much was a given when one was as reckless as I was. I'd liked guys before; if I hadn't already at this point my friends would probably be worried about me.

But to actually love someone?

Did anyone truly know what that felt like?

For a moment, the idea of asking him right out occurred to me. What could be a better way to figure out the direct answer was to ask the straightforward question?

...But then I realized that was an incredibly stupid idea; who did that sort of thing? That wasn't the sort of question you just randomly asked.

He was already so jittery, I could just see the horrified look on his face if and when I randomly asked, “hey, do you love me?”

Was I even ready for that type of thing?

He was my friend, after all. Sure, we'd been dating for a few months now, but we had started out with nothing but friendship between us. As a result, the whole couple thing seemed a little odd to me. It was too familiar; too snug for my liking. I knew him too well; knew that he wasn't normally so flustered when he was around girls; knew that I made him a little uncomfortable.

I was laying flat on my back on top of my bed looking up at the ceiling as if it could give me all the answers, when another question popped uncalled into my head.

Did I love him?

...Could I love him?

Maybe that was the even bigger question I had to answer.

All talk, no action,
So what's the big attraction?
And don't tell me it's, “just because”,
All work, no play,
Don't wanna go on this way,
I wanna go back to the way it was...

“Hey, Kev?”

Hazel eyes flickered up from the pages of a book and looked quietly back into my own green ones. Curiously the young man, who was sprawled out on his belly next to me, cocked his head to one side, and for a moment I was sure I saw him smile a little.

Sometimes I wonder if he knows I really like the way his eyes light up when he smiles; he doesn't seem to do it as often as I'd like.

I sat up from my position on my back and reached for a soccer ball that had been sitting idly at my other side, untouched and screaming to be played with. “You wanna go play?” I asked hopefully, nodding off toward a group of college-aged kids playing what looked like an intense game.

He glanced over in that direction, then back at me, his expression unreadable. “Do you want to play?”

I laughed and rolled my eyes at him, the question being hysterical to me. I loved soccer! Why did he even have to ask that question anymore?

“Hell yes!”

Another flicker of a smile, but for some reason this one seemed sad. “Then go ahead and play,” he murmured, turning his eyes back to the words on the page, “I think I'm gonna sit this one out.”

I suddenly felt like a flower that hadn't been watered for weeks; my shoulders sagged and I slouched a little, disappointed beyond words. We hadn't done anything but look up at the clouds all day, and I was starting to wish I hadn't taken the day off and could be working in the shop.

He would've come to play with me before he started wanting to hold my hand or kiss me. We used to play for hours.

“Are you sure?” I inquired, crossing my legs and placing the ball in my lap, looking at him with a pleading expression, “I can make sure we end up on the same team, if that'll make you feel better.”

He laughed, and somehow I could tell that it wasn't a real laugh. “It might make me feel better, but I'm not so sure about you and your teammates,” he said modestly, and I wondered if he was being honest or if he was trying to get rid of me, “I know how you hate to lose.”

I don't know why I didn't just go down with the ball and leave his sorry ass up there, but I stayed. I put the ball back and laid back down on my belly, crossing my arms out in front of me.

I do hate to lose, I thought sadly to myself, looking wistfully at the colorful splotches of clothing as they ran around the field, but would you be so considerate if you knew I thought I'm losing you?

And it really shouldn't be this hard,
You know it really shouldn't be,
And if we can only take it this far,
Well then we've got to end it before it's too late,
The love that is left quickly turns to hate...

“Kev?” I asked again after a long silence, chewing on the inside of my cheek with uncharacteristic anxiety. I couldn't bring myself to believe what I was about to ask him, but I had to know. I had to answer the question that had been burning at my insides for weeks.

“Hmm?”

His reply was lazy. He didn't even look up at me. He was so unaware of the bombshell I was about to drop on him.

I drew in a deep breath and blew it out, displacing several shoots of grass that had been tickling my face; the field obviously hadn't been mowed recently. I looked at him, eyebrows lowered slightly and my cheek cupped in one of my free hands. “Do you love me?”

I could see his back go stiff and I could hear a sharp intake of breath as he stiffened and gasped, caught just as off guard by the question as I had been when I heard it. His eyes flew from the book and up to my face, wide with shock. His small, sharp, handsomely reptilian face seemed to become far more exaggerated; much larger now that every part of it had been extended thanks to the force of the sudden blow.

I peered back, feeling a strange calmness settling over my entire being as I waited patiently for the answer.

His mouth opened and closed a couple of times the way a fish would try to gulp for air once taken out of the water, gentle gurgling noises included. It sounded; it looked like he was trying desperately to compensate for the moment I had ruined. No doubt a romantic such as he had imagined himself telling me he loved me; played out the scene in his head time and time again so he was sure that he had the words right.

I'm sorry. I need to know.

He reached out with one hand and without me telling it to one of mine stretched back toward it. Our hands met and his fingers automatically curled to fill the spaces between my own, and to my surprise his skin was unnaturally cold. It was like he'd been holding an ice cube just seconds before.

“No,” Kevin said after a long time, looking somewhat sadly at our joined hands, “no, I don't. I-I'm sorry, Ollie. I don't mean -”

Numbly I withdrew my hand and stood up, scooping up my soccer ball. “I'm gonna go play. Bye.”

Cold hands, warm heart,
We just need some time apart,
And everything will be okay.


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A/N: Ollie's my hero. 'Nough said.