A Blank Canvas

Because you’re right.

You’re- You're right. I’m sorry.

No apology on your behalf needed.

#c.matt #[ignore text]

Why are you looking at me like that?

Well, that was a dumb decision.

What made my actions so different from anything you would have done?

Don’t ever do stupid shit like that for me. I won’t let you– I don't– I don’t want to lose anyone else.

You are not permitted to make that decision for me.. that is up to me and me only.

Why didn’t you leave me? I told you to take the others, and go. But you came back and put yourselves in danger.

You are my leader-- you are my priority too.

I should’ve known. He told me it was dangerous, but I didn’t listen.

With our situation there is always danger, there is no where to run from it. We do what we can to survive and if consequences arise we deal with them as we always have. There is no way you could have known what would have happened. There’s always a chance sure, but there was no way of knowing.

It’s all my fault.

You have to snap out of this, Matt, it wasn’t your fault.

“Well, since you don’t mind, I’ll keep looking.” Matt pressed his forehead against Maureen’s and grinned widely, then dulled to a feint smile. “It’s a nice sight.” He was close enough to her now where he could feel her breath on his. He started easing himself into her and held his hand on the small of her neck. Perhaps he shouldn’t be doing this, because his head was swimming in wine. Through the numb cherry-flavored fog Matt still felt like he wanted to. That even if it meant just this once, just once, he could have someone. Before allowing himself to drown in his own thoughts of maybes and what-ifs, Matt gently took Maureen’s neck in his hands and pressed his lips clumsily into hers.

There was something in his tone that allowed Maureen to finally understand what was happening. Someone, someone she had forgotten who, had explained to her what it was like- this kind of intimacy. She remembered sitting on one of the conveyor belts, cross legged while the other spoke of their relationship with someone else in the camp. Maureen had gotten the courage to ask what it felt like to kiss another human being and the words that poured from the person’s mouth were endless. There were cues, things that Matt had been doing but he was much more subtle up until his lips touched hers. Feeling his forehead against her own, wet with sweat along with dirt from their travels, felt like the most intimate thing she had done with anyone. It had been much longer than the kiss she had with Randy, although that one seemed to be out of place entirely; probably the longest kiss she ever had. She wanted to come up for air but didn’t want to break something that seemed so pure in its entirety. So she held it for another moment and the broke slightly, but just enough to catch what little- mostly warm air between them to blow out a shaky breath.

#c.matt #conversations

matthew-colt:

Matt’s hand tightened gently through and around Maureen’s, his eyes darting from Maureen’s chin and forehead so as not to look like he had been staring. “Sorry–I–just like looking…at you. Looking at you.” Matt’s face flushed red as the wine took over a little. Matt frantically tried pulling himself together in his own head. The combination of the wine, and Maureen, was throwing him off balance. He actually liked it, a lot. He took a cube of cheese and chewed it down, then reached for the wine but instead held Maureen’s wrist and looked down.

Although she thought it wasn’t possible, it had to have been the wine going to both of their heads because something felt different between them. Her palms began to feel clammy and she wondered if would have minded but she didn’t want to take her hand away from his strong yet gentle grip. Without even thinking about it, her thumb began circling against the top of his hand as she looked up at him, her body melting against his shoulder. Truth be told something must have been different because usually her demeanor was stiff and ready to spring if conflict arose but now, she was the most comfortable she had ever been. “As long as there isn’t anything on my face worth being humiliated for, then I do not mind you looking at me.” She smiled, watching their hands and then his on her wrist, “It’s kind of nice actually, seeing you smile like that.”

matthew-colt:

Matt’s head was trying to pull him back, away from the elevator and this feeling of–safety. He was used to watching his back, or having a gun on himself at all times. Perhaps an elevator wasn’t safe either just dangling there. But it had been too long that he’d gone with bottling everything up. Maybe he still could in his own way. But it felt different now. Matt smiled again, and felt himself blushing when his eyes met Maureen’s while she had looked up. His whole face started heating up, and his throat almost choking in on itself. “Yeah…our own little picnic. Wine and… All that.” Matt took another pull from the wine, coughing a little. He held it back out to her, “It’d be a shame to let it go to waste.”

Her smile brightened a little more seeing his, a rarity in its true form and she wasn’t going to waste it by looking at him with the normal face that she held with most conversations. Sure, a good majority of Matt and Maureen’s prior conversations spoke of concerns of where the other was or what they had to do to get by but now, now he was smiling at her in the most genuine way with a smidgen of pink on his cheeks as well as his ears. In truth, she wanted to know what he was thinking and why the color had sudden approached his cheeks in such a fashion as well as why he was almost stammering when he spoke. It was unlike him to not have fluidity in his words. Maureen had always admired him for his public speaking abilities but now they seemed disjointed.

She took the bottle as he did before, brushing her fingers across his as she took the neck of the bottle and took another drink. Pointing with the bottom of the bottle she realized she had gotten they had food and smiled, “And what better to go with wine than cheese.” Almost laughing to herself, because it was nothing more than string cheese and crackers rather than fancy cheeses she looked over at Matt and felt her own cheeks grow warm with the way he was looking at her. “You’re staring.”

matthew-colt:

Matt chuckled and used his free hand to slide his fingers between, and under Maureen’s to take the wine from her and take a long pull from the bottle with the neck clasped in his hand. “Mm–wow yeah, Elevator Wine.” He passed the bottle back to Maureen, his other hand gently holding hers. “Some elevator music, maybe a dwindling light bulb. Could definitely pass off as fancy.”

He looked up at the shaft and heard Carlos swearing and the clanging of metal. Maybe it’d be okay if Carlos didn’t fix the elevator soon, Matt thought to himself, smiling inside.

There was something about the way he took the bottle away from her-- delicately, as if it were the most fragile thing in the world and if passed off incorrectly it would shatter and the whole world would stop turning because of it. How could he do that to a bottle and make her think like that, make her believe that the way their hands were positioned at that moment was the only way to exchange that bottle from one person to another? From her fingertips to her knuckles, to her palms, she felt a surge bounce that way and back again, thrice, and in a matter of seconds. “Our own perception of a picnic,” she concluded, looking at him for a moment, a small smile etching at the corners of her mouth as she looked down and back up again.

#conversations #c.matt #[ignore the marker/drawing]

matthew-colt:

Matt found himself clenching his hand between Maureen’s. He had pushed so many people away, or kept them far. It made losing them a little easier on himself. But he felt himself needing something, or someone, just for a minute to confide it. To physically be aware of. He had never talked about what happened at the camp. Like everyone knew he would, he had buried it all down and kept them all moving. Really, he was lying to himself and them, all over he was a mess, barely keeping himself together. Moving to whatever place offered shelter or food, then look for another one the next day. It was nothing more than things to barely keep them alive and moving. For now, Matt didn’t want to pretend to be strong or know what he was doing. He felt like he didn’t have to be, not now anyway. Maybe not vulnerable, not yet or ever.

With his other hand, Matt reached into his backpack and slid out a sleek bottle of half-finished wine. “Found it on our pass through that factory. Was saving it for… whenever.” He offered the bottle to her. “Drink?”

The physical closeness didn’t affect Maureen as much as the emotional aspect of it. Her fingers, long and slender fit into Matt’s in a profound way. She wasn’t sure why but the tightening of his grip on hers made something inside of her feel somewhat better. Maybe not all the way better but it did give some relief and allowed her to breathe softly when it seemed as if she had been holding her breath. Still she wasn’t used to this, considering she wasn’t the type to be able to form these types of relationships with people. Sure she could give some insight of her true feelings and different aspects of her life or her personality but she couldn’t begin to give it all. And maybe she wasn’t good with connecting in the past but it didn’t seem so difficult now-- being this physically close to her friend, jacket against jacket, skin on skin (in the most innocent way possible).

Looking over as he slipped the bottle from his back pack, she smiled a little and nodded just slightly. “I think we deserve it, don’t you?” Taking the bottle with the hand that she wasn’t using she put the bottle between her legs and pulled out the cork, placing it aside and taking a swig by grabbing the neck of the bottle. “That is really good wine-- very classy for an elevator.”

matthew-colt:

“It’s hard. Making choices that’ll cost either ten or twenty lives, just to keep us going for a couple more days. After so many times it just messes with your head.” Matt’s shoulders loosened and he felt himself melt into his jacket. “The camp.” He looked at her, eyes watering but trying to hold his voice together. “I keep seeing it all in my head. They just… came in and started shooting. Didn’t even care, those monsters just…” Matt rubbed his eyes as clear as he could. Elias was the one that told him it was different taking a life, and seeing one being taken. Matt didn’t understand it until now. For all Matt knew, Elias was dead too.

“We’ll get them for this. One way or another, yeah?” The corner of Matt’s mouth rose into a pity smile, but a smile none the less.

Never one for knowing how much proximity she should give a person, Maureen scooted closer to Matt and practically bumped shoulders with the male as he spoke. She was drawn to the closeness, needing someone or something to keep her grounded as the thoughts of the camp came to light-- screaming children, her and Ajax just making it out alive and barely breathing, wondering if anyone else had made it. Matt hadn’t left her mind until she found him not too long later and with that her spirit started to come back. Her ability to fight coupled with the relief that her friend was now back by her side allowed some clarity to come back into her life and the pushing back of what had happened to them commenced. Now that she was close enough she slid her hand down and took his hand in hers. Compared to his, hers were just as calloused but the size difference even made her wonder how she would be able to clasp them together but she did. It may have not comforted him throughout the one-sided conversation but it held her to the cold ground of the floor of the elevator. “We will, we always do.”

matthew-colt:

“It seems like all we ever hit is speed bumps, ‘Reena.” Matt opened the bottle and juggled the cap in one hand. “It feels like chipping away at concrete with a fork. There’s just no progress. I don’t…” He took a sip of water and capped the bottle, and pulled himself back before continuing any further. Matt avoided looking at Maureen for a while and looked at the opposite corner instead.

“I’m not a great leader. I’ve just gambled with whatever choices I had and hoped it worked.” He cleared his throat “Thank you though.”

The nickname wasn’t foreign to her but he hadn’t used it in so long that she had forgotten what it felt like. The desperation in his tone didn’t let up and she hated the fact that he was getting so down on himself for something like this-something so minimal that he couldn’t have possibly predicted. “Matt..” she sighed and looked over at him, watching him look as far away from her as possible. “We grasp at straws, figure out what’s the best possible route and take it. None of us know what we are doing most of the time so what makes you so different? What makes you less human than the rest of us? You aren’t a machine. You cannot calculate and map out all the possibilities or probabilities that could happen if we go right instead of left-- it’s all a game of chance especially in our situation. You’ve done great things for the Outlanders, and for the resistance as a whole. It should mean something to you because it means a lot to the rest of us.”

matthew-colt:

Matt grabbed the bars on the door and shook them, sighing through his nose. He caught the water bottle and leaned against the opposite side of the elevator, eventually sliding into a defeated sitting position. He hated being trapped like this, with no control over the situation. They’d both have to just sit there. Matt passed the water bottle between his hands for a while, eventually taking a sip.

He nodded, “Can always count on you to think of things.” Matt leaned and threw his backpack into the middle of the elevator. “Me. I’m getting us stuck in elevators. Some leader, huh?”

The rhythm of the water bottle soothed her although it was a mindless tick to pass the time or to halt the agitation that he felt on the inside. Like Maureen, Matt couldn’t be trapped like this with no way out or no knowledge of what was going to happen next. They were doers, the planners, the ones who get people out of situations rather than get stuck when they were in one. But when outside forces didn’t come in their favor they didn’t crack under pressure, no, they figured it out. But this wasn’t an agent cornering them or a rouge gang coming after them this was a power outage, a stuck elevator-- a force that they weren’t able to break through.

Once he started speaking, Maureen looked up and listened to him. She stayed silent until she thought he was finished, figuring it was a question to be answer she responded- although it probably wasn’t what he expected to hear, “You are a great leader. It was something out of your control, the boys will get it running soon and then we will be out of here. We’re human, there is room for error and this was just a speed bump in our mission.” She reached over and placed her hand on his leg because she couldn’t reached his arm, squeezed, and then pulled her hand back to her lap.