Work Text:
a little closer to something
by gij
One
You’re sitting on Catherine’s front verandah with a drink in your hand. It’s the third time in a month that Eddie has come around, the third time she’s called you afterwards. She’s sitting beside you and you’re wondering why you’re here.
You think she should be angry, upset. Instead she’s unfocussed, almost dazed, and you wonder uneasily if you should take the brandy out of her hand and throw it in the garden. You don’t.
You know she feels helpless. In a sense, she is. They were married, Lindsay is his kid. He legally has a right to see her. But when he shows up, drunk and angry and stupid, you’re willing to bet it’s not what the courts had in mind.
Catherine’s shoulders move, and for a moment, you’re horribly afraid she’s crying. You’ve never seen her cry and you’re quite sure you don’t want to. You’ve seen her sad and angry and smiling and scowling and even afraid, sad like a small child and happy like a Prozac junkie, but you don’t want to see her cry.
You’ve always hated being helpless, and now you’re sitting here and your hands might as well be tied to a post behind you. Hell, you might as well be back in ‘Frisco, that’s how much help you are… that’s how much you know what to do. You’re lost and helpless and you’re afraid she’s crying and you don’t know why.
She looks up at you with crystal blue eyes and her face is sober, even if her body isn’t. She drops the brandy glass heedlessly onto the concrete at her feet and doesn’t seem to care when it breaks and the remaining liquid spills out, shining amber in the late light.
She tugs you to your feet with a hand on your arm and if her eyes shine more than they should you won’t notice, you’ll pretend not to see.
She guides you into the house and it seems familiar, not just because you’ve been here so recently but because you’ve been in this situation so many times. Her hand is in yours is tentative and you’re not sure if it’s because she’s feeling what you are or because she’s slightly drunk.
It’s not just her who’s slightly drunk. Your head feels light and you curse yourself for never learning to handle alcohol properly. You stumble against her and she steadies you and keeps walking.
You sit on a couch in her lounge room and wonder where Lindsay is. Catherine sits down near you, then lies down and rests her head in your lap. You’re surprised but not unpleased, and you automatically start to comb through her hair with your fingers.
Her hair is soft, and you wonder if the rest of her is anything like that. She kissed you once, drunk and fumbling and a little awkward, but you remember so well. She cupped her cheek with her palm and kissed you gently, tongue flickering over your lips like a lost memory at the edge of your mind. She was sweet and warm and soft and you wonder if she remembers.
"Where’s Lindsay?" you ask eventually, just to be saying something.
"Friend’s house. I’ll pick her up tomorrow."
Silence falls. You don’t know which is more comfortable.
She lies with her head in your lap and her eyes to the ceiling and you talk, on and off. Nothing hugely consequential, but enough for comfort, for strength.
You watch her pale hair and blue eyes and soft mouth, and something cracks inside you. Something breaks slowly, and you can see her recognition as it happens. Her mouth curls up in a smile before she tugs you down and kisses you again.
Her tongue flickers against your lips and you’re flooded with memories you’d almost lost, though they took place so recently. Your mouth opens and she invades and any thoughts you might have had are lost in the sensory rush.
Somehow you’re crashing through the house, lips locked together, and fumbling towards her bedroom. You knock into a door together and she laughs and you snarl in frustration. You pick her up and crush her against you and her hands tangle in your hair and her moans vibrate in her throat and you want her more than you can ever remember wanting anyone.
You carry her to her bed and lay her down on it. With her arms still locked around your neck, you climb on top of her and kiss her again. Hands roam and clothes are discarded and finally it’s just you and her and her double bed.
Two
You’re lying in her bed, your head against her stomach. Soon she shifts and moves to the side, and you can hear her fumbling on the dresser. You hear the flick of a lighter, followed by her settling back against you. Her hand is in your hair and you smell nicotine and smoke.
"I thought you quit." Just to be saying something.
She shrugs, and you feel it in the way her body moves against you. "I did." She drops the butt into the ashtray and settles back against you.
Her hand is still in your hair, not stroking exactly, but running fingers through it… pulling at tangles, raking through the soft curls. It hurts a little, but you enjoy her strange caresses and are half regretful when she stops.
You look up at her, and she’s holding the lighter in one hand, flicking it on and off. In between the flames, she touches her thumb to the hot metal. It’s not enough to do real damage but you wrinkle your nose, and when she sees you she stops.
You roll away from her, sit on the edge of the bed. You scan the floor for your lost clothes and spot your underwear and t shirt lying together. You tug them on and she watches you from the bed. You look up at her and then away, suddenly unnerved by the intensity of her crystal blue eyes.
You make your way over to the main window in the room and look out. Storm clouds have covered the sky in the time that you’ve been inside. You open the window a fraction and rain comes in, dances upon your skin.
Eventually Catherine wanders over. She’s gained a knee length robe from somewhere. You wonder where she got it.
"What’re you doing?" she asks. Talking seems strange.
"Standing half dressed in front of a window, getting soaked. You?" you feel sarcasm coming on. Somehow she’s made you angry and you don’t quite understand.
She doesn’t seem to notice. "Fucked if I know."
Her indifference only seems to fan the flames. "Then what the fuck are we doing?"
She leans in towards you and touches your face, and for a moment you think you’re going to get an answer that will make sense. Then she’s falling away from you, slipping backwards. You grab for her but you can’t make your hands work. Her head hits the glass window harder than you’ve ever seen a human hit anything and you’re not sure it wasn’t deliberate.
You reach for her and she snarls at you, but this is Catherine and you thought she’d never hurt you. And this is you and in the end, you never learned any better.
"Fuck, Catherine." You kneel beside her and tip her head to the side to see the bruise already forming. It’s already swelling, and when you touch it she jerks her head away and snaps at your fingers like a wolf cub. She catches her thumb with her teeth and it actually hurts, and you’re caught between laughing and yelling.
She looks at you then with eyes you’ve never seen before. You knew you never wanted to see her cry but the expression on her face right now is beyond that. Her pain is beyond your comprehension and it hurts as much to know that as to see it.
You stare down at her and you realise suddenly, this is real. This is you and your life and you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing here. You realise you don’t know this woman, and she doesn’t know you, and this is reality. You could walk away now and you’d never know anything, but to stay here is to invite destruction.
Strange it may be, but you’ve never been one to walk away from a challenge. You’ve never developed self preservation skills, and maybe that’s what this is about, that you’re used to being beaten and alone and fucked up in ways that would screw up any psychologist to hear them, but you’re not leaving.
So you drop down and you crawl to her, and you wrap yourself around her. And for here, and for now, you can pretend that maybe this is a little closer to being okay.
Three
It's one of life's great ironies that the people you want to protect are the people you're helpless to help. It's also drastically unfair.
END
Feed the feedback monkey. He lives inside me and he's starving. :D