All I Need
He downs several glasses of scotch that night. Whether to numb the pain or to simply get so drunk that he can't remember, he doesn't know. What he does know is that he needs to keep drinking.
It's been a day that he will never forget, yet wish that he could. A day when everything else in the world stopped mattering, because he was staring at bombs and watching people get killed right in front of him.
Death is no stranger to him; nevertheless he can't seem to rid his brain of the echoes of gunshots. Because he knows that advocating for a body that's brought to him already dead, and witnessing the life being snatched from someone unjustifiably, are two very different things.
He hadn't seen anyone, after the bomb failed to go off. He hadn't wanted to. There would have been questions: why was he there in the first place? Why did he stay there for ten whole minutes after he had seen the bomb? Why weren't his instincts telling him to leave?
And they were questions that he just didn't think he could face. So he'd simply slipped out, back to his car, and driven home. He'd switched his phone off to ignore Leo's incessant calling, sank into the sofa with the bottle of brown liquid and a glass in his hand, and sat in silence as the descending darkness gradually swallowed him up. Now here he was.
The scotch was burning his throat as he swallowed, but the soreness was a welcome relief. Part of him knew that he should have died today. Like so many others had.
There was a knock at the door. He frowns and glancs at the clock. Twenty past eleven.
He groans and climbs to his feet, navigating furniture in the dark room until he reaches the front door.
He opens it and she's stood there, shaking in her thin top and jeans, her face pale and her hair thrown up into a messy bun.
"Harry," she breaths, gazing at him imploringly. "I didn't know where else to go."
He doesn't say anything; simply steps back to let her proceed into the apartment. As he closes the door, he turns to face her and says, "I'm drunk."
"Good. That means I can be too without having to worry," she tells him, and downs the newly filled glass of scotch that was waiting on the coffee table.
"That was mine," he says, a slight slur to his words.
"Not anymore it's not."
He's not so drunk that he can't tell that she's in a bad place. He knows that she doesn't normally drink like that.
He sits close beside her on the sofa, so close that their knees bump together. He tries to look at her, gage her emotions, but he can only see a sliver of her face in the moonlight.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he suggests, already pre-empting her answer.
"No. Do you?"
"No."
They fall into an uneasy silence, both knowing that the other has a lot more to say than that. He wonders who will break first, who will crack under the weight of the burden that they're bearing.
It's her.
"You know what, I do want to talk about it," she says loudly, slamming down the glass.
He nods, encouraging her to continue, but he doesn't expect what comes next.
"You left me! You said you'd come right back, but you didn't!" She throws the accusation at him, and he doesn't miss the flash of hurt in her eyes. It shocks him, and he stumbles to his feet.
"It wasn't that simple," he tries to explain, suddenly finding himself feeling considerably more sober. "I got caught up with-"
"Oh, you got caught up! You got caught up! Never mind the fact that I had a gun pressed to my head!" she spits caustically, also standing so that she's level with him.
"I didn't know," he tries again. "If I had known then I'd have-"
"You would have what, Harry?" she asks, her voice laced with biting sarcasm. "Come to my rescue? Been my knight in shining armour? Risked your life to save mine? "
His answer takes all the breath from her body.
"Yes."
She's momentarily stunned and he thinks that her anger has dissipated, but it hasn't.
"Well, it doesn't matter anyway," she says poisonously. "Because I'm here, I'm alive, and clearly I don't need you to enable that. You always want to be the hero, Harry, yet I manage perfectly fine without you."
He shrugs, trying to show that her words aren't hurting him, when really they're tearing his heart into a million pieces. "You don't mean that," he says quietly, trying to convince himself as much as her.
"Oh, don't I?" she asks scathingly. But he can see that her façade is also beginning to slip. She's blinking away tears, now, and can hardly look him in the eye.
"If something had happened to you today..." he murmurs, unable to complete the sentence.
Her hands ball into fists and she looks physically pained as she screws her eyes tightly shut, looks down at her feet and releases a long breath.
Eventually her eyes flutter open again. He can see that something's changed. The anger has gone, to be replaced by pain and hurt and emotion.
"You didn't come back for me," she breathes, the words catching in her throat. Her gaze connects with his and it knocks him for six.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, and he means it. He crosses the two steps in between them with ease and envelopes her in a hug.
She struggles, initially, and resists, but he keeps a firm hold on her until he eventually feels her relax in his arms and release a sob.
"I didn't mean it," she mumbles, her face buried in his chest. "I do need you."
A smile graces his lips for a second. "I know."
"No, you don't know," she tells him, and pulls back so that she can look him directly in the eyes. "You don't know at all."
He's confused by her sudden change in tone, but is slightly comforted by the fact that she still has her arms wrapped around his waist.
"I need you," she says again, slowly and clearly. "So much more than you realise."
She's looking at him anxiously, expecting him to know instantly what she's talking about, and part of him does. Part of him knows exactly what she's getting at, but it scares him so he chooses to remain silent and let her continue.
"I tried to call you a million times today," she tells him. "Since we got separated back at the uni. Each time you didn't pick up my fear increased tenfold. Then I got home and literally didn't know what I wanted to do. Apart from one thing: see you. All I wanted to do was see you. So I got in the car and came straight here." She looks away and sighs, before looking back up at him again and saying, "How pathetic is that? I need you so badly in my life that I can't function properly without you?"
"Nikki..." He breaths her name, just as she breathed his earlier at the door. But he doesn't know how else to respond, so he places a hand on the side of her face, his thumb gently stroking her cheek, and presses his lips to hers.
The kiss is gentle, soft and over in a matter of seconds, yet it says more than any words.
He breaks away and the smile is back as he looks at her. "Have you ever considered that I might need you just as much?" he mutters.
For the first time since she arrived, her lips curl up into a smile and she breathes a sigh, not of despair, but of exhilaration.
"Perhaps that's a consequence of love," she suggests casually.
"Perhaps it is," he agrees, just as nonchalantly but struggling to retain a grin.
She bites her lip but is unable to prevent the giggle that escapes her. He laughs and gathers her into his arms again. She's soft and warm and familiar all at the same time, and he relishes in the fact that she's alive and she's there.
So I wrote this at 2:00am this morning. I literally couldn't sleep without writing it down. It's a bit of an angsty mess, if I'm honest, but I guess that's a consequence of writing it in the early hours of the morning.
Please review and let me know what you think. :)
Charlotte
xxx