A/N: Read and review please. Thanks!
He dreams in pictures, in scents, in blindingly sharp images of the past. A whiff of Old Spice, the stereotypically musky, and yet cheap brand of working men the world over. The smell of his father, coming home drunk, Old Spice and cheap whiskey. It invades his dreams when he least expects it, but when he should be the least surprised.
When he doesn't realize he's becoming more and more like him…that's when the scents fill his dreams. And then he wakes up and the realization hits him, makes him sick to his stomach.
Usually it's the middle of the night when the odors fill his nostrils, stirring his brain from sleep. Today, it is one in the afternoon, on a Tuesday. He wakes up and more disorienting than the sun streaming in through worn blinds that should have been replaced years ago is the smell of sweat and alcohol that fills his head. There is a soft moan next to him, and he looks over to see the naked back of a woman whose name he can't immediately remember.
A week ago, he'd shot the poor son of a bitch who'd aimed a gun at him and his partner. On paper it sounded so clean-cut. A week ago, he'd been in a bar, had almost picked up a very drunk woman who would have slept with him if he'd wanted. But a week ago, he'd been the gentleman. He was dazed out of his fucking mind. It was the one thing he'd managed to do right.
Seven days later, it was he who was drunk, and he was no gentleman.
Lorraine. That was her name. A little Goth chick from some hole-in-the-wall bar he'd wandered into. She was pale, eyes a little glassy. She'd had a few and so had he. He'd wandered over to her table on the way back from the restroom. It was a dark bar and the flash of bright red lipstick across her face caught his eye. She was dressed entirely in black, and her skin nearly colorless except for the smudge of store-brand Cherry Red.
He'd nearly fallen into the chair next to her with some sleazy come-on. She only rolled her eyes and took a drink. They made small talk for a few minutes, and he eyed her cleavage when she leaned in.
"What do you do?" she asked him.
"Drink…fuck…"
She laughed hard, the kind of laughter that comes with exhaustion or drunkenness, as if the world was predicated on the sound.
He raised a brow at her as she lifted her drink, tilted it back, and slurped the last of the tequila down.
"Courage in a shot?" He bumped her knee with his own under the table, grinning lopsidedly.
She clinked her glass against his, which was sitting there, mostly empty. The tinkling sound of the ice made him laugh. Now he was the one who couldn't stop laughing as the fleeting picture flashed through his brain.
Fleeting but in glorious Technicolor, with each detail etched out perfectly, even in his drunken haze. His father came to him in smells. His mother always came in pictures. Rosary beads clinking, the curled incense smoke, the glass of rum.
"You've got to ask for forgiveness, Michael."
"Mom, I'm sorry."
"I can't forgive you, Michael."
The pain in his ear became acute, where she'd boxed it with a fist.
"Only God can forgive you…but you're not really sorry…you like causing trouble, don't you, boy?" She shook her head at him. "The things I go through for you, the sacrifices I've made, you little ingrate!"
Mother Logan, her name was Nancy and she appeared sweet in front of company. She would never call him a son of a bitch or an ass or a fucker. Those were words that sinners used. Nancy was a martyr. Her son, her only child who had crushed all of her dreams of being someone, of marrying up, by his mere conception, who insisted upon her attention from the time he was a colicky, crying baby—he was her cross to bear. She would never let him forget it.
"What did you say your name was?" The woman across from him, Lucy—Lee Ann—Laura—something with an L—asked, bringing him back to earth.
His voice was gruff, the words sliding out through almost snarled lips. "Mike Logan."
She said her name again, Lorraine, as she slid a hand up his thigh. He leaned in and planted a sloppy kiss on her lips. When they made their way outside, they paused in an alleyway and he was rough, rougher than he might normally have been, not giving a fuck, drunk, and needing to self-destruct. She let him. He didn't know her, but after nearly twenty years on the force, he had read enough witnesses and perps to know the hollow look in her eyes was similar to his own.
Making it back to his apartment with her, the sex that followed—some people liked to call it "making love" or use euphemisms like "whoopee" or "doing it." It wasn't about love, it wasn't about pleasure. It was fucking. The dirtiest of the words they told you never to use in Sunday School. It was about hollowing out your soul. Looking for forgiveness, finding none and deciding to be the worst you could be.
It wasn't an Oedipal fascination. God of all people, if He was there, knew his hate for his mother. He wasn't physically abusive, at least not to people. He'd had his fair share of holes in walls and busted knuckles. But God, he wanted to kill her. When she was alive, and even now, years after her death. He wanted her deader.
When he wakes up, the woman is still next to him, and he still can't remember her name. He'd been woken up by the smell of Old Spice, though he had never worn the stuff, save for when he was little and still dreamed of being like his father. He can't shake the smell, and it is only taken away by the alcohol still on his breath, and the scent of the woman next to him.
He stumbles out of bed, hits the floor of the bathroom on his knees, prays to the ceramic god to cleanse away his sins as he hurls them all over the floor. The flush of the toilet, the sound of the woman—what IS her name?---in the next room stirring, the clank of cars outside the bathroom window—they all collide to bring his brain another picture. He closes his eyes, the cold tile surprisingly comforting. He dreams in pictures.