Written for the ci-fans-unite prompt-a-thon on Live Journal.
prompt: Frame by frame, the city dissolving, the thread of your love in the headlights, is it safe now?
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Time won't change a thing when I'm gone.
Don't grip the wheel too tightly, my son.
Everything you need is done,
I would have thought you'd won by now.
Oh no, no.
(oceansize)
The kid is too old. He just looks young after all the heroin he put in his veins sucked his life away. Bobby looks once, shakes his head, and only Alex sees the subtle exhale of relief in his chest. Then his shoulders get tight again and he walks away. She sighs and stays on her heels next to the body. Across from her Reynaldo lowers herself to her own heels in the space vacated by Bobby.
"Not him," Alex says. She glances up. "Thanks, Rey."
Rey shrugs. "Sorry I had to call after your shift."
"It's fine. We're off tomorrow anyway," Alex says.
Rey glances away, toward Bobby's retreating form and then, "You still want a ring when a John Doe matches the description?"
"Yeah." Alex nods. "Until we find him or I tell you to stop."
They stand and move away from the body so the techs can get to work. It's late in the summer and the heat has broken. It's cool with the lateness of the hour. The evening light is fading fast, and the alley is growing dimmer by the minute. In the street the Friday night dinner rush is just getting started. She stares for a moment at Bobby's tense back as he stands alone at the mouth of the alley. He's staring out at the traffic and not moving and she can almost feel the weight on his shoulders. The brown plaid pattern on his flannel shirt makes him look huge, and she's always struck by how unguarded he looks when he's out of his suits.
"Not easy to find a kid in this city if he doesn't want to be found," Rey says.
Alex nods. Even more difficult when you don't know the kid all that well. She knows Bobby feels connected to Donnie in a way he never felt with Frank, but he still knows very little about a nephew he never knew existed until recently.
Rey sighs and casts an uneasy glance toward Goren, and Alex wonders what she's heard. Decides she doesn't want to know.
"Your partner okay?" Rey asks.
That almost makes Alex want to laugh. Okay? He's never been less okay in his life, and that's saying something. Her friendship with Rey though, doesn't take precedence over her relationship with her partner. And she's protective as fuck when it comes to Bobby.
"Yeah," she says. "He's fine."
Rey glances at him again and then lifts her eyebrows and gives Alex a look. She knows Bobby Goren by reputation, like nearly all the cops in the NYPD, and Alex feels the comment coming. She tenses. "Don't," she says, cutting Rey off at the pass.
Rey considers her and smiles faintly in acquiescence. She shakes her head. "I'm just saying Sometimes you gotta bail on a bad marriage before it hits bottom."
Alex stares at Bobby's back and feels his heaviness sinking into her bones. He turns his head just a bit, and she knows he can hear them. She glances at Rey and answers quietly, "There's nothing wrong with the marriage. It's all the relatives who think they know what's best." The marriage metaphor that cops use for partnerships has always irritated her.
Rey shrugs but then she nods, and Alex sighs.
Bobby glances at her with furrowed brows when she approaches, and she shakes her head dismissively. He doesn't lose the worried look, but he falls in step beside her as they walk toward her car.
"Drop me off," he says. "I'm going to drive around for a while, keep looking."
He hasn't told her he spends some nights searching the streets for Donnie, but she knows. The dead kid in the alley put him in the mood, and she can feel his melancholy rolling off of him in waves. It makes her ache.
"I'll drive," she says. "You look."
He glances at her and doesn't reply, but when he slides into the passenger seat he says, "Try the East Village again."
So she drives.
Their partnership took a blow this year. Not the first it's ever weathered, but certainly the worst. She tries to put herself into his shoes, and decide if she would have done the same thing, left him out in the cold while she tried to wrestle her way back into her job. She isn't sure, but she likes to think she'd have got word to him somehow that she was undercover. If only so he wouldn't worry.
She knows logically why he did what he did, but emotionally it was a kick in the gut. She still trusts him. She trusts him to watch her back and work a case. It's just those little moments that give her trouble. The little moments when he's faraway and she asks him a question and he hesitates before answering. And she wonders if she's getting the truth or a lie designed to save her. It bugs her. It hurts.
And she isn't sure if it's a fracture that will heal in time or if it's just the tip of the iceberg. If it's a chip in their surface that will crack and grow until they fall to pieces altogether.
She was angry because she felt him slipping. And he didn't seem to want to stop himself.
He's silent as she drives.
She glances at him and his eyes are scanning the sidewalks and the doorways. His knee sways back and forth nervously, brushing the dashboard. He's distant and removed from her, and she doesn't like it. It's bringing forth a lot of feelings inside that she hadn't quite realized were there. Or maybe she hadn't wanted to realize
She and Bobby have always had a status quo that let her sail through the days with relative ease. It's all different now.
Declan didn't free him in the truest sense of the word. Instead he'd rendered Bobby anchorless and rudderless and cast him adrift. She's afraid to let him out of her sight, afraid he'll drift so far that she'll never reach him, never bring him back again.
Part of her thinks it might be best for him, but there's another voice, more urgent, that says she can't let him. She has to keep her fingers curled into him, or he won't find his way home. Despite best intentions and all of his protests, he will fade away from her and she'll never see him again. Not whole anyway.
It could be good for him. Away from the job he might meet someone, get married, have kids. And that makes her ache too, and in a way she can't ignore. For the first time she takes a tentative look at that buried emotion. It was easy to dismiss when they just went on as usual, easy to laugh off. But now that everything seems on the edge of disappearing, she's faced with a wall of emotion ten miles high and it's really fucking scary.
He glances at her then, his brown eyes shadowed, and says, "This is useless." His voice is that quiet, tight tone that betrays his frustration.
She thinks it is too, but she's trying to be supportive. "It can't hurt," she says. They might get lucky.
He shakes his head and props his elbow on the car door, pinching the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb. "I just want to know that he's okay," he says, softly, tiredly.
"I know. We'll keep trying."
He shakes his head again, and they've been driving for over an hour now, and she can see him getting worked up. He shifts restlessly and she takes a right turn off the busy street and toward the waterfront.
"Pull over," he orders, as they pass a strip of closed bodegas and private business drives. She glances at him and he's pressing hard fingers against his closed eyelids, jaw tight under the beard, and when she doesn't slow immediately, he thumps a fist into her dashboard.
She pulls over.
He climbs out roughly and walks back and forth in front of his door for a while. She sighs, shifting the car into park. Oh, Bobby, she thinks. Why do you make it so difficult?
Her headlights are on, and he walks through the beams and then stops. She watches as he pulls a cigarette and a book of matches from his shirt pocket. She smells it on him occasionally and knows he hasn't quit, but they're few and far between these days. He takes a drag and stares at the pavement, blowing the smoke out through tight lips.
Beyond him she can see the harbor framed between buildings. The strip of sky above them is still violet with late twilight. Over the water it's indigo.
She gives him a moment to calm down. He wears his despair like a coat and it makes her feel a little helpless. He glances up once, his eyes meeting hers through the windshield, and there's an apology in his expression. She exhales slowly, lifting the corner of her mouth, and sets her hands on top of the steering wheel, resting her chin on her knuckles.
He presses his lips together and looks away, raising the hand with the cigarette to rub briefly at his forehead with his thumb. When he looks back he holds her gaze for a long moment and there's something else there. Something they don't talk about and don't acknowledge other than the way they move and shift to work around it.
She knows he has feelings for her, and has for a while. It was never anything obvious, but she's not nave. She knows when a man is attracted to her. It hadn't been something she'd wanted to deal with at first, not with Joe still so soaked into her heart, and her career at such an urgent point. And he'd been sort of embarrassed by it, she suspects, or at least unwilling to consider that she could possibly return the sentiment. He'd been careful. And while there'd come a point where both of them had realized it was common knowledge, he had skillfully compartmentalized it for her convenience.
She'd respected that. Still did.
But his eyes in the late summer twilight, and his expression as he looks at her, shake her to the core. It'll hurt if he walks away, and not just because he's her partner.
She climbs out of the car and walks slowly to the front, leaning her hip against the metal grill. She isn't sure what to say to him, so she takes a moment.
He takes another draw off his cigarette and then frowns, like he's lost the taste. He drops it and rubs briefly at his lips. "I'm worrying you," he says, quietly.
"Yes," she admits. "Donnie's problems aren't your fault, Bobby."
"I know," he says, and he sounds sincere. "That doesn't help though."
She sighs. "I know it's been a bad year. I just" She trails off, struggling to find the words.
"I'm thinking about leaving," he says, suddenly.
Her breath catches in her throat. It's exactly what she's feared, and she feels selfish for wanting him to stay. She swallows and rubs tiredly at her forehead. When she doesn't answer right away, he steps over and leans against the front of her car beside her, half-sitting on the hood. It dips a bit under his weight.
When she looks up he's studying her intently. "You look sad," he says.
She wants to shake him. "Of course I do. You just told me you were thinking about leaving!"
He fidgets when her voice rises, and he licks his lips nervously. "I haven't decided yet. I just feel so"
Lost, she thinks.
"Removed," he says. He tilts his head so he can look her in the eye. "It's nice to know you care."
She tightens her jaw in anger. "Care? We've been partners for over seven years, and you're still wondering if I care?"
"No," he says, quickly, and he holds her gaze steadily, something steely in his expression. "No, no. I knew. I've always known. I just it's" he stammers and hesitates and then he suddenly stills and his expression changes, and it's just it's all there. In his eyes. Everything she's been avoiding for so many years. It's blatant and it's intense and it's all his want and his need and his frustration and his affection, and it almost makes her gasp.
Oh, she thinks.
She's speechless for a moment. She holds his gaze and feels all her defenses start peeling away, and she swallows, hard, and her heart is pounding, and she just can't look away from the depth of his gaze. "Is this why you want to leave?" she finally asks, voice hoarse, quiet.
"No." He shakes his head, slightly. "No. It's everything else. This is why I want to stay"
She exhales. "Bobby," she says, and her voice sounds strange. "I know you've lost a lot. I know it's hard. But Declan was right about one thing. You've got a new start. You have to walk on from this."
His gaze darkens.
"You have to rebuild," she says.
"You're all I have left," he says, and he stares away down the street at the harbor lights.
"That's not true."
He doesn't reply, but he swallows and his gaze drops to the pavement in front of them. It's dark now, full dark, and the crickets chirp repeatedly in the distance.
It's his decision, and she knows that pressing him to stay if he wants to leave would be unwise. But it feels like he's slipping away from her and she's not ready to lose him yet. She's not sure she'll ever be ready for that. She'd felt a little smug when Declan had tried to erase her from Bobby's life too, and Bobby had steadfastly refused the idea seemingly without a thought. But now she wonders how successful Declan's plan might really be Whether it was intended or not.
She feels nervous then, completely out of her comfort zone, and exhilarated beyond belief. Times are changing, one way or another.
She moves forward, until her legs are pressed against his. He looks at her in surprise and she curls her fingers around his as she kisses him softly. She doesn't press, but she leaves her mouth on his long enough to make sure he can't mistake it for something else.
His hand closes around hers tightly and he stares at her as she draws back. "Eames" he says, a little breathlessly.
"Don't go," she says, and he looks a little staggered. She kisses him again, lightly, this time sliding her hand behind his neck. He kisses her back, and the beard is odd and soft against her chin. When she pulls away this time though, he grabs the back of her head and keeps her almost forehead to forehead with him.
"Eames," he says, voice nearly a whisper. "Don't." And he looks hurt. "You know I can't say no to you."
She feels the pain in her own expression, even as the words get stuck in her throat. But then he's standing and slouching down and pressing his mouth to hers, a lot harder than she was on him, and his hands are pulling at her jacket, keeping her close. His lips are softer than she imagined, and he kisses her open-mouthed, until she matches him and their tongues slide together.
It's overwhelming. She grabs fistfuls of his shirt to keep from stepping backwards as he presses forward. He's intense, and she always knew. Always suspected.
He keeps kissing her until all she can hear is their ragged breathing and her mouth hurts and she feels surrounded by him, and all she can think is: It's too late now. Too late.
Like it hasn't been too late for a good long time now.
"Take me home," he says in her ear, and she knows he doesn't mean drop him off at his apartment. "Please."
She drives silently, feeling like she's driven into another world. The Friday night traffic is thick, and she moves automatically, focused more on the way her heart is pounding and the way Bobby smells and moves. He keeps a hand resting on the back of her seat, and he watches her as she drives. When she glances at him in the darkness, he's colored by the passing club lights through the windows. It's surreal and she feels restless, impatient, nervous for the first time in a long time.
Her street is dark and quiet. She opens the door to her house with a calmness she doesn't feel, and she doesn't turn on the light. Doesn't want to break whatever connection they have going. She takes him by the hand and leads him through the house to her bedroom.
Her window's open, letting in the night air and the cricket-sound again. He sits on her bed and pulls her between his knees, and it's much more comfortable to kiss him like this, when he isn't towering over her. He exhales hard between kisses, as she works the buttons on his shirt. He slides one hand over the edge of her belt, under her shirt and against her bare back, and she sucks her breath in.
He hesitates when she starts sliding his T-shirt up, and in the dim moonlit room his eyes meet hers, and she understands. She bends a bit, the way he does when he wants to see a suspect's eyes, and kisses him with as much eroticism as she can put into it. You have to trust me, she tries to tell him. It's not like his weight gain has escaped her notice.
And that pretty much does it. He grabs her around the waist and pulls her onto the bed, and she can't do anything except breathe and try not to moan as he drags his hands and his mouth everywhere.
He pulls her on top of him and keeps kissing her, and he won't let her sit up, even when she guides him to slide inside of her, and he exhales, hard, into her mouth. It's been a while for her, and it feels incredible and she finally breaks away from his mouth so she can catch her breath.
He watches her as she moves, and his expression is sleepy and affected and it makes her ache. He moves his hands over her hips and up her sides, and she can see the strength still living in his arms and chest. It's almost too much, and she closes her eyes.
She comes when he starts to shift restlessly beneath her, thrusting upwards, and she curls her fingers into his shoulders, letting him move her, too lost to keep up her own pace. He groans softly and tenses and then he's holding her down on him, his breath huffing out rhythmically as he follows her.
She can't move off of him or open her eyes for a long time.
She finally looks up at him when his fingers trace lightly down her spine.
"I'll stay," he says, voice thick and soft.
She shakes her head and cups his chin, using her thumb to smooth down the soft hairs on his jaw. "Whether you stay on the job or leave, I just don't want you to go away from me."
He stares at her, brown eyes full of shadows in the darkness. "I'll stay," he repeats, and then adds, "If you will."
There's two different promises in his words, and she's always known it would come to this, always known she'd walk willingly in. She presses her mouth to his and settles down beside him in the bed, and thinks that it probably won't solve anything, and it might even make things more difficult. She doesn't feel like they've surrendered, but they're living on borrowed time now.
Still, it's better than having no time at all.
~end~