The Archive of Our Failure
Title is a line borrowed with adoration from "Black & White" by Sarah McLachlan. I intended this to be a post-purgatory one-shot…I know there are lots, but I haven't thrown one out there yet. Characters belong not to me but to the wonderful Mr. Dick Wolf. Rated T for few swear words. And, yes, I know…Holy run-ons, Batman.
All he has to do is lift his arms, reach for that little shard of sparkling silver light floating above the waves.
But the waves, they tease him, slipping farther away the closer he comes, fittingly, a mirage of the control he no longer possesses, control he may have never really held. He floats in the water, numb in its cold, alone, abandoned. The water weighs heavily on his shoulders, sinking his body farther into the abyss. And the water carries him, lifting him towards the break in the waves. But one pulls and one pushes and neither in conjunction with the other, his body forced in so many different directions like his mind had been when he formulated the plan, the one that lead to the event that drenched his body with an appalling splash.
And he floats in the water.
Buoyant with the sickening knowledge that he is stuck, that he'll probably always be stuck, unable to repair what was, fucking himself so thoroughly that he can't even begin to fathom how to undo what he's done. Mostly because he can no longer distinguish between his selves, the one that wants to do the right thing and the one that has too much fun making a fool out of a man who was once considered a genius, strange but coveted.
She's right, as she always is. All of his wounds are self-inflicted. He's had opportunities, days- and months-worth of them, to simply look at her and light that black corner of his mind, share the pain she knows is there, pain she has made very clear would never change how she sees him. He knows that's true, knows she will understand, knows she will help fix everything, and without the pity he would rather die than receive.
But he pushes her away.
And she's angry at him for that, angry that he's severing the cord between them, slicing through the thin, delicate, loved skin that holds the essence of who they are, who they used to be, who they can become, watching the blood drip into the water that holds him back.
And he's angry that he does that to them, to her. She's never hurt him, never doubted him. She trusts him, used to trust him. He's clearly changed that in her. He knows there's nothing he can say or do to fix that. That doghouse floats in the water with him, flooded and moldy, full of muck and filth and self-loathing, decorations he chose to put on the wall, decorations that circle around him as he bobs in the blood-soaked water.
He waits for the sharks.
He cannot see them through the injured color that swims around him, but he can feel them circle above his head. She's too angry right now to put her thoughts into words. He doesn't need to hear them (but then he chuckles because he does need to hear them, he needs them driven into his head, like a thousand nails they need to be pushed deep into the brain that houses his stupidity) he can see it on her face.
She hates him and he doesn't blame her for it.
He waits some more for the sharks, waits for her to come at him, finger pointed towards him at first, finding its way roughly, angrily poking his chest, threatening to breach the protection of his ribs, tear out his heart, throw it on the fire and feast upon the part he never lets her see.
She hates him and he loves her.
And he refuses to tell her. He knows she doesn't understand. How was he supposed to reclaim his badge, he time with her? He did this not to save himself, to save them. He needs her, she is the breath he can't take until he has hold of that sparkling shard of light.
He was trying to protect her, though he knows she doesn't need him to do so, but he failed. He stood, face scowled, pointing a piece of molded metal filled with tiny, lethal missiles at the head of the woman he loves. In his mind, he replays her entrance into that room, face frozen in a myriad of everything. The surprise, the shock, the uncertainty, the disbelief, the hesitation, the anger flashed across her face in those first few seconds.
He screams at the memory, the precious air sitting in his lungs, momentarily sustaining his miserable life, escapes in large bubbles that float to the surface of the water, exploding through the waves he so desperately aches to touch.
He watches her distance herself from his position in the cell, and that's when he sees the hatred. He's never seen hatred fueled with such a passion, a passion very much the opposite of what he longs to show her, the passion that hides in the bottom drawer of his dresser, most definitely not a decoration welcome in his doghouse. He's done enough to taint his feelings, to dilute them with the ocean surrounding him; he has no need to completely insult her by displaying such a precious thing in such an ugly place, making a mockery of something so beautiful, so pure.
Though, he supposes, no - he knows he's already insulted her, taken advantage of everything, of anything they had. Friendship, love, respect all gone, extinguished by his water. Obscured, drowned, slain, slaughtered…wasted.
His abhorrence clouds his mind, and the liquid around him fills his nose, his mouth, his ears, every pore of his body. And, again, she's right – she does hold his water, the water that breaks him, that buries him, overwhelms him, that is now a part of who he is.
She holds him.
And he prays she never drops the cup.