Anatomy of Breaking Down
Summary: Fear is a powerful motivator. Fragments of a shared breakdown, Andy/Sharon.
A/N: A bit dark and a bit smutty, and well you know. =)
/one/
It was a matter of nature; a universal imperative that implied a straight causative line of events being set in motion. Causality was a strange concept to grasp when everything was tipped upside down yet it was inherent in the middle of even nightmares.
Shock came in many guises, least of all when terror beckoned it forth from the depths. Advancement equals every opportune moment – why it was the advancement of a dark prowling nightmare that unfolded before her eyes was lost on her.
Sharon felt left out in a dark space, nothing to do, nothing to see. Floating, falling; it did not matter. It felt like a dangerous void, a deep cave opening up in her mind. A moment drawn out till it was stretched past its own fabric, reality rendered incomprehensible. Terror was not an integrated part of her – it was barely an entity she had made an acquaintance with. It was a strange foreign being in the periphery of her life, shimmering and inconsistent, not a fully visible creature to her.
It was vivid to her now.
Darkness poured out of her, pores wide open for particles to drift through; she hesitated to guess what floated back in through the cracks. Terror had emblazoned itself into her heart, assimilation following through to the rest of her body.
The point upon which she existed, the point that held her together for the time being, was the interaction of lips. His mouth on hers, her hand around his neck bringing him closer even if it did not seem possible. Large body against her own, lanky and solid against her, pressing her into a cold wall – keeping her occupied.
His bottom lip in between her own lips with an insistent tug, molding, moving – imbued by the impatient need to keep herself anchored to something. She bit down gently on it, pressed her lips further into his and tried to keep him aligned with her.
He was in the middle of withdrawing – hands on her shoulders, distance in touch, abrupt in the sudden air between her body and his.
"Sharon," he started but she interrupted him with another kiss, leaning up and catching his mouth in a flurry, fully intent on shutting him up. She had no need for words, no need to decipher and interpret.
"Hey, slow down," he said in between another kiss, voice uncharacteristically soft.
Ignoring him she snaked her hands in under his leather jacket - under the white shirt. The intake of breath when her palms met his bare abdomen, it slithered through her skin and she nibbled along his jaw, behind his ear with her lips – seeking further contact.
A hand landed on her own hip, crept up – large, flat palm that was warm against her own bare skin when it came into contact with her stomach under her blouse. His other hand followed the same pattern on her other hip.
She sighed.
She wanted to tell him exactly what she wanted, exactly what she needed but she had a vague concern that he would not understand. She kept quiet, aggressively sealed her lips to his again.
It was still vivid in her memory though – an intense, irrevocable image. The blunt vision of the gun barrel, the cross-eyed dizziness when she had narrowed her eyes and the whole gun had come into focus, the angry prickly eyes behind the weapon, intent on her – the pressure of the cold metal against her forehead, moving further into her skin, hard against her skull. The force of terror just as impressionable as the cold object pressed into her skin.
Her hands trembled at the memory but she buried them into the hard muscles of her lieutenant's bare back, pressing further into his flesh, the deep groan that travelled from his throat to the cavern of her own mouth relaxing in its own way.
Andy Flynn, the stocky presence of something solid pressed against her, the large figure who enveloped her in a glow that threatened to overwhelm her. It was an intense wish, fervent and ferrous within her. She needed him to merely swallow her whole – overwhelm her in sensation, touch and nothing else. Till she became numb and completely devoid of distress, completely devoid of anything.
Oblivion was at this point in time a most sought after treasure.
Breaking their kiss, his hands once again kept her a little away from himself, large hands on her hipbones, a calming pressure. Again, it was another softness to him that threw her off course.
It was the one thing she had thought she could count on with him, and he neglected to act according to nature. A mutation when it came to causality; it was a breathtaking thought. Why was he not acting like he was supposed to? What had happened to the surety of action, reaction? The progress in which one event set into motion the blossoming of another event?
Hesitation was not part of the concept; it was not a part of what she had started. He was behaving unlike himself, really.
"Hey – Will you listen to me? You're trembling like a leaf, you feel feverish to touch," he paused, a tender finger on her chin, "Goddamn, listen, you're a mess," he continued, his voice low and calm, vibrating with such concern it became an estranged tone to her, "Will you look at me?"
Resolutely she had been avoiding his gaze, staring into the sharp contours of his jaw, contemplating whether he had shaved recently, the small noticeable stubble on his chin catching her attention. Contemplating why this was wrong – why concern felt misplaced. Wondering about the contents of her refrigerator and whether she would need to pick up groceries before she headed home.
"Sharon?", then "Capt'n?"
She looked up but quickly averted her eyes again, coming to rest on the white concrete wall opposite her. White tiles, detached and sterile, covering up the small room all around. The tiles looked cold – they felt cold against her back. They reminded her of winter. Winter, cold and still yet tumultuous and wild.
"Shit," she heard him muttering to himself.
She wondered why he wanted to talk. Why now of all times did he have to second guess, why did he stop and contemplate his actions? She needed him brash and emotional not considerate and thoughtful.
There was a reason she clung to him, a reason she had sunk her fingers into his arm when he had untangled her from the rigid position she had been in, had taken her away from the scene, had taken her away from the squadroom later on.
Words did not suit her in this moment, thoughts were too grim to hang unto and it was a matter of simply existing. She buried her head into his chest, snuck against him, arms going around his middle in a tight grip.
/
Andy had not been prepared for this nightmare.
He was not equipped to handling a traumatized Sharon Raydor. The concept in itself was esoteric and a puzzling thing to comprehend. It was not the notion of vulnerability; it was not the essence of being fragile that was a strange concept. He had come to terms with her in the many guises that life drew forth; he had been a spectator to many facets of her, even more on display the moment she transferred into his division.
Once upon a time he had been under the delusion that she was detached, cold and far away for mere mortals to understand. An enigma that was not meant to be unraveled. Mysteries had the odd quality of being unobservable; the moment you revealed a tangent to a mystery it evaporated and left nothing behind but unease.
He had been unwavering in his opinion about her till suddenly everything seemed to happen at once; it happened too abruptly and in such a swift awakening that he had trouble narrowing down the exact point upon which this obscure deity had descended from the high skies and landed surely in his own world.
It did not matter; illusions were but tools to accomplish agendas. She could be vulnerable; he had come to terms with this.
But dark panic, dark shock; terrorized, vacant eyes – clingy hands. It was not a quantity of being vulnerable. It was a more profound aspect of something deeper. Something that resonated within him, drew small threads into his skin, anchored under the outer layer of his skin, deep into where the more complicated cells of his being resided. She had firmly attached herself to him; even if it was not a conscious deed, even if it was not reasonable or sought after.
She was not herself. It was a strange creature in his arms, shivering and buried into his chest. Avoiding eye contact, gripping around the flesh of his sides to better hold onto him. A little creature, animate and pumped with adrenaline – ready to fight or flee, he gathered. An arcane defense mode that translated into latching unto him, lips full and soft against his own, yet rough in their impatient need to devour and forget.
Sighing he tightened his embrace.
The problem lay in another area; he was traumatized himself.
There was no point in denying this; it was vivid clear in his mind, distinct in the tension that had situated itself comfortably into his skin. It was a nightmare come to life, infused by breath that should not be possible. He was well-familiar with the concept of monsters hiding out in plain sight, in daylight – he was well-familiar with the concept of monsters prowling, slithering in the dark, crouching and otherwise waiting.
It was the concept of her being in the middle of this darkness that was novel; it was herein his panic had its origin.
It felt suffocating. The incident had shoveled coal down his throat, filled his body till it was on the point of nausea, set the soot-covered black things on fire. Burning from the inside out – a vile liquid rapidly taking over his body, slick and foreign. Love was not supposed to be doused in darkness till it felt like drowning.
It was a curious thing; coping strategies were in some way deep rooted in him, buried in the cells that made him volatile and unpredictable. Anger and aggression were creatures that came to the surface then, he welcomed them with urgency.
The dangers of stray bullets or angry suspects were one thing but direct, sinister harm was an entirely different entity. Danger was different when it was up close and in your face. Reality was fragments of moments that haphazardly followed each other when violence came too close. Threatening gun, angry eyes and unstable environment; it had been hell.
That glistening weapon being waved around, being forced into the side of her face – shoved into the side of her cheek, pushed into her temple, splitting one eyebrow. Angry taunting words from an unpredictable, malevolent narcissist and the incident had been without insight to the future. It was one of those times where life could flounder in any direction, one of those times where it all hinged on but a split of a second. It had been intermittent silence within him interrupted by the loud sound of his own heart, fast and irregular – his eyes had been zeroed in on the large hand around her throat, the heavy body above her and that gun forcing its way into her face.
He had watched the splattering of blood from afar and yet he had been too close to not perceive every little nuance to the opaque, red shower. How small droplets had landed on impact with one side of her face, down her chest in a little gruesome cesspool of malignancy. He had watched her eyes, cold and disconnected, a murky green that reminded him more of grey than any other color. She had not moved, a lone statue – carved in marble as a flurry of motion had suddenly come to life around her. Sanchez moving closer, Tao and Provenza further back.
White and red; on the floor, on her – within her. It had been mesmerizing in its nausea-inducing capacity, frozen him in his spot, unable to move.
A white statue mid center in the room, on the ground with the dead body next to her – the pooling blood that crept around her. The deep, dark red liquid that stained the side of her face in a little show of causality, in stark contrast to the pallor of her skin, the dark red hair that curled and seemed to envelope the blood, different hues to contemplate.
The impression the gun had left against her temple, the imprint visible still – flesh hit with force so it left behind an indentation. A mark of terror, a bruise of what could have been. It was a what-if that left him unhindered by restraints and pushed him far ahead of any considerations he would otherwise adhere to.
She had been calm, quiet – an unadulterated and blunt object in the middle of a pool of death.
Where she had appeared composed he had been soaked through with panic, a disposition that swept through him with no remorse, no hesitation. His own knees had felt weak; his mouth had felt like cotton and the inside of his throat had felt raw, grazed and tender, hands that shook all of a sudden. The image had been so vivid even if she stood in front of him now, alive and well. It had been right in front of his eyes, forming in the neural network of his brain, the image of her head splattered, brain matter in among a rain of blood.
He had already been down in the deep; the inevitable fall that succumbed to nothing but darkness. An abyss that reeked and felt rank, welcoming him with open arms and claws that dug into skin – sharp teeth that sunk into him and kept him under for good.
Time had moved agonizingly slow in the same breath that he perceived to be too fast. A flurry of motion, his own limbs moving without his consent suddenly, without his knowledge.
Dread and fear too visible on the tips of his fingers, on the edge of his mouth; it had all happened in such a slow fashion it had felt like being disconnected. Yet, suddenly here they were. Back at headquarters, in an obscure part of the building where they rarely set foot, white stark walls of an unused restroom. The smudges on her cheek had been dark red and slightly crusted, visible to him still even if the blood had been well washed off.
Different agendas, different intentions and yet it left them in the same place. He had needed to wash the blood away from her face before it became a permanent vision in his retinas. She had – apparently – needed to wash away the invisible blood inside her mind with human contact. They had both needed to be far away from the seeking eyes of others.
Her vacant eyes had followed him, arms leaden when he had directed her down stairs and through narrow hallways. The look had been familiar to him; he knew it was a matter of getting her away from the many people that flurried about their squadroom. Those colorful red streaks on her white skin had seemed like chinks in her armor, had called to him with an ache to make them disappear. It was perhaps more his perception of her that had chinks in it; she was compact even now.
It had been a matter of removing himself from the crowd, before his other hand impacted with a wall as well. His right hand sore, knuckles raw and bruised from exerted frustration, concrete hard against a fist when the two connected. He had an underlying thought that bones were if not broken then decidedly bruised.
Anger always came forth when he had no control over events, always when he least expected it. Anger followed hand in hand with fear. That was a given, a prerequisite.
He tightened his grip around her, forced her closer and lowered his head.
"Listen," he began in a soft voice, "I'm not about to fuck you here, now – okay? You're not yourself. I know, okay, I know how you feel, what's going on inside of you – but this won't solve anything. I'm here – I'm right here," he paused, then, "Will you say something?"
Her fingers dug painfully into his skin, nails sharp into the flesh just under his ribcage. Just slightly more pressure and surely she would break through skin. He did not mind. Pain had another implication, differing on what lay behind its intent. Sometimes it was a welcomed entity.
Her eyes seemed dark with derision when she looked up, when she kept her eyes firmly on his.
