Title: The Fault Line
Part: 1
Author: Mala
Email:
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Someone's got Michael's Lust
Category: Unconventional - Michael/Liz
Rating: R

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His eyes haunt me. I guess that's sort of an overdramatic thing to say, but its true. Even when he's not around, I feel like his eyes are on me. Dark, troubled, all-knowing--and cynical, too. When he is around, the intensity in him just makes my stomach clench. Its like he's a one man earthquake and I get caught up in the aftershocks around him.

I don't think he knows I'm on the verge of collapse every time he walks in the door to the CrashDown. I don't think he cares. That's what clings to him. . .this total air of carelessness. Sometimes I think that the world could crumble and he'd still be standing there with this huge chip on his shoulder. He'd be unhurt. He'd walk out of the ruins and reach into the stones and bricks for a broken bottle of Tabasco sauce and casually lick the red liquid off his fingers.

And I'd be watching and drooling. Just like I am now as he's sitting in the booth across the aisle. God, I really can't stop, can I? Michael Guerin fills my every waking thought and my every sleeping thought, too! If Isabel were to walk into my dreams, there's no telling what kind of lurid, twisted, sexual thing she would see. Its some sick obsession I've got. Instead of totaling up the till for the hour, I'm leaning against the counter and pretending not to stare. I'm probably not very good at it. He can probably feel my eyes boring into the side of his head and that's why he's got that cute little half-smile on his face as he draws on a napkin.

I should know better. After everything that's happened, I should know better. But I don't. I want to step out from behind the counter, untie my apron, and throw myself into his lap. I want his rough hands to slide up the skirt of my uniform and here I go with all that lurid, twisted, sexual stuff again.

"You can get fired from this place, you know," I tell myself, trying to look at the cash register. I count the pile of dollar bills that I've all ready miscounted six times, glad no one's come up to pay their check.

And then I hear it-- low and husky. Michael's laugh. My hands shake and I slam the drawer shut on the register and look up. Too late. The door is jingling long before I even get to the empty booth. All that's left is a bottle of Tabasco sauce. . .and the napkin. My eyes scan it and I laugh, too, scrunching it up into my pocket before anyone can see it.

A little pen-sketched alien with big, huge, black eyes. Below it are scrawled the words, "here's a picture, it'll last longer." Lower on the napkin is another message: "What time do you get off? Can I watch? 2 a.m., the roof."

I can't believe his sense of humor is so juvenile. I can't believe he thinks I'll be on the roof at 2 a.m. Oh, wait. . .yes I can.

Because I will.

Nothing like a little earthquake to shake things up.

The End