Disclaimer: Not mine, not making any money off of this.
Author's Note: Written as a gift for a friend, after only seeing 9 episodes of the anime.
Nothing But The Blues
It was strange, really, to feel so much for someone who was nothing but a voice on the telephone. Stranger still to feel that way for a voice on the telephone when there was a promise ring on her finger and a man waiting for her in bed. Naomi knew this. She couldn't ignore it, even if she tried. And she knew that the man waiting for her was waiting with resentment, waiting with irritation and jealousy for the man on the telephone.
But the man on the telephone listened to her. The man on the telephone paused thoughtfully after she presented her theories. Naomi could almost hear him thinking. The man in bed listened to her with half an ear and his eyes on the television. He didn't care. He told her she was good at what she did, told her he was proud of her, but they were just words.
The man on the telephone rarely gave her praise. But his full attention was all the praise Naomi needed. The muted, whispered 'yes, yes that's right' was more than enough. Naomi didn't need to be told she was smart, or that she was clever or that she was a good agent. She knew all of that already.
She sat in the windowsill, the phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder. It was grey outside, the clouds promising snow before the day was out. Beneath the small apartment she shared with the man on the bed, Christmas decorations caught the dim light. There were lights on the streetlamp across the street. It didn't feel like Christmas. Somewhere out there was a madman, a slayer of young girls.
Naomi almost hadn't made the case. She was a woman. This was gruesome. They had enough agents. But Naomi was sick of being coddled - the FBI had undergone changes in the past decade, but not enough. Even in Quanitco, Naomi felt the unappreciative eyes on her. This was a boy's club. She knew the statistics - only 14 of the whole damned Bureau were women. How many of those were agents? Not many at all. She hated it. The way they treated her, the way the conversation ceased when she entered the room. The way they tried to protect her, because she was a woman.
But the man on the phone didn't care that she was a woman. Sometimes it was as though he didn't even realize. She had completed the same training as the men. She had sat through the same lessons on sex crimes, revitalized by Hazelwood but still a place not welcoming of women. She had thought going into profiling would be different, that it would be a place where gender didn't matter. Where she thought gender hadn't mattered. It still mattered to some. But not to the man on the phone.
It mattered to the man on the bed. He didn't want her to work. He didn't want her to deal with death and mutilation and trauma. He didn't want her to see things he felt would damage her. He tried to shield her from bodies, keep her from violent crime scenes. She knew it was because he cared, but she hated it. She loved her job. She was good at her job. She was better than him, she always had been.
Sometimes, she thought that was the real problem.
The man on the phone finally picked up. They spoke in hushed voices, Naomi's eyes on the grey street below. She didn't see the Christmas lights. She wanted to keep talking, to change the subject and discuss trivial things. To speak to the man on the phone as a friend, a confidante, not simply a case consultant. She wanted to tell him so much. She wanted the connection she felt and thought to be real. But the man on the bed was waiting for her, a beer in hand and the television on. He'd only get angry if she was too long.
There was silence on the line. Naomi gripped the telephone cord, her knuckles white. She wanted the man on the bed to be more like the man on the phone. She loved him - the man on the bed - but he frustrated her. Sometimes she thought she loved the idea of him. The brash young agent who took matters into his own hands. Sometimes she thought she was falling in love with the idea of the man on the telephone. Most of the time, she didn't know what she felt for either.
"Naomi? Are you there?"
"I'm here." She swallowed, the grey clouds reflected in her eyes, mirroring her mood back to her. It would be so easy to confess herself, to spill her soul to a man who's face she'd never even see. And what then?
"Is everything alright?"
The man on the phone had asked after her. Naomi's throat closed. Nothing was alright. She was in love with a shadow and she was in love with a dream. She wanted the man on the telephone and she had the man in the bed, and she knew that the reality of each was nowhere near the dream or the shadow of either.
"Fine," she said. "Bad weather. I think it's getting to me."
"Okay. I'll be in touch if something new comes up."
The line went dead. Naomi held the phone to her ear even still, toes curled beneath her feet, fingers tangled in the cord. It began to snow. The voice on the line lingered in her ear. She heard movement in the bedroom. She hung up the phone. Nothing but a dream. She had her shadow, the remnants of a man she had loved fiercely and passionately. The man who wanted to marry her, who whispered words of love in her ear in the middle of the night. Maybe he was a dream, too. Maybe everything was. And maybe that was the problem.
Even dreams turned cold and empty in the light of reality.