Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

Every time you close your eyes, he's still there.

You can still see him holding that gun to your head; hear him retelling the harrowing tale of how his best friend and the man he loved came to let him down in such horrendous ways...

You can still feel the cold of the floor under your palms as you knelt beside his lifeless body and the scratching of your throat as you screamed at the armed police to get everyone out of the building.

He was just a kid. A kid whose overactive imagination and malicious friend led to a day of fear and destruction.

You've never truly understood good and evil since doing what you do. You've seen acts of pure evil committed because of a twisted need to do good. But Scott Weston? He was just evil. And his face haunts every minute your life, because you know he's still out there, living in some cushy young-offenders, telling the people around him that it was all Neil Corrigan's fault.

And Neil? He's dead. Shot whilst surrendering. A lost soul unable to tell the world his story; of how he shot his friend because he didn't like what he was doing, of how he hid in the toilet because he wasn't cold-hearted enough to revel in his peers dying.

And you're lying in bed, perfectly safe seeing as two weeks has passed since that fateful day, but every time you close your eyes, he's still there. They both are.

There's another person there, too. Etched into your eyelids. But he's there for a very different reason, a reason that you never dwell on because it scares you too much. A reason that you're not even sure is real, because it only comes to you in that magical moment between consciousness and unconsciousness, that moment when you let down all your defences and face reality for a split second.

So you push it to one side, focus on the bad things instead, rather than something that could, potentially, turn out to be very good.

You slip out of bed, wincing slightly at the cold of the floor on your bare feet. It feels magnified, for some reason. Everything does lately. Your senses are heightened.

You pull on the jeans that you were wearing yesterday, and some fluffy socks from out of the drawer. Then a grey jumper. You don't do anything with your hair, you don't even run a brush through it. You don't care.

Then you catch your reflection in the mirror, and you realise that you're wearing exactly the same now as you were then.

The memories rise in your throat like vomit and you tear of the clothes that you've just put on so quickly it could have been supersonic.

You're left, now, stood in the middle of your dark bedroom in your underwear, shivering in the cold with your arms hugged around yourself tightly.

Tears spill down your cheeks, and you want to stop them but you can't. Slowly, you move across to your wardrobe and select a different pair of jeans, and a thin long-sleeved top.

You wonder, as you dress, just how screwed up you are after that day. After everything that happened. The gunshots, Harry telling you that he'll be right back and then disappearing, Leo telling you to go home, Neil's final gasp as the life is plucked so unjustifiably from him; it all still rings in your ears.

Some nights, like tonight, you don't sleep a wink because of it. Some nights you're content with just sitting and staring, trying to rid yourself of those images that are burned into your brain.

But tonight that's not enough. Tonight, like other nights, you know that sitting and staring isn't going to help quench the irrational combination of fear and grief and remembering that grip your insides.

So you pick up your car keys, shove your feet into the nearest pair of shoes you can find, and leave your apartment.

The car park is cold, when you reach it. The frosty air bites at your cheeks, and you notice that it's raining too. You hurry to your car, sitting down in it heavily and switching the heating on full blast.

It doesn't take you long to get there, the roads are deserted at three o'clock in the morning. Besides, it's a route you know better than the back of your hand.

Before you know it, you're stood outside his door, shivering and shaking. You rap hard with your knuckles. Too hard, your hand hurts. And then you wait.

He takes a while, and you need to knock three more times until you hear signs of life.

Then the door is wrenched open, and he's stood there in his pyjamas, his hair sticking up at odd angles, wincing in the sudden bright light.

He frowns at you concernedly, but his expression softens when he sees that you're trembling. Wordlessly, he pulls you into his arms and holds you tight, and immediately you begin to relax.

"You're all wet," he whispers as he reluctantly lets you go. You tell him that it's raining and he passes you one of his sweatshirts to put on.

Neither of you say anything. You don't have to. This isn't the first time you've done this since the shooting, and you doubt it will be the last.

He takes you by the hand and leads you through to his bedroom. You climb under the covers, wrapping the duvet tightly around yourself.

He presses a kiss to your hair, before leaving the room again to switch off the lights and lock the front door.

Anyone would think you're the perfect couple, when he returns a moment later and slides into bed next to you.

But you're not.

Because if they looked closely, they would see that your bodies don't actually touch. And that you always sleep with your back to him.

It has to be like that, however much you may want otherwise. Because if it wasn't like that, if it was the other way round, then that reason why he is always imprinted in the forefront of your mind would become too real, and the pain that it brings with it would be unbearable.

However, tonight ... tonight is different. Tonight you can feel the tension between you, tension that isn't normally there.

You're both wondering how long this will go on for, how much longer you can deny the inevitable.

You screw your eyes up tight, willing yourself to sleep and forget about everything. Forget about Scott Weston, forget about Neil Corrigan, forget about Harry Cunningham.

Before you know it you're crying again. It just all too overwhelming, too much. It's been building and building inside of you, and now, like a volcano, you need to release it.

Hot, salty tears stream down your cold cheeks; you shoot up in bed and take deep, gasping, uncontrollable sobs.

And then he has you in his arms again, one hand on the back of your head, holding you against his t-shirt clad chest, where you cry and cry until your tear ducts refuse to cry any more.

And the whole time he just holds you. Rubbing your back soothingly, muttering meaningless words of comfort, until finally exhaustion begins to take hold and you slowly regain control of your breathing.

Together, you fall back down onto the pillows, your arms still wound around each other tightly, your head still lying on his chest. He shuts his eyes almost instantaneously, his breathing evening out and slowing down.

So you close your eyes too.

And then it's that moment again, balanced between consciousness and unconsciousness, when everything has such clarity, and everything feels possible.

No longer do you try and deny it. You know what brings you to his apartment; you know why it's only him who understands and is able to calm you down.

So you listen for a moment to determine that he is really asleep, before you whisper those three small words into the darkness.

Harry's arms pull you closer, his lips are suddenly on your forehead, and he tells you that he loves you too.

For the first time in two weeks, you wish the night would last forever.

A bit random, I s'pose. Oh well. Loosely inspired by rewatching Shadows, which I did this morning and has just depressed me all day. Because it's so fabulous and scary and tense and sad. So, depressed me in a good way. :)

Lovelove
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