A/N: Don't… really know where this came from. Cal+angst=funstuff. So. Anywho, please enjoy and review!
And, cause I've been forgetting to say this: Don't own it.
Oh, and this too: no beta, all mistakes are mine.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVV
It's become a tradition, these nightcaps with Foster.
She gave you some statistic about the percentages of alcoholics in the United States alone, and reminded you about DUI and hangovers and Emily, but in the end even she couldn't argue. With the fact that it was the only thing seemingly appropriate enough after so many hours through hell. With the fact that even alcohol can't completely wipe away the memories of all the horrors you've seen. With the fact that at least it softens them, for a while. With the fact that even she's weak enough to remain silent for a hundred dollars a bottle.
Tradition implies a bit too much elegance. Habit, perhaps, is a better choice of words.
It's almost comforting, though you would never admit it, to see her sitting there on your couch expectantly, holding an empty shot glass with one hand and propping her head up with the other. The moonlight mixes with the light from the street, playing strangely against her face and disappearing into the folds of her dress. Her shoes kicked off into a corner, her bare feet wriggling happily in their freedom, she belongs there so completely that you can't bear to look at her any longer. You know if you did something inside you would eradicate itself, some resolve you've created within the core of your being, and you would never be the same. She would never be the same. So you turn back to the window and finish your drink in one gulp.
It reminds you of her, in a way. The drink. What she's done to you. It burns going down, but once it's gone it settles into the pit of your stomach, warm and reassuring and real. Although she's burned you worse than any drink ever would. And now she's inside you and there's a problem. Because isn't Gillian the very essence of reassurance? But she hasn't settled in your gut like a warm, comforting cat. Not like the vodka. She's spread herself out to your very tips, filled up your entire being, drowning you and rubbing your soul raw. And she still burns.
She never asks, never pushes into that personal space you keep locked up inside your head. So at least she'll never know how much she's destroyed you. But as you glance back at her and see the searching look in her eyes, the open honesty of her face, you have doubts. Because you know what she can do. After all, didn't she learn from the best? And you wonder if you've brought this upon yourself. If in the end she'll know only because you'll have told her. Not through opening yourself up to her, but through instruction and micro-expressions and her damn psychologist's brain.
It's moments like these that you wish your relationship with her wasn't based on watching the line. Because in your heart you know that you've destroyed her too. That you couldn't walk away any more than you could let her in. That to change anything at all would kill her just as much as it would kill you.
You know that she knows all this too.
It's become some twisted novel with a bad ending. The only thing is, when you look back, you realize that it's a novel you've written yourself. So when you turn back to her, and she's looking at you with a face that's as naked and vulnerable as you feel, you can't help but do the rashest thing you can think of. Can't help but drown in her again. Can't help but let her burn you. Because you've both become so good at it. All of this destruction. And because it's so addicting.
Though both of you are good at lying about that part.
Pulling her to you is just as easy as pushing her away. Like a bottle of hard liquor that's just sitting on your shelf. It can stay there and torture you into insanity, or you can consume it in a day, an evening, an hour. Let it eat you up from the inside.
And at least that way it's easier to believe that it doesn't make any difference.