Title: Sleepers Awake
Author: Scribere Est Agere
Pairing: Goren/Eames
Spoilers: Sometime after Untethered
Rating: T
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.
Summary: There was something decidedly ironic, he thought, about lying facedown on the cold, dirty sidewalk in front of Niko's Deli with a knife stuck in his back.
/
A/N: This story arose directly from a similar incident that took place in my neighbouring town last week. I hope that mine has a more satisfactory conclusion.
Again, for my partners in crime and happy champions: suffisaunce and lozziecap.
/
dying should come easy:
like a freight train you
don't hear when
your back is
turned
Charles Bukowski
/
Wednesday was their day off that week and late Tuesday night she dropped him at his apartment.
She parked and sighed and let her head fall back against the seat. She looked over at him, eyes black in the darkness. She looked so tired, he thought. And, so beautiful. He unclicked his seatbelt, fumbled with his folder.
"What are you doing tomorrow?" he asked.
"Sleeping," she grinned. "Sleeping late. Maybe swimming. Dinner at my sister's. I have to bring butter tarts. Ugh. I have to make butter tarts. You?"
He shrugged, not quite looking at her. "Uh…I don't know. Catching up on some reading, I think…"
She rolled her eyes.
"Enjoy your day off, Bobby," she said in that teasing voice, the one that gave him goose bumps. "Rest your tremendous brain for once, why don't you?"
He met her steady gaze. She smiled. He smiled back.
"See you Thursday."
He nodded.
"Thursday. Right. Night, Eames."
"Night, Bobby."
/
Wednesday was cool and breezy with heavy grey-blue clouds that barely held back rain; definitely late April. He spent the better part of the morning in the library and when he finally checked his watch he was surprised to find it was almost 1 p.m. He was hungry and his eyes swam blearily with thousands of words and numbers, thoughts and ideas and photos and paintings — Marx and Proust and Gauss and Rembrandt and he wondered, not for the first time, if he would ever have the nerve to write his own ideas down, for others to read. No, he decided, as he tucked his books under his arm and walked several blocks to Niko's Deli where he knew he could sit and eat and read some more, uninterrupted, probably not.
He walked and watched and side-stepped and smiled politely a few times before he finally reached the deli. He pushed open the door, heard the tinkle of the overhead bell signal his arrival. He stepped inside, looked around, wondered what he might eat and where he might sit.
And that's when he met Johnny and Angela Morton.
/
They were a young couple — mid-20s to early 30s — dressed casually, but not poorly. Bobby sat two tables away and watched and observed while trying to not appear that he was watching and observing. The man — sandy, shaggy haired, slight goatee — leaned forward intensely, hands slicing the air between them as he talked — was angry. Angry and not being understood. No, not feeling he was being understood. The woman — blonde, naturally for a change, slight, tense, eager for approval — picked at her salad and kept her head down as the man jabbed and pointed and bounced. Once or twice his voice reached an inappropriate indoor level and several other patrons turned their heads, then turned away just as quickly. The man, tensely aware, lowered his voice immediately and leaned forward as close as he could to the woman and continued, on and on and on.
Finally they finished, paid and left, the man with his hand on her forearm tightly, possessively, and the woman clutching her purse to her side, looking neither left nor right.
Bobby had his lunch (Club sandwich, house salad, glass of water), closed his book and paid his bill. When he pushed open the front door (bell tinkling merrily) he saw the couple standing several feet away by the mouth of the alley, tense, angry. Bobby paused, wondering whether to walk past, or walk away. Library? Home? Intervene?
"— stupid bitch—"
The man had grabbed the woman's arm and was shaking her roughly. Bobby saw her head snap back and forth, saw her bag fall at her feet, spilling its contents across the sidewalk. He heard her cry out, saw her bend down to gather her belongings. The man brought his leg back as if to kick her and Bobby lurched forward.
"Hey…hey!" And just like that the decision had been made for him.
/
Sometimes things happened in slow motion, he thought later when he had more time to process everything, and you felt as if you were not quite connected to the series of events you found yourself involved in. Sometimes, however, things happened at a lightning pace and you acted without thinking, without questioning. This was one of those times. Things were moving fast fast and Bobby found himself barely able to keep up because this time he found he was the one moving in slow motion.
"Let her go, pal, okay?" Bobby put his hand on the man's arm and the man froze, his face a snarl, his voice a growl.
"Fuck off!"
"You all right?" Bobby spoke to the woman at his feet. She was crying, sniffling, head bent, gathering a compact, a lipstick tube, her wallet, coins and bits of paper. She wouldn't look up.
"This doesn't concern you!" The man, tendons straining in his neck, leaned towards Bobby. Bobby felt the muscles bunch under his hand, coiled, hard.
"It concerns me that you were about to hurt her," Bobby said quietly. The woman stood, unsteady. She glanced at Bobby. She shook her head.
"It's all right, really."
"This is between me and my wife—
"All right. I'm just talking, okay? Calm down, okay?"
"Don't you fucking tell me to…who the hell are you, anyway?"
Bobby let go of the man's arm but edged in, angling himself between them. He heard the man's seething breaths behind him. "Is there anything I can do—
And as he was talking to the woman he missed it. He missed the man and his hand in his coat pocket and the flash of silver and the quick (lightning) jab around Bobby's right arm and into the woman's side. So fast, in and out. He did, however, see the look of utter pained surprise on her face, her eyes connecting with Bobby's, the spasmodic reaching out for him, and the blood. Always the blood. He eased her down to the sidewalk
"Fuck! Fuck." Blood and shock and oh fuck. Bobby knelt beside her. Passersby were taking notice now and some were pausing but no one came too close. Bobby rambled to her as he tried to staunch the flow.
"What's your name?"
"Angela," she said slowly.
"Your husband…"
"Johnny…where did he…" Her voice was thick. Her eyes rolled a bit and fluttered, then refocused, panicked.
"He's gone, all right? He's gone and you're going to be fine, Angela. I'm a police officer, okay? Everything is going to be fine—"
He continued to babble as he fumbled in his coat for his cell. He had one hand pressed to her side and one pressing on buttons that suddenly seemed very small and slippery when he saw her eyes go wide, wider. She opened her mouth as if to speak and again, Bobby was slow, too slow, because he heard footsteps and a distant scream, short and sharp, and he turned his head just enough to see Johnny, Johnny coming back, Johnny running at them, arm raised up high, knife-blade glinting in the late April gloom.
Shit. Shitshitshit.
It was all happening very fast, but at the same time everything slowed down and Bobby was given more than enough time to assess the situation at hand and realize what he needed to do. He dropped his phone (metallic clatter on the sidewalk) and threw himself across Angela's body (warm and wet and stinking of fear) because he knew what would happen if he didn't. Then he readied himself (deep calming breath, slight tensing of muscles), because he knew what was most likely coming, and it did. Johnny kept running (mad slap of rubber sneakers on concrete), arm raised up, up, and then swinging down, down in a perfect, powerful arc, planting the knife deep in Bobby's back.
/
Someone was groaning.
Bobby opened his eyes.
Oh. It was him.
He lifted himself as much as he could and moved off Angela's body. He lay down beside her and found that doing so had used up all the strength he had left.
He reached out, groped for her hand and squeezed it. He was relieved to find it was still warm, but she didn't squeeze his back. He closed his eyes and listened to the flurry of noises and voices around him. Everything was suddenly too loud.
"Call 911! Has anyone called for an ambulance yet?"
"Where'd he go? Where'd that guy go?"
"Move back, back!"
"Need to stop the blood—
"No! Don't touch them…"
"Wow, mister. You have a knife sticking out of your back."
/
Someone kneeled next to his head and peered into his face. Bobby opened his eyes.
"Hang on, okay? There's an ambulance on its way."
Bobby nodded, maybe, and wanted to say thank-you — it seemed like the right thing to do — but he was pretty sure the words never passed his lips.
He felt something wet on the side of his face then, and the backs of his hands, and thought it was blood. He waited a minute. Then he realized it had started to rain.
/
A couple weeks ago now, when he'd first started back after his suspension, they'd been sitting hunched over their desks filling in weeks worth of paperwork. Hours and hours across from each other, writer's cramp setting in and six, seven cups of coffee and maybe a little punch drunk from just being in each other's presence again, who knew. Anyway, she'd started in on the jokes, jokes her nephew had been saving up to tell her during their weekly visits.
Hey Bobby.
He looked up.
Why was six scared of seven?
One-shoulder shrug.
Because seven ate nine.
He smiled a bit but kept working. Minutes passed.
Hey…Bobby.
He smiled.
Why did the guy put lipstick on his head?
He cocked an eyebrow.
To help make up his mind.
Ha ha. He shook his head and bit the inside of his cheek.
Bobby…
She was already giggling.
Why did the chicken cross the playground?
I don't know, Eames. Why did the chicken cross the playground?
To get to the other slide.
And that one got them going, started one of those strange fits of laughter that hits sometimes and is so hard and long and barely controlled it makes your stomach hurt.
His stomach hurt right now and pretty much everything else he could think of and he would have given anything to have Eames there telling him some stupid joke about a chicken.
He wanted to cry for it.
Oh Alex I'm going to miss you so much.
/
He tried to lift his head higher to see but couldn't, it just hurt too much, so he clenched his teeth and let his cheek drop back down and rest completely and finally on the rough surface. It was very cold. Something smelled like exhaust, and something smelled like shit, and something smelled like rotten fruit, but he let it all go, all of it, because it really hurt to breathe too deeply. He let his fingers relax against the gum-stained concrete. He watched rain drops fall around him. His hands had blood on them. Angela's blood. Was she dead? He didn't know. But, there was something else. He stared at a tiny cut on his right thumb. He frowned. Wait. Paper cut. That's right. He'd gotten a paper cut there yesterday filing that damn Gomez report and he'd sworn and jammed his thumb in his mouth without thinking and Eames had looked up, amused and—.
Back to Eames again.
OhgodI'mgonnadiewithoutevertellingherIloveher—
Sirens. Okay, good. Good. He was gonna live. He could tell Eames, after all…or, maybe not. He wasn't sure.
He sighed. It hurt. A lot. He closed his eyes. He thought about Eames some more, her eyes, her hands, her voice. Her smile. Her jokes.
Hey Eames why did the guy try to break up the domestic dispute on his day off—
He smiled a little.
And then he died.
/
Life and death are balanced on the edge of a razor.
Homer, Iliad
/
She was on her first butter tart and second cup of coffee when her cell chirped. Her sister rolled her eyes and Alex made a face like shut up it's probably just a wrong number but moved quickly for her bag because she knew better.
Day off my ass, she thought.
"Alex."
She froze. Alex, not Eames. Not Eames.
Ah god, now what? Now what?
"Captain…?"
Alex sucked in a breath quietly as he talked calmly, explaining what he knew and what he did not. She exhaled. She calmly thanked him and hung up.
"Alex, what is it?" Her sister watched her face, drawn and pained and white. Alex shook her head and spoke through numb lips.
"It's…just my partner. Bobby. It's Bobby. He was…stabbed. Trying to break up…a fight." She laughed. Her sister watched her. She put her hand to her mouth.
"Oh god, Alex. I'm so sorry. Is he all right?"
"Uh…" She was shoving things into her purse (phone, lipstick, no that's not mine, keys — no, wait, I need those). Her hands didn't feel attached to her body, they felt heavy and light at the same time, which she found oddly interesting. "Uh. He's in surgery, I think. Or, he's heading there. I don't know. Ross…the Captain didn't have too much information. I'm sure everything is fine, though. I mean. I'm sure everything is all right and I'm going to go meet him at the hospital—"
"Alex—
She stood. "I just have to use the bathroom."
She locked the door and stood staring at her reflection for a moment. Same Alex. Everything the same, but not. She listened to the sounds, the ordinary everyday sounds of life beyond the closed door: children's shouts, dishes clinking, cupboards slamming. Then she fell to her knees, bent over the toilet and threw up.
/
"You're going too fast, Eames."
"Eames, slow down."
"Eames, please."
He found himself in her car, in the passenger seat, and the setting and the company was so familiar and so safe and so perfect, really, for a moment he thought everything was all right. But she was driving very fast and she had a death grip on the wheel and she was perched forward on the seat. It was raining harder but she hadn't turned on the windshield wipers.
"Where are we going?" he said. She made a sharp right, and another and Bobby saw the signs as they flew by.
Ahh. The hospital. Right. That meant he was still—
She parked and yanked her keys from the ignition. She dropped them and when she reached for them he saw her hands were shaking.
"Eames—"
She stopped then, put her head down on the steering wheel and took three deep, ragged breaths.
"Don't cry, don't cry. Do not. He's fine. He's fine. Go. Just, go."
Oh, Eames.
Ah, fuck.
"Alex," he was reaching out for her, wanting more than anything to grab her and pull her to him when she fumbled for her purse and the door handle and she was gone and all he grabbed was air.
/
He caught up to her in the depressing beige waiting room, feet planted, eyes blazing, talking to Ross.
"He's in surgery, Alex. I don't know much yet."
"He's alive."
Bobby nodded: I am, I must be.
"He is. But Eames, you need to know…"
She stopped.
"He lost a lot of blood."
She nodded.
"He…he was revived on the way here and I just, I just want you to be prepared—"
She nodded again. She turned and walked down the hallway, not sure where she was going. Ross watched, but Bobby followed. She stopped halfway down, stared at the tile wall outside the women's bathroom, at the beige and green tiles arranged in a seemingly random pattern but probably wasn't random at all and she turned to look back at Ross, who was still watching her.
Bobby hovered.
Then she did something she'd never done before, not after Joe died, not after she'd given birth and realized it may be the only time in her life to do so, not after all the times Bobby ditched her, not ever.
She turned with a shout and punched the wall.
/
"Oh, Alex, baby," Bobby crouched down next to her where she huddled, cradling her hand in her lap. She wasn't crying. She wasn't even breathing hard. Bobby touched her hand, knew she'd broken a finger, and touched her back and finally her face and she gasped at that, gasped and pulled back as if she'd been burned—
Then Ross was there, his arm around her, pulling her up.
"Eames, come on. Come on. It's all right. Let's go have that looked at."
And he led her away.
/
The rain had started in earnest, slapping angrily at the windows. It sounded like hands on skin. Alex listened to it for awhile, grateful to have something else to focus on.
She finally looked away from the window and down at Bobby, at his pale, pale body and the machinery around it, the plastic tubes and metal pole and needle and white sheets and the tears started in earnest. She didn't even try to stop them this time. Her crying was low and hard and steady and made her shoulders and head shake with its intensity, which continued even after the rain finally stopped.
/
Then he woke up.
She was the first thing he saw. He licked dry lips because he needed to ask her something.
"How's your hand?"
She started, kept her bandaged, splinted fingers hidden in her lap.
"My….what?"
"Nothing."
He drowsed.
"Angela…"
"The woman? You saved her, Bobby. The second attack would have killed her if you hadn't…"
She trailed off. He chuckled.
"The husband…?"
"He turned himself in. Full of remorse, I heard. Was very concerned about your well-being, I heard, especially after he learned you were a cop."
"I bet."
He laughed again.
"I…I was stabbed in the back, Eames."
"I know, Bobby."
He laughed some more. She frowned.
"I don't find it funny in the least."
"Stabbed…in the back."
He looked at her.
"I really hope this is the drugs talking." She looked away.
"Seemed funny at the time," he said, grinning.
She shook her head. "You know, if you want to lie here laughing about how you almost died, then be my guest—
She made a move to stand.
"I saw you," he said suddenly.
She stared at him.
"I was here earlier."
"No, no. In the car. Your car. Driving here. I was sitting next to you and you were driving too fast and I kept asking…begging you to slow down…and you…you…didn't listen, of course…"
"Bobby."
He was fading again.
"You need to sleep."
"I've been sleeping. Too…too long."
He mumbled something then. She thought she'd heard right, but then, on second thought, she knew she hadn't.
She thought he'd said Need to teach you how to punch.
/
No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.
Euripides
/
Then he got better and they let him go home, where he was supposed to rest and sleep and do other things that involved not going to work and not, apparently, conversing with Eames.
"Detective Goren." Ross looked up from his desk, eyebrows raised. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for Eames. Where is she?"
"She has time off. She's been ordered to take time off."
Bobby stopped.
"Why?"
Ross sighed.
"Go home Goren. Get some rest. Let her get some rest."
"I can't. I can't! She won't answer my calls, my pages. I can't get hold of her—
Ross observed him.
"Has it occurred to you that you're not the only one who's been under an incredible amount of strain lately?"
Goren nodded.
"Eames, I know—
"You don't know." Ross shook his head. "For a supposedly smart man you can be amazingly stupid. You're both at the breaking point. Eames just tends to keep it hidden a little better."
/
He knocked several times and for a moment he panicked, wondering if she was going to answer the door or just go on ignoring him.
For a moment he wondered if he'd died after all.
Then, there she was.
"You haven't been answering my calls…"
"I haven't wanted to talk to you."
She stepped back and he stepped inside.
Vodka bottle, shot glass.
"You all right?" he said. She laughed. "I'm serious," he said. She laughed again.
"Not really."
"What is it?"
"I'm…I'm on sick leave," she mimicked.
He smiled.
"There's nothing wrong with you."
"Ross thinks I need to be shrunk, okay?"
He nodded, waved at her bandaged hand.
"Because you…hit the wall. Literally."
She stopped and smirked.
"Oh. Did he tell you that?"
"No, I was there."
"Will you stop that? You weren't there. You were…in surgery, having a great, big knife removed. You were not there."
"It wasn't that big—
"It was big enough, and what's the difference—
"Listen…listen…you…you turned and you shouted…and the tiles were…they were brown and green, arranged in some kind of stupid non-pattern. And you kind of fell down and Ross came running, late as usual, but I was there first…and I touched you here—" he pointed at her hand — "…and here…" — her back — "…and here." He touched her cheek.
And she knew then, she remembered and she knew. She stared at him, open-mouthed, hands hanging at her sides.
"How could you…"
"I don't know. I…don't know." And he didn't.
She came nearer, studying him as if she'd never seen such a specimen up close before.
"You could have died."
He moved nearer, closing the gap.
"Not could have. Did."
She slapped his chest with her open hand, and then she rested her forehead on that spot. Then she kissed that spot.
Then, she kissed him.
/
It was the most frantic sex he'd ever experienced.
If he'd wanted to be especially crude, he would have said they were fucking, but he couldn't use that term, not with her, never with her. This sex was just…incredibly intense. And kind of painful.
It was as if she was trying to intentionally leave a mark on him, brand him in her own particular Eames fashion, with fingernails here (upper back) and teeth there (lower lip) and at one point she even hit his shoulder with the closed fist of her good hand (goddammit Eames I don't need to teach you to punch after all). It hurt more than he let on but he welcomed it, too, because it reminded him that he was, after all, alive. He was still alive.
He was alive and Eames was seriously hurting him.
He was sure he was hurting her, too, at one point, unintentionally, because she hooked a leg over his hips and brought him closer, deeper, wouldn't let him go—
"You're going too fast, Eames."
"I'm not."
"Eames, slow down."
"Don't want to."
"Eames, please."
"No."
Only at the very end, before he had pulled out and pulled away did she finally touch him with something other than near violence. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down to her, kissed him, again and again. He kissed her back, again and again. He could feel every inch of her, her skin, her breath, her heartbeat.
"Don't go to sleep just yet," she said. "Please?"
He rested his head in the crook of her neck, slick with sweat and nodded.
"I won't."
/
"Eames…" he whispered. "Alex."
He felt her shift beside him, just slightly. He heard her sigh. Then she rolled onto her side, facing him, and he could her breath warm on his shoulder.
"You sleeping?"
She took his hand. She kissed his thumb, right there, right where the tiny cut had once been.
"I'm awake."
/
Fin