Different (M/L, CHILD, 1/1 Jun. 16)

[Tears_of_Mercury]

Disclaimer: I don't own, I swear! So don't sue, JK.

Summary: A pre-Pilot Max thinks about the differences between him and the object of his affections.

Rating: CHILD

Couple: M/L

Genre: Straddling the line between fluff and angst.

A/N: So I was leafing through my folder and found this incredibly short drabble - it was actually one of the first things I ever tried to write for Roswell. I realized that while rough, it really isn't that bad, and decided to post it. I hope you enjoy.

Different

Her hands are too little to fit with his.

Too soft, too pretty, too clean.

He has had calluses since fourth grade, when he spent recess every day climbing the monkey bars his classmates wouldn’t go near.

Kids spent the whole year screeching like monkeys every time he walked past them.

-

She is too loud for him.

When she laughs it comes from somewhere deep inside of her, a place he’s forgotten how to find in himself. The sound is full and rich and many times it makes her voice go up too high (she has a tendency to sound hysterical) – but it is her being happy and to him it is the most beautiful sound in the world.

Sometimes her eyes will fall on him while she’s laughing and she’ll come to a stop, just staring. Wondering why he isn’t laughing, too. And even though he knows that it’s nothing more than innocent curiosity, it makes his heart fill to the brim to see her looking at him like that.

No one else has ever wondered why he doesn't smile.

-

She is also too smart for him.

He finds this out when they are partnered in biology. The first day and he is already fumbling around, wondering which beaker to fill and how to adjust their ten-year-old microscopes – but she knows.

She works with a natural grace. Her pencil dances across her notebook easily, and her hand is always the first in the air.

You’re not dumb, Max, she tells him. You just aren’t interested in biology. But he is interested in biology, more than he could ever admit to her or anyone else.

The fact that he isn’t as average as he appears to be; well, that’s easier avoided altogether. Anything to blend in.

-

She walks with an easy, unpracticed grace that his suddenly masculine frame hasn’t found yet. Her feet take small steps, one and a half or maybe two for each of his.

(Not that he’s keeping count.)

-

Michael has warned him a hundred times that Liz is too curious for her own good; that forming a friendship with her would be suicide.

Isabel rolls her eyes and reminds him that Liz Parker has been dating Kyle Valenti all summer, and no normal girl would have eyes for anyone else.

Michael snorts at this and keeps his eyes planted on Max’s face.

Max does his best to ignore the implications of Liz being with someone that isn’t him.

-

She is always busy.

He first notices this while he sits at the corner booth in the café; notices how she never seems to have time left over to breathe.

She rolls her eyes and laughs good-naturedly with Maria when the place is really packed, but sometimes he sees her frustration coming through anyway.

When she isn’t working she is talking to someone, or looking over homework, or going somewhere.

Or she’s writing.

(That’s the only time he’s ever seen her sit still.)

-

He thinks maybe he sees things about her that no one else picks up on.

She develops a twitch in a muscle in her right cheek when she is tired.

She always links her fingers together and rests her head in her hands when it is too much too quickly.

And in those rare moments when she notices him, her eyes always linger longer than they should.

This is something of a comfort to him. At least for all of their differences, they do have this one thing in common.

It’s a shame it will never amount to anything.