A/N. T for language. Hints of BA. I don't own the characters, Law and Order, or the song (which really is a fantastic song, by the way, so dark and creepy and energetic). I'm also not entirely sure I got all the words to the song right, because it's kind of hard to understand what they're saying at parts. And I cut some of the repeated choruses from the lyrics below. All reviews are appreciated, and I would love some constructive criticism--what could I be doing better, writing wise? Thanks for reading!
If only you could watch me fall
I cannot feel it anymore
The soul you cut, the soul you adored
Cannot feel you anymore
Cause you've run through me with this fucked up force
I think somehow I gotta get it straight
I gotta get you out of me
But I cannot get through you
See me I'm down and I get deeper with every breath
See me I'm over the edge, farther with every step
See me I'm down and I get deeper with every breath
Standing over the edge - I'm taking my last breath
I can transcend you and mentally bend you
But I can't handle the shit that I'm into
I have been blinded, I'm always reminded
Of the things I've wanted but I never could find
I am a part of a world that I hate
I wish the end would come faster, my world's a disaster
Can't you see that I'm down and I'm drowning
And I can't keep my head above my wake
I gotta get you out of my veins
I gotta get you out of my blood
I gotta get you out of my scene
I gotta get you out of me
But I've really tried hard to get down to words
It's the way I fit into this world
Things I've survived
Pushed me to the darker side
Because of life as it was
The life that was yours should've been mine
But I never could take anymore of this
'Cause I'm always gonna get, gonna get down to the floor
It's a cold gun that I kiss
'Cause I cannot break anymore
Somehow I feel like I'm starless
I'm ready to fade now
That's how I feel when I'm starless
I'm hopeless and grayed out
Somehow I feel like I'm starless
I'm ready to burn out
Now I'm starless
"Starless"
Crossfade
***
He runs into Ross one cloudy, starless evening. He's just walking along, keeping his head down, his ears closed to the noise of the city, and he suddenly feels this short presence in front of him.
"Goren." Ross' voice sounds cautious, guarded. "How've you been?"
He gives a short jerky nod. "Fine—I'm fine. You?"
This is so wrong. This stab of a Ross-shaped reminder of what he is missing—what he is banned from.
"I've been well. Eames…misses you, I think. She's…you should call her."
You don't get to give me advice now that you're no longer my captain.
"I've been meaning to. I just—you know."
"Not really." Ross studies him unabashedly, standing still in obvious contrast to his increased fidgeting and twitching, every molecular imprint of every cell screaming Run get away you were fine before he came along come on move it get back to life as it is now.
But of course Ross has to extend the conversation. "So what have you been up to lately?"
What has he been up to lately?
He reads a lot, now, late at night with the window open above his bed and the soft sweet wind dancing the curtains over his head. He gets lost in fantasy worlds, for once not reading something for the literary merit or to learn, but to escape. Pure stories. The Secret Garden. Sherlock Holmes. The Mists of Avalon. Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera.
He feels silly, sometimes, spending entire afternoons at the bookstore sifting through stacks of fiction and eavesdropping on other people's conversations; spending way too much money on the Wrinkle In Time series and Emily of New Moon and Roald Dahl books. Nothing terribly adult. Nothing angsty. Nothing without a happy ending.
He told his therapist, when she asked the same question as Ross (who's still standing, eyebrows raised, waiting for an answer—huh), that he's reading, but he didn't tell her what. He doesn't want to hear that he's "making an effort to recapture his childhood" or "trying to simplify things back to what they were in childhood" because his childhood ended when his mother developed schizophrenia and he had to grow up and take care of her. He didn't have a lot of time to read these books then, so he's making up for lost time now, he tells himself, now that his mother is dead and he is ostensibly free from her cracking grip on his time and money and emotions.
(he really should answer Ross)
He bought a new notebook the other day. Seventeen bucks for 200 pages and he didn't care, because it is college ruled, perfectly sized, three sections, and it has multiple pockets for stuffing and detachable index cards to rip off and a good thick spiral binding that won't bend and a sturdy covered sheath of a plastic front that won't tear.
He jots random observations in it. Words he particularly likes. Names for the children he's never going to have. Ideas for how he can go about finding Donny. He writes out his memories, good and bad, of his mother, of his brother and his family and the Army and yes, of being a detective, even though it seems almost cruel to revisit those times now during his suspension. He writes out character studies of people. He tried to write one of Eames, but he couldn't, and so he ripped out that page and held it outside his window, four in the morning, and he let it drift down into the street, watching it sink and refusing to consider that a metaphor for his relationship with Eames. He does write a list of what he misses most about her, because then he can think about her in bits, almost—it's easier that way, if he just considers the slide of her bangs across her face and the way she bites Skittles in half and the way her fingers almost seem disjointed when she plays with her hands and waves them around as she talks; these separate parts of her that aren't really what he misses most about her because what he really misses most of all about her is just her, and he's never never ever going to be able to get that down to words.
"Goren?"
He goes to the park. He took his notebook once and spent forty-five minutes trying to describe the way the spidery end branches of the trees fire up into the sky, but he couldn't find the words and he ended up frustrated and so he left.
"Detective—are you all right?"
He does the elliptical in the back of the gym. Watches everyone pound their bodies into shape on treadmills and stairmasters. He notices for the first time how pathetic the exercise bikes and rowing machines are; pale plastic stationary excuses for the real things, but the real things aren't locked away in membership-only air-conditioned anti-bacterialized rooms equipped with televisions and snack machines and white fluffy towels; the real things aren't comfortable, and who seeks out self-inflicted pain?
What else.
"Robert—are you ill?"
He walks for hours, his head bent, his hands in his pockets, hating the sidewalks and the traffic and the lights of the fucking city for the first time in his life, because outside in the chaos of other people's lives he is achingly, screamingly claustrophobic. Inside, he's fine, as long as he has the windows open to let in the air that makes him claustrophobic outside (one thing he doesn't do is try to figure out all the contradictions of his life anymore, because what's the point when they're not going to change anyway).
"Why don't you come with me and I'll take you to a doctor, Bobby, okay?"
He lies in bed in the early dawns, still awake in a holdover from the previous day. Awake. Alone. Awake. Spending so much time dwelling on the past and worrying about the future that he's afraid he's beginning to forget the present.
"Bobby, please."
He cut his hand, once. Just once. Just to feel it. His body was going on so normal and unaffected that he just needed to feel that quick hot slice of pain, the sudden molten rip of skin against sharp bladed metal, something. He watched it bleed for a while, feeling detached, as if the blood were something unnoticed and ordinary—paper clips, refrigerator magnets, flyers stuffed into doors—and then he cleaned himself up and bandaged it and it's nearly healed by now, nearly whole again, as if it never happened.
"Detective!"
What does he do?
What does he fucking do?
You prick.
You asshole.
I stay off the job motherfucker because I'm banned because I'm blocked from it because I'm suspended because you wouldn't give me the clearance to go upstate and I had to go anyway and we came to this impenetrable impasse where what you wanted was one thing and what I wanted was another thing entirely another thing exactly the opposite of what you wanted and so I did what I wanted and now you have what you wanted what you've always wanted me off the job because of my dislike for authority my unconventional interrogation methods my strangeness in the face of your unaffected distant cordial normalness and so I hope you're happy now because I'm sure as fuck not because I miss the job and I miss Eames and I miss my mother and yeah I even miss you you prick because you're part of the job and I miss the job and if that means missing you then fine I'll miss you and so is that what you want to hear that I miss you that I need you back because I can't take care of myself anymore?
"I'm calling for an ambulance."
"I'm fine." His voice is distant. He shakes his head, passes a hand over his eyes. "I just have a bit of a headache. I'm fine."
"I'm still taking you to a hospital." Ross' eyes are wide, his face open and actually, nearly afraid. "You're…not well."
"I wouldn't want to disobey another order, but no, Captain, I'm fine. Really. I'm just…going to get going."
"To another session with Olivet, I hope."
He stops, turns. Considers.
Grins.
"Not right now, I'm afraid. Do you think I need to?"
Ross doesn't answer, silent and worried, and so he turns and fades back into another starless night in the city.
