so i figure, if Peter is allowed to spiral out of control, then why not Olivia? Here is a story i hope isn't too OOC about her and her own path of destruction. THis will probably have another few chapters to it, but i wouldn't be counting on any with forgiveness and make up smut. I just don't see that in the near future (WAHHHHHHH)
M for language and bluntness.
Her lungs were ready to burst.
But she wasn't ready to stop.
She pushed forward with each stride, each powerful leg hitting the ground and stretching out to pound the ground again, to carry her farther away. But she couldn't out run herself. But she could try.
Somewhere behind her she had lost her mind, maybe three or four miles back, and she was too numb to feel the icy rain sliding down her pink skin. She just ran. She wore next to nothing, tiny black shorts and a black sports bra, her hair pulled up into a pony tail and her fringe pinned tightly against her skull in an attempt to look everything but like her double. She thinks of nothing, just of running, pushing, driving, forcing, herself onward. She couldn't feel her body begging, pleading, for a rest and it didn't bother her.
Somewhere up ahead she'll collapse to the ground again, just like she always did on these runs and she will think to call him for a brief second. But that's all it will be, a brief second, before she picks herself up and turns around, walking back to her apartment. She'll feel the cold against her sweat slick skin then, and she'll feel just how wet her hair is, but she'll be too tired to care.
It may not kill her today. It might kill her tomorrow. But she's not scared. She's Olivia Dunham. She doesn't die.
She's become thin. Dangerously thin. She figures this out when she goes shopping after Christmas, when the designer labels are on sale for nothing and she gets bonus. This time the bonus is bigger than every before, an extra $10,000 that her old self would never need, but she takes it without a word. She'll spend it all on true religion jeans.
She figures out just how tiny she is when she pulls on a pair of $300 jeans. They're her normal size and the fall hopelessly from her body. Two sizes down and still no luck. She asks for a size that she hasn't ever been, a size 24 and she fits into them, but not without a belt to hold them up. She buys 6 pairs of jeans for no reason. She doesn't need them.
She spends another $500 on a sexy black dress that barely covers her ass and fits her like a glove, showing just how skinny her body is. Her hips poke out in a way that makes the saleslady's eyes flare in jealousy, but all Olivia sees is sickly. She's becoming skin and bones and she isn't sure why, just that she is. She doesn't want to even remotely shape herself like her double and being over three sizes smaller makes her feel different. There is one point somewhere between the Chanel silk blouse and Dior sunglasses that says maybe she should save some for later, but it's a fleeting thought that whips away in the ringing of a register.
She'll spend it all as long as she becomes anyone but her double, anyone but herself.
Her bank account could never afford a meal at a place like this. But with her sudden wardrobe change and her model like figure, she's landed herself a date with a man twice her age and six times wealthier than she would be in her dreams. He saw her leave a store in New York, offered her coffee and she felt surprised that he didn't know her. He didn't really know her. And he asked for a date and she accepted because he'll never actually know her, he'll just know what he wants to hear.
She had stopped by the lab to drop something off wearing her tiny black dress. She didn't really have to drop it off that night, she just knew everyone would be there and she was right. She strolled into the lab in her tiny black dress and spiky silver heels and she could feel Peter, actually feel Peter crawling over her skin even though he was across the room. She could feel a pool forming under her tiny thong but edged the desire away by handing Astrid a file. She smiled.
"Hot date?" she asked teasing. But Olivia would not tease back.
"Yes."
"Maybe you should get laid more Peter."
She regrets it the moment it leaves her mouth. They're fuming, their faces pressed almost together as they stand near her car in the parking lot. His jaw flexes and relaxes and he's oh so angry with her. Her silk blouse flutters in the light breeze and she wants him to do nothing more than rip it off her and fuck her in the parking lot, right there in public parking lot until she can no longer walk. But they just stand there, so angry at each other.
There is a ghost of a bruise on his jaw, a light forming of discoloration that she could see from her vantage point. It's underneath his cheek and she wants to reach out and touch and kiss it away but she sees his eyes and remembers. So she goes back to staring at him angrily.
She doesn't give him a chance to retort with his wicked retort. She realizes that her words, at the moment she said them wound her. And she sees the red he sees and he's almost about to snap at her, to tell her the ugly truth and remind her why she's built up her new façade when she walks away, turning on her heel. Peter watches her walk away.
The retort hangs in the silence.
Sometimes she wishes Alex wasn't so good to her. Instead though, he sends flowers to her office at the FBI building and one day, somehow he manages to locate her office in the kresege building and send her cupcakes there. It's sweet and so gentle and nice that everyone falls in love with him, everyone but Peter and herself.
She just wishes they would fight once. She wishes he would do something wrong like stay after hours in his big CEO office on Wall Street to sleep with his secretary. But he was simply perfect, and she hated it. She was looking for a reason to run to Peter, to fling her arms around his neck and say everything went horribly wrong. But nothing will go wrong because Alex is perfect.
He's nearly 50 years old but she doesn't care. He makes her feel like no one. And for once, she loves it. He's an unsuspecting soul who never knew her before all this, and she treasures that knowledge. He doesn't care about who she was or what she is, but instead showers her mercilessly in flowers and tiffany's jewelry because he believes he loves her. She visits him at work when she doesn't have to work, dressed up in a St. John's silk shirt and Calvin Klein pencil skirt with sky-high heels that should kill her and he's genuinely happy to see her.
She sees one day that a Frank Stanton works for him, somewhere in the building. He's some kind of medical consultant lower down on the food chain and she shouldn't care, but she does. She knows in this world she and him never met, so walking up to him and looking at him like she did to his alternate would not be such a bright idea. She certainly knows him well, every inch of his skin and she's never seen him naked before.
Funny how things work out here.
Today is the day Peter snaps. He snaps like a tree branch heavy from snow, only he does not collapse in a heap on the floor of the lab. There is a blue bag waiting in Olivia's office, a blue tiffany's bag fro her and when she sees it she smiles. She does not see Peter across the lab behind the tank, where flames leak from his eyes. Astrid lingers around Olivia just a bit and Olivia invites her in. The two girls swoon over the bag, pulling out a box that contained a necklace. It's big and beautiful and so very expensive that Peter feels the air being yanked from his lungs. Olivia is completely oblivious to his obvious distain and she holds it up to put it on.
She wears it the entire day she spends at the lab, her fingers fiddling with it the whole time. The diamond stone is so very large and delicate in her fingers and she loves to run her fingertips over it. She thinks perhaps this is what love feels like, that she has fallen in love with Alex, and that he was no longer buying her affection anymore. She has this glow about her that allows her to move gracefully through the lab, a hum almost on her lips. She does not notice the distance Peter put between them until it was time to leave.
"He's good to you," he says as they are putting on coats together, "You deserve to be happy."
And it all but breaks her heart. She looks at him but he does not look back, his eyes trained perfectly over her shoulder to Walter as he puts away the remnants of an experiment. She notices the bruise is no black and there is another one in the corner of his eye where blood has leaked into the white. He does not look down at her while she examines his face. She feels her bottom lip trembling and everything spiraling, spiraling out and away, out of her control and grasp. And before she can register it he walks out the door.
Somewhere something has gone horribly wrong.
It's dark and it's raining and she's been crying for hours. There are two bottles of whiskey in the trash at home and while she knows it's not the smartest idea to be driving around drunk and in the rain, she does so anyway because she can't think clearly. In the back seat of her SUV are all her fancy clothes and gifts. Alex didn't want them back. He said he understood her choices because he loved her. He fucking loved her. So she's driving in the middle of the night to a house she knows she'll never be welcome at again in just her short running shorts and a black sports bra.
She skin and bone and that's all. Her hair has lost its magic shine and her eyes are red and wet. Her whole body has lost its magic glow and looks dull and frail, sickly even. She feels sickly. This isn't love she tells herself as she drives, serving and dodging headlights, because love isn't suppose to kill her. Love is just an image of her mind. It isn't real. Love won't be her murder. She doesn't want anything anymore. Everything has just spiraled away from her. Everything is gone. It's the same feeling she had when she returned. She didn't belong here. Nothing is her. Only this time, she did it to herself with no help from a dopplganger.
She barely stumbles up the steps to the house she isn't welcome in. Her car is parked in the center of the street where the icy rain is melting away the interior of her door. She doesn't care anymore. She pounds on the door with her fists, her whole body shaking, shivering and she is surprised to see Astrid there. Astrid has never seen her like this as she crumples to her feet. Olivia begs, pleads for Peter.
And it is Astrid who tells her gently that he isn't home. He isn't there.
And thoughts? reviews? :D :D :D