AN: I don't own anything.

I had the idea for this a few days back, and I couldn't stop myself writing it; it became addictive to, this evening, hence its length.

It's a second person oneshot, that ends in ClaireMyrnin.

Its setting isn't particularly in the books, though there are mentions of things eg the machine fixing in Ghost Town, and the draug, so you could say that it's post-BD, though its characterisations don't exactly ring true to it.

You're conflicted.

Words fail you as you try and put your thoughts into a logical order, before then converting them into a form that you can understand, because there isn't really a way to describe this mess of emotions that basically makes you up right now. And that frustrates you because you're always wanting answers; you're a scientist, and you hate having things that are left incomplete, their solutions non-conclusive—so you find yourself hating, well, yourself.

You lie awake at night, unable to sleep because of all the images running through your mind, and no matter how much you try and whisper, I love Shane in your mind, it isn't enough to dispel the other part of your heart, isn't enough to let you sleep. Whilst you're undecided, you're unable to sleep until exhaustion takes you—and so every moment you're awake from when you go to bed until you finally fall asleep, you're trying desperately to deny what you know: you love Myrnin.

The question is, do you love him as much as Shane…or possibly more? That's the thing that you're trying to answer, because you don't know what your thoughts mean; they're nothing more than swirling snapshots of your past, things that you've done with them, some with Shane, some with Myrnin, and they all mean so very different things. And so as you toss and you turn, the covers getting tangled between your limbs, you try and force yourself to understand what the memories mean—but nothing works. You're stuck in this state of restlessness, too tired to do anything but too wide awake to fall asleep, and it's a torturous world of what ifs and you questioning everything you thought you've always known.

But finally, you sleep, and you're granted a few short, yet completely blissful hours of getting away from the complex situation of your life in Morganville—and you savour these as much as you possibly can, because you know that the peace they bring will be shattered in the morning.

…

You wake up and check your clock: seven thirty am. You've had three and a half hours sleep, according to your groggy mental maths, yet you're to get up, even though you don't need to be at the university for another four hours. But two hundred and ten minutes of sleep is all you're evidently going to get, so before the torment of the night's tossing and turning can return to the front of your mind, you swing your legs out of bed and stagger towards the bathroom.

As you do this, you remember the days when you were the morning bird, the days when it was easily you first in the bathroom because nobody was even considering getting up within the next two hours; nowadays, you wish that you could be as impervious to getting up early, say like Eve, because then you'd be granted more freedom from the world.

"Hi, babe," you hear Shane say as you walk past his room, and it takes you longer than normal (too long) to turn around and get your customary kiss in the morning. "What's the matter, you don't want to kiss me?" he's pretending to be hurt, but his words stab into your heart as though he spat them right in your face, and you have to persuade yourself that he doesn't have the ability to read your mind. He doesn't know that you're not sure about how much you love him any more.

"I…no…I'm just tired," you say, not having to feign the yawn that's your excuse to step away from Shane before he kisses you again. His lips feel like rubbers nowadays, and so you do anything you can to avoid doing something you used to adore, and so you've been making out that you've had various ailments. He believes you; why would you lie to him?

Shane reaches out and presses a kiss to the top of your head, and you can feel him smiling against you. "I love you, Claire." it's the three words you don't want to hear him say, because you know that your heart should be jumping up and down, just as it used to do—and you can't say that hearing those words too many times dulled their effect, because when he said it one hundred times a day, it was the best noise you ever heard—but it isn't.

It's doing nothing but beating its usual number of beats.

"I need to go," you mutter, avoiding his words as though you didn't hear them—he did speak quietly, after all—and take hurried steps towards the bathroom. "I've got…class. Yes, I've got class. I'll see you later." You're blatantly lying now, making words into sentences that you hope make sense, because all you want is to be away from Shane.

You see the hurt in his eyes just before you turn away, the hurt that he quickly masks, just as he's always done, and you know that whilst you're destroying yourself on the inside, he's collaterally being crushed, also; you can't break without him facing the same destruction. That's why you wish with all your heart that you could ignore the fact that there may (it's not definite, you know that; it could all be phantom) be someone out there who's perfect for you.

But you stagger into the bathroom and lock the door before turning on all the taps and the shower, sinking to your knees and letting the tears run streaming down your face, trying to cry the pain, hurt and confusion out. You don't want anyone to know, hence the noise, but on the inside, it feels as though every part of you is fracturing, splitting into two: Shane's…and his.

At this moment, you want Shane so bad that you think that you'd rather give Myrnin up for life…but that will change whenever you think about the situation in a more logical manner.

It always does.

…

Within half an hour, you're dressed and heading out of the house, foregoing breakfast and conversation with a half-dead Eve in favour of being alone with your thoughts—something which scares you, since you're doing everything you can to avoid this scenario. You realise, though, that if you're in a room with Eve and she asks how you are, you'll break down in tears and tell her that you're having serious doubts about your relationship—and that isn't something that she needs to know. Only if you decide that you do want to end it with Shane, will you tell Eve; she doesn't need to worry about you.

At least, that's what you're telling yourself, anyway: really, the reason you don't want to tell her is because you don't want to confirm what they've all thought for months—that you're harbouring feelings for your boss, just as he is for you.

Realising your lack of desire to be alone, you head to Common Grounds, deciding that its hustle and bustle should be enough to distract you adequately to stop you being able to think. So you head there, imagining the large mocha that you can hold in your hands to warm you through on this cold winter's day (the weather's really making you regret pulling on the first clothes that you found in your wardrobe, given that your jacket isn't designed to close) and you can almost taste it…when you get there to find the shutters down.

Common Grounds is closed. Your plan has been scuppered before it has even had a chance to begin, and you feel the desolation spreading through you quickly—too quickly. These couple of hours were supposed to be a time for you to relax and to forget about the worries that seem to follow you around, wherever you go. And yet you can't have them, probably because Oliver's too busy trying to get himself into Amelie's (you stop the thought right there, horrified).

You can't go to the university yet; it's too early, and you don't have enough work to do. The coffee there is of an abominable quality, and you're not sure why anyone goes there, other than to kill time. For you, however, it's not even good enough to kill time.

Without you realising it, almost, your feet are moving past the closed shop and down the shortcuts that you only take during the day, to the place you want to be the most and the least, simultaneously: Myrnin's lab. It's the building that usually brings you solace—or, at least, it brought you it when your relationship status seemed secure—and yet today, it brings you fear, too.

You're scared that if you love Shane more than Myrnin, you'll lose your crazy boss forever; on the flip side, if you love Myrnin more than Shane, you're scared that Shane will be ripped into tiny pieces and then that he'll try and kill Myrnin…and leave your heart in pieces. Either way, you're breaking one man's heart and probably going to damage your own irreparably, and you know that you should have dealt with this a long, long time ago: you just couldn't face it.

As you walk, your pace getting faster and faster as you approach the Day house, you realise that you've been burying your head in the sand for almost four months; it's been four months since you looked at Myrnin as he said to you, "I'll be your hands," and you realised for the first time that you could be something with him. You should have dismissed the thought then, but you didn't—obviously you didn't, otherwise this predicament would never have arisen.

The air's cold as you move, and it's keeping your mind focused on the thing you want to suppress for another age, yet you know morally that you can't; it's not fair to have them both tied up over you. As you think this, you laugh, because why would two men—two beautiful, handsome, darling men—be attracted to you, a college girl who's looks aren't even comparable to those of Emily Browning, or Emma Watson? It doesn't make sense, yet the scenario's materialised, and here you are, in the middle of it, right in the place you never, ever wanted to be—trapped.

And you know that not until you make a decision will you be able to get out from there.

"Would you like some hot chocolate, dear?" Granma Day says to you as you pass her on her veranda (why she's out in the middle of November, you're not sure) and you have barely enough wits about you to reply politely that you would love to, but that you don't have the time to, before you're headed down the passageway towards Myrnin.

You wonder if she can tell if there's anything different about you—the way that you're headed to the lab with a sense of purpose in your stride, one that isn't normally there—before you recall that you're the only one who knows you're conflicted. Not even Eve or Michael have noticed, and you doubt Shane has, even though you've been pulling away from him. No, you're alone with your thoughts.

And for this, you're thankful: otherwise, how would you be standing here right now?

…

As you move into the shack and down the stairs, you realise that it's been weeks since you were last here; it must have been when you were helping him come up with something to destroy the Draug, you think...and so much has changed since then. Even though you had feelings for him, you were incensed that he dared to use you as bait, and so you've used that as your excuse not to visit the lab—even though you know it's a lie. It's a cover story (you were angry, yes, but only until you realised how you couldn't—can't—live without him in your life) but it's worked until now, giving you a reason for changing your routine.

By the time you reach the bottom of the stairs, you're shivering again; it's cold in here, probably because Myrnin doesn't need the heating, and you only realise now that you stopped on the way here: you were moving with such purpose that you built up your body heat. Now, though, it has disappeared into the air, moved from high heat to low to try and spread your warmth through the frigid surroundings; it hasn't worked. All it's done is make you cold as you strain your eyes through the gloomy lab to look for Myrnin.

And then suddenly, he's in front of you.

"Claire," he breathes your name and it's all you can do not to break down crying again, because THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU WANTED TO HEAR! You wanted to hear that he doesn't love you, and yet you find yourself clinging onto the edge, screaming to yourself in your head that he's trying to trick you into loving him, and that you didn't hear it, because you didn't want to hear it.

(Your heart knows, and that's why the parts belonging to Shane are already fragmenting off from the piece that's left whole: Myrnin's.)

"I…I missed you," is all you can say, the first words that come to mind, because it's true; as you stand here, looking at your lanky alchemist boss, you realise that you have missed him. There's been an aching hole in your chest that's been masked by the battle you've faced about whether you love him or Shane more, but you can feel it now; Myrnin's presence makes it lift from you. For this, you're thankful.

He shakes his head, muttering to himself, and as he turns away, you realise that he's an enigma, someone you've been trying to figure out for so many months, and yet you've achieved almost nothing: you know his name, that he's been in love before and lost them, and that he loves you (and alchemy, but that's a given, something you don't even need to add to the list) but that's it. You don't know what he likes to do if he's not allowed to be in the laboratory, what he likes to read, whether or not he's ever had a serious brush with the law…you know nothing. His past, his life pre-Bishop disease, is a mystery to you—and yet you want to know more. You do.

On the other hand, you know Shane; you know everything that makes him tick, how he feels in every situation—and you think that you can empathise with him, because of this, rather than just sympathising. But there's no more adventure. You know everything, and for a brief moment, you wonder if that's the reason why you're under the impression that you're falling out of love with him: because you know him almost too well.

That can't be the case, the half that loves Myrnin screams inside of you; you're falling out of love with him because you're too dissimilar, too much like chalk and cheese and your heyday with him has passed. Your path together has ended—but there can be another door opening.

The other part of you is beating you up, making your heart feel as though it's breaking into splinters, cutting your stomach into tiny pieces and doing anything to make sure that it's noticed—and it's telling you that you love Shane for a reason. He's yours, and he's never going to be anyone else's; the reason you know him so well is because you're so in love.

"Claire?" he repeats your name, and you shake yourself to realise that you've been gibbering to yourself about things you're not entirely sure—but you're certain that the words, "I don't know," have popped up.

You focus on Myrnin and he smiles, the movement making you realise that he's moved back to you from whatever he turned away from you for, but that smile does nothing but make you burst into the tears you swore you wouldn't shed.

DON'T LOVE HIM, DON'T LOVE HIM, YOU CAN'T LOVE HIM, part of you is yelling, fighting to be heard over the chorus that is begging you to reach out those few inches and press your lips to his—just to try it. After all, it argues, you need to know what you could have; you know the danger of Myrnin, know of the personality that draws you to him, but you don't know what it's like to kiss him.

And so you do that.

You don't think as you move, tears streaming down your face, to press your lips to the elderly vampire's, the coldness not affecting you as much any longer (though you think it should, given Myrnin's body temperature is so much lower than your own) and as your lips meet for the first time, it's electrifying. You don't know how to describe the sensation, but all you know is that it leaves you wanting more, it makes you want MORE, MORE, MORE, and the thought passes into your head that Myrnin had the chance to move away—but he didn't.

He wants you as much as Shane wants you.

And that's what it takes for you to lose it—entirely.

Freezing for a moment, you can't enjoy the kiss any longer, even though you know Myrnin is, and it takes you almost ten seconds for you to pull away from him, the tears increasing in frequency as you do so; you didn't want to hurt him, but from the agonised expression on his face, you can tell that that plan failed, miserably.

"I'm sorry," you whisper, your voice cracking, your lips feeling different after the kiss (different in a way that Shane's never made you feel) and you look down to see that you're still standing on the steps: you didn't even make it into the lab, technically. "I shouldn't…I…I should go."

You turn to run away, to get as far away from Shane and Myrnin as possible because you don't know, you don't know who you want and it's driving you mad trying to think—but you can't think straight any longer: the kiss made sure of that.

But Myrnin has your wrist, pulling you back towards him, his eyes torn with agony and desire and everything you wish he didn't feel because then you wouldn't ever have considered leaving Shane for a man who can give you no future, and he's whispering, "please, Claire, don't go. Stay with me."

You tug your wrist from his, though, and run, pretending that he hasn't spoken because otherwise there's no way that you could have left him, not when you feel like this.

(You're only thankful that he didn't say the fateful words, I love you, because if he had…you would never be leaving him again.)

…

You wander the streets of Morganville, losing the feeling in most of your limbs as the cold claims you as its own, but you don't care; you deserve to be taken. You're not worth either of them, because you're unable to decide whether you should honour someone you've loved for what feels like eternity, or take the chance and go for the man you know could make you the happiest you've ever been—or so you think. All you are is some idiotic little girl who doesn't know how to choose, so you're left umming and ahhing until a disaster occurs, you think, and you know that you can't spend that much longer making your decision. It's not fair to either of them.

It's almost dark by the time you make it home, but you're not hungry or wanting conversation, so you ignore the Eve in the kitchen offering you chilli, ignore Michael and his music on the sofa because you're not wanting entertained, and you especially ignore Shane on the stairs because you don't want the possibility of him finding out your conflicted feelings…not yet, at least.

They all know something's wrong, you're well aware, but as you lock your door and put a chair under the handle, just so that nobody can pick the lock, you realise that you don't care. All you want is closure to this disastrous situation you've gotten yourself into, and that's to choose: Shane or Myrnin?

The thoughts and emotions are swirling around in your mind, threatening to overcome you like they did in the lab, so you find yourself rooting for paper and a pen to write them down: they're a mess of words and scribbles, but that's more than you've had for the past few weeks of indecision, so you'll take them, no problem.

The words Myrnin and love stand out to you more than Shane and desire, and that scares you almost into ripping Myrnin's name off the paper, because it's real: you may love Myrnin more than you love Shane.

"Claire!" he's shouting your name—Shane is—and you're scared as he hammers on the door; he doesn't sound angry…he just sounds broken. "I know what you're doing—you're deciding, aren't you?" he continues, and you're shocked; just how does he know that? How does he know that you don't know whether or not you should be with your boyfriend or your boss?

HOW DOES HE KNOW?

He must take your silence as confirmation, given that he continues, his voice even more broken than before, if possible. "I've known that you've felt confused for weeks—I can see it in your eyes, Claire; you're not very good at hiding things. I thought that if I gave you space that it'd help things, that if I gave you love you'd realise that we're meant to be together…but you're still the same: confused. You don't know what you want, and I want you to pick me…because we're the ones who belong together, Claire!" he's crying now, and you're crying, and all you want is to open the door but you promised yourself that you wouldn't, not until you make your decision.

He's more destroyed than you thought he would be, and that's when you understand that you're in the same situation; the weeks of not sleeping right, of not being sure where to go or what to feel, they've ripped you apart on the inside—and you hate that. You hate being like this, and all you want to do is shout and scream and destroy the word FEELINGS, because it does nothing but cause you pain and heartbreak.

"I'll be here for you if you want me, Claire," Shane continues to whisper to you. "I love you. If you love me back, I'll be downstairs. If not…well, I guess I know where you've gone."

He steps away from your door—you can hear the creaking of the floorboards—and that's what hurts more than anything he said; the fact that he's leaving you, letting you make your decision and allowing you the chance to leave him if you want to. It's almost enough to get you to open the door, run down into his arms and despite what you feel (you're ignoring the word feelings from now, remember?) just promise to be his forever, because of what you've shared together.

But when you think in a logical manner about it, you wouldn't be in this situation if you hadn't begun to fall out of love with Shane—you would never have looked at Myrnin in that way if you hadn't, would have brushed off his meagre attempts at advances if you didn't feel anything for him. You never wanted to lead him on…

…and the kiss! It was more than you've ever felt before, even in those few moments, and even now, as you think I could be with Myrnin, the rest of you is screaming NO, HE COULD KILL YOU, HE'S A VAMPIRE, HE WANTS YOUR BLOOD. You're in a dilemma as usual, inconclusiveness making you go from your near decision to pick Shane, to going to Myrnin, to then hesitate in the middle.

You need one, that much is certain; otherwise, you would leave them both and embrace independence, so that you're the only real one who's hurting. If you had the strength, you'd do that…you just don't. You're the parasite in the situation, trying to steal all the love and be admired by many, trying to get the affection of two men, regardless of what it costs—though you, admittedly, didn't ask for either of them. They came to you, and that's what makes it worse…you have all the power.

And that's what leaves you confused.

…

In the end, you leave it to sleep.

Rather, you leave it to the face you see right before you sleep, the one that you've seen for months but refused to acknowledge because you knew that that would be the final nail in the coffin for your relationship.

You go for the one who makes you excited about the smallest things, the one who you argue with more than you share the same opinion, the one who's the most broken of the two of them. You go for the one who you think will make you happy for many years to come, even if it's only because you're trying to understand them: Myrnin.

It's this reason you think you've lost Shane—you know him too well, and that's what has destroyed you. Searching to understand someone is what drives you to love them even more, and whilst you would do anything for Shane…it's no longer enough.

You hope that as your love for him fades to almost nothing, his for you will do the same—but you don't hold out much hope. From what he said to you earlier, when both yours and his cheeks were stained with salty tears, you know that he's never going to let you go.

I'm sorry

-C

You step out from your bedroom quickly to post this under his door, not daring to approach the landing because you could give him false hope that you're going to him: you're not.

From the moment you realised you could potentially love Myrnin, you knew it was over, you just didn't dare say anything because you're selfish, and you accept that—you wanted what you had, and what you couldn't have, and ignored the truth and situation around you. You wanted Myrnin, but you didn't want to lose Shane, and never considered that the way that it tore you apart, it was destroying them, too (yet you still can't see how Myrnin is destroyed.)

You've been selfish and demanding and could have saved some of this grief, but you've made the right decision now, you think.

It's better late than never.

…

You're hesitant as you summon a portal to get to the lab—it's worth potentially losing brain cells to get there without seeing Shane—because now the emotions have dulled down to nothing (compared to what they were before) you're nervous about whether or not Myrnin does want you like this. After all, you may have imagined it, and he may have been repulsed by your kissing him earlier, not enamoured.

But as you step into the lab and see the shattered test tubes, broken machines and piles of chemicals, you know in your heart that he loves you—and that this is the way that you've broken Myrnin. Your kissing him earlier did this to him, made him destroy everything he loved because he couldn't have you.

The tears stream down your face again as you approach the man in the corner, the one who is hiding from you as though he is trying to blend in with the wall, because you never wanted this for him! All you want is for him to be happy—and perhaps he was, before you confirmed your feelings and his, and then made him think that you weren't coming back.

You made him destroy his lab.

"Myrnin," you whisper his name, just as he whispered yours this morning, and you notice how it's not cold close to him, for some strange reason. "Please look at me," you beg, your voice hitching around the tears.

Your fingers move to take his chin—hesitantly; you remember he's still a vampire—and he responds, allowing you to lift his face, betraying his eyes to you: they're the eyes of a broken man, someone who has lost his last hope, and you realise that this, like the lab, is your fault.

"I am so, so sorry," you mumble, not able to get the words out. Your eyes are fixed on his, trying to stare away some of his pain, because this is you, all you. You've done this, nobody else. "I didn't want to hurt you, and I did. I hurt you so badly, and it's all my fault and I don't know how to apologise."

"Go," he whispers to you, and you're so shocked that you think your heart stops. "If you're here to make me feel better because you're with Shane, I'd rather that you didn't. I hate to be petulant, but I have rather a lot of cleaning to be doing." He makes an attempt—no matter how weak—at a joke, and you're stunned.

You don't understand how he can have the completely wrong end of the stick…until you realise that you ran from him earlier to be with Shane (in Myrnin's eyes, at least) and you haven't corrected him yet.

"I came here to tell you…to tell you that you're…that I…lo…that I want to be with you, no matter how scary or dangerous or emotionally challenging it will be, because there's something between us that needs exploring!" you half-shout at him, the emotions in you coming back with a vengeance. "But if you don't want me…"

You turn to go, and once again, his hand reaches out to snap around your wrist, holding you there: you're his. But you're free to leave again, like before.

This time, you stay.

"I would like it very much if you stayed," he whispers to you, his voice stronger than before, but not by much: it's his eyes that change. Now, they're renewed with hope and energy, as though he's gotten something back that he couldn't be himself without…and that's what makes you understand just what a difference you've made to him.

He doesn't kiss you as he stands up, and you're glad for that; whilst you kissed him earlier, it isn't right for you to be at that stage already—you want to take things slowly. So, very gently, you remove your wrist from within his hand and smile, wondering how it took you so long to make this decision.

"Need any help cleaning up?" you ask, and this is the moment that you realise that you've made the right decision; you don't know why this is.

You just know that it's right for you to be with Myrnin.

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