title from "disarm" by the civil wars (originally by smashing pumpkins).
You remember a scream.
It might've been your own, you're not sure, you don't remember that part. But you remember a scream, and it's dark until it's not, and he whispers your name over and over again until you whisper his back.
/ / /
There is so much smoke, and so much heat, and this ringing in the very base of your skull that keeps getting louder and louder and louder and your memories are screaming across your vision until you can see nothing else. You are thirty feet away from where you were standing a few seconds ago, and you remember Eric is here just before you hear their voices; Sam and Callen and Deeks; and you want to tell them - remember him, don't forget to save him - but your voice isn't working and then everything goes red.
/ / /
You open your eyes, and meet Kensi's. They are lighter and darker shades of brown, both of them bloodshot and red-rimmed; and it doesn't make sense, because Kensi Blye never cries - she is thick-skinned and strong and bulletproof and she does not cry, only she is, was.
"Nell," she exhales, "thank God."
But you blink your eyes shut again - hard - because you don't like the way that hospital drugs elapse everything in a fog.
"Where's Eric?" your voice has the rasp of a life-long chain smoker, and briefly, you wonder why. Mostly, though, you just want the answer to your question. You don't get one. You hear a stifled cry - her face is probably covered with her hands - and it's mere moments before you hear the uncomfortable scratch of a chair against the linoleum. She doesn't leave, but she paces (you listen to her footsteps - they're in time with the heart monitor) back and forth and back across the small white room.
"He's..." she breathes in slow measures, calmly, but there's a catch that she probably doesn't notice. "He didn't... He..."
You decide you're just dreaming.
/ / /
"Eric?" you cough, blinking once, twice. "Eric."
When your vision clears, you spot him lying ten feet or so away from you (in the opposite direction, he was standing on the other side of you before). He's staring towards you, but there's blood on his face and he isn't moving, and you can't hear anything through the sound of your heart trying to break your ribs.
"Eric!" you crawl towards him underneath the smoke, and when he hears his name, he winces. It doesn't occur to you that he was trying to follow your voice.
"Nell," he breathes, smiling shakily at you. "Hey."
You aren't entirely sure why you exhale a gentle laugh at the greeting, maybe it's out of anxiety, but you reach to unknot the tie around his neck, to unbutton the top button of his shirt. You don't ask him if he's hurt as you're trying to wipe the blood from his forehead, because obviously, he is. But a quick once-over finds his leg trapped beneath a chunk of marble column, and you don't even give him a chance to lie before you mutter "Oh, Eric," and when your eyes travel back up to his, he's frantic.
"You need to get out of here, Nell." he says, his words rushed, his air limited. But both of you can still have a chance, you think, you're not going anywhere.
That exact thought leaves your lips as "I'm not leaving you," and he wants to argue but he knows it's no use. You aren't going to leave him here to die. You're going to sit with him until you both turn to dust, because you don't want to live without him, and given the choice, this is what you'd choose.
/ / /
You aren't sure how you got here, but you're sitting on Eric's favorite stretch of beach, right where the tide meets the shore. The water rushes in, and the foam tickles your toes.
("Nell, one day I'm going to get you to come in the water!" he shouts from his surfboard, and you laugh, shaking your head at him. You know he's right, but you like to pretend that you can say no to him. And he smiles at you, burning that laugh to memory before he turns back to the waves.
He doesn't hear you whisper, "Not today.")
You sigh.
This time is going to be just like every other time, you know it. You'll sit, and you'll wait, and sooner or later (usually sooner) he'll show up with his surfboard. Sometimes, he'll go out on the water; and sometimes, he'll just sit right beside you and wait for you to talk (he never stopped waiting). Either way, he always shows up, and he's always better than being alone.
You sigh.
Not today.
And you are ankle-deep in the surf, the cold water splashing up against your bare legs. Not today. You've been waiting for hours and you're still alone. (He waited for hours and days and months and years and he never stopped and he never will now). He's not here.
Not even the thing he has come to be, terrifying and silent and cold, even he is absent now. You've come to hate him, but you wish he'd come back.
(Something is better than nothing and Eric is here but he's not and you miss him with every beat of your bleeding heart - you feel like you're being torn in half from the inside out and you miss him more than you thought a person could miss another person.)
And you are knee-deep, waist-deep, neck-deep, you are being dragged into the sea and you should be afraid, but you aren't. You are going to find him. You inhale the salt water in shallow gasps, and you do not scream, you do not cry, you do not panic - you are calm and you fade into the waves in the most painful of ways.
Every single cell of your body is on fire.
/ / /
There's a knock on your door at two thirty in the morning.
You weren't asleep, but that doesn't stop you from wondering who, and why they thought this was the best time to pay you a visit. (You couldn't sleep because you're ruining him and you're being stupid and stubborn and he's in love with you but you've made him terrified of saying it out loud.)
"Eric?" but he captures your words with his lips and you want to get out of this while you still can; you want to push him away and tell him that you're only partners and that you're such bad news for him, but you're wearing one of his shirts and you're too selfish to give it back.
"I brought you flowers," he inhales as he nudges the yellow chrysanthemums into your empty hands, "and I'm sorry. I don't know what I did, but I'm sorry."
You exhale slowly, because he just showed up at your apartment in the middle of the night and he kissed you and he brought you flowers, and you're an incredibly intelligent woman but you feel like you're missing something.
But no, you're not. He thinks this is his fault. He thinks that you've been avoiding him because of something he did, but that's a lie. Because you destroy everyone you love, and that's never going to change, and you're pulling him in to a terrible, lethal trap.
And you want more than anything to tell him such, but you won't. You know you won't. Because you're frightened and you're selfish and you kiss him instead of saying anything at all and he kisses you back even though it's going to get him killed.
(And he does such sinful things to your nerve endings; and you think that maybe you won't feel so awful if you wake up alone tomorrow.
You don't.)
/ / /
He breathes in frozen knives against your cheeks, against your neck - slicing through your skin, but he won't spill your blood. You shiver. (You tug one of his hoodies on over your head and inhale, exhale, inhale until your body stops shaking). And when you open your eyes, he is gone.
You want him to come back.
"Eric?" you breathe, climbing out from under your sheets. "Eric."
He still isn't here.
"Eric, please. I'm... I'm so tired of this."
You try so hard to keep the tears out of your eyes, but you can't. He doesn't speak anymore, he just watches, silently, and you remember when hearing your name escape his lips was like hearing something so sacred that it shouldn't be said aloud. Inhaling slowly - his hoodie still smells like him - you lie back on your bed, you stare at the ceiling. You wait.
And it's not too long before you feel the weight of his body lying next to yours, his arm snaking around your waist.
You wait.
/ / /
You don't know how long it's been, but he's looking up at you and you smile, because you're so used to him looking at you when he thinks you aren't looking back.
You don't know how long you've been sitting here, waiting, but your eyes are starting to burn and you love him, so you whisper his name and you kiss him just so you can feel his heart beating.
"I love you, you know," he breathes against your lips, and you just kiss him again, and again; until your lips hurt because you're going to die and you love him and there's nothing you can do but wait for the smoke to fill your lungs and the flames to consume you.
"I know."
/ / /
When you wake up, his body is wrapped around yours, and you're warm. Comfortable. Happy, almost. But you still feel guilty, and you slip out of his arms without waking him because if he wakes up he might have questions.
(Why did you kiss him in the middle of Mario Kart, or maybe he kissed you; why did things go so far when they shouldn't be going anywhere; what if you're putting everything on the line when he doesn't want you the way you want him, you're risking everything and he doesn't want you.)
It's freezing in his bedroom, and you think this might hurt less if you stop thinking. So you don't think about how cold you are as you pull one of his hoodies on over your head (the same hoodie that may or may not become your lifeline). You don't think about how you might've just ruined everything as you gather your clothes from the floor.
You don't think that he might actually be sad when he wakes up and his bed is still warm, and he hears the door close behind you.
/ / /
He's in and out of consciousness, and you stroke his hair back, and there's an overwhelming sense of longing filling your chest.
You're not going to leave him, you can't leave him, and it's going to kill you.
And you're okay with that.
/ / /
"Eric," you mumble, shaking him when it's been too long since his eyes were last open. He groans, inhaling quickly enough that he has to cough for a good minute before he can speak. (You can hardly hear him over the crackling of the fires that shouldn't be too far now, but at least he's still talking, he's still alive). "Stay with me, partner. I'm sure they'll get here soon."
You don't need to say who they are. He knows. The team, your team. There's no way that they aren't on the move by now. They're coming, and they're going to save you, and you're both going to be okay.
"It's getting hard to breathe," Eric rasps, and you tighten your grip on his hand, eyes searching his face for minute signs of pain. There are a few, but mostly he just looks stressed, and tired, like he does after a really long day at work. You must look just about the same way, because after a few seconds, he adds "I'm never going undercover again."
And you know that he's trying to make you smile, but the gesture just pushes a sob out of your chest and you're supposed to be the strong one but you never have been.
/ / /
You are on edge, you can feel it burning in your blood, but he is there with a steady hand and a smile and you should be wary of him, but you can't be.
He shouldn't be here.
It's a brief whisper in the back of your mind - he doesn't belong here - but you disregard it and wrap yourself up in his arms. "Stay," you mumble, and he does even though he doesn't.
/ / /
You promise, if you can just see him again, you'll -
You don't know what you'll do, but you'll be better.
/ / /
They stare at you - Sam and Callen; Kensi and Deeks - they watch you and they speak to you in shattered voices, but never to him, and you'd think that it's strange but you're probably just over-analyzing again.
"You just need to - "
"Triangulate his cell signal, I know," you don't understand why Kensi looks like she's ready to cry when you finish his sentence, just like always, but she looks like she's ready to cry. (You've seen tears in her eyes so often lately; and you're scared, because she's Kensi and the only time she ever cries is when Rose lets go even though she said she would never. But she's crying now, so you guess you were wrong).
Deeks is running a hand over his face and he's frowning; and Sam looks kind of lost, like he's here but he's also somewhere else. And it's Callen who thanks you (but not Eric) quietly when you give them their suspect's location, and all of them are gone before you can even ask why they all look so sad.
In a few hours, you're going over to see Hetty before you head home and she's got that look on her face; there's a part of you that wonders when you started knowing her so well.
(You remind yourself that you don't, you only know this one tiny part of her - Henrietta Lange - but she knows you and she knows that something isn't right. And she doesn't say a word, but she makes a cup of your favorite tea after you leave because you're never coming back.)
The next day, Deeks tries to fill your head with lies;
{No.
"Don't say that."
Your words don't sound like your own, but that doesn't matter. You're willing the images to wash out of your eyes - the lights exploding, hot, it's so hot, flames, smoke, can't breathe you can't breathe you can't - "He's okay, he's, he's not..."
You can't pull in a whole breath without letting it go and everything is wrong and you hear him on the inside, "Nell, focus, stay calm," and you remember that he hated seeing you on the edges of hysteria but he loves you so much.
"Nell."
Not Eric, Deeks. This is Deeks, you're sitting next to Deeks. And he's trying to talk but you don't want to listen. "The team can't keep this up anymore. He's gone."
"No."
"Nell."
"Deeks," your voice shakes and you can't deal with this right now. You need to get back to Eric, he's waiting for you. (He's watching you through the black haze, "please, save yourself, go,")
"You have to move on." Deeks whispers, desperately, and his hands are like cuffs around your wrists and you can't move. You don't like this. He's messing with your head and he's never done that before. Everybody's changing and everything is changing and you don't like it at all.}
And you just want to know why none of them ever told you he was dead.
/ / /
"Eric?" you whisper, turning your head towards him briefly, eyes opening to meet his, already watching you.
"Yeah?" his voice is level, always level, and -
"You aren't going to leave me, are you?" you are hesitant, frightened, patient. Your hands are cold, but you feel like burning.
He pauses now, taking a moment to trace the shadows of your face with his fingertips, and everything about him is unsure when he says "Never."
/ / /
The light fades from his eyes and you are slipping, slipping, slipping, you are almost alone again and you don't want to be.
/ / /
The days pass in some sort of blur, you don't remember much, but he comes to see you in the dark hours of the evening and it makes you less afraid. (You don't know why you're afraid, but you are, and you don't like it.)
The first time you look at the calendar, it's been eleven days, you think. Since what, you don't remember, but it's been eleven days and you aren't going to last much longer. You can feel yourself falling apart, feel your blood going cold in your veins and unimaginable heat curling around your limbs, and you feel like you're losing your mind.
You can feel his eyes on you, but you can't see him through the smoke - you need to see him. You're reaching blindly into the darkness (you can't see), he's not there. Maybe he never was. Maybe he was never real in the first place. Maybe he -
Nell, stop.
You can hear him but he's
still
not
there.
(You know you're going insane, and you're certainly going to be dead soon.)
/ / /
There is so much smoke, and so much heat, and this ringing in the very base of your skull that keeps getting louder and louder and louder and your memories are screaming across your vision until you can see nothing else. You are thirty feet away from where you were standing a few seconds ago, and you remember Eric is here just before -
/ / /
You are two years old, fragile skin and bright hazel eyes, and he is rocking you to sleep. He is a stranger, but he sings lullabies to you and his voice is gentle, deep and smooth and you would cry out but you don't want him to stop. The edges of your mind begin to blur, and you -
You are five years old, and somehow, he is here. Twirling in your summer dresses, watching the leaves fall from the trees, catching snow on your tongue, he is here beside you and he takes your hand and leads you into the darkness.
You've just turned eleven and it's obvious that you aren't the same as everyone else. "It's alright, Nell. I was different too." he whispers, as his gentle hands wipe the tears from your cheeks. He wasn't really there, but that isn't important. Burying your face into his chest, you think that maybe he should've been..
Now, you are sixteen. You've given up on caring, and you've stopped smiling, and you are mere weeks from being free. They hate you for being top of your class, two years younger and valedictorian, they hate you for being out of place. "Don't be so angry, you don't have much longer. I'll see you soon, Rockstar." You don't see him anymore, you shouldn't anyway, but he speaks right into your skull, and -
You are nineteen years old, and you should feel at home here. These are people like you (almost like you), think tanks and CalTech and IQs of 160 and 167 and 171 and you should belong here. But you're too young. Too smart. Too unsatisfied. You need more than this, and sometimes you see him out of the corner of your eyes and you just want -
You are twenty-one years old and your hands won't stop shaking. It's your first day on the job, and you don't know what you'll do if this doesn't work out. Nate told you to report to a woman named Henrietta Lange - Hetty - she'll be the only one there who's shorter than you (but don't let that fool you, she's deadly). They'll like you here, even if it takes them awhile, and there he is. There's a sense of pride and relief that comes with seeing him in the right place, even if you don't get along in the beginning. He doesn't like you yet, but you wait patiently because he will. He will like you very, very much. He might even love you.
You are twenty-two years old, and this is so much harder than you thought it would be. He is in love with you, just like you knew he'd be, and you are in love with him, and you're both too stubborn to say it out loud so neither of you do, and both of you are ticking time-bombs, waiting, waiting for the right moment to ruin everything. It's strange, being so miserable and so happy at the time. You could spend your whole life with him, watching old movies and playing old video games and singing old songs, and you would be just fine. But something still feels wrong.
You are twenty-three years old, and you feel safe. His arms are wrapped around you, meaningless jumbles of words pouring from his lips, but you stopped listening a few minutes ago. You're just focused on the feeling of his body pressed against yours. If you try really hard, you can almost disregard the fact that you can't breathe, that you can't move. You are in his arms, and that means you're safe. You are safe. You are -
You are twenty-four years old, and -
You don't remember that part of the story.
/ / /
Your heart pounds through your chest, turning your ribcage to dust, and it should hurt but it doesn't. (His is stilled, it cannot beat, it cannot race, it cannot hurt, and neither should yours). You don't think much of it, though. You've never really been one for feeling.
"You need to get out of here, Nell."
"I'm not leaving you."
A grimace rolls up your spine and you sink further in on yourself.
/ / /
You wake up with a cold rush of air against your face, and you know what you're going to see when you open your eyes.
Eric.
Not Eric.
Scary, in-between Eric.
He's stopped speaking altogether now, and his eyes are more grey than blue, and you feel like you're in danger. You used to feel safe with him; safer than you ever did with Kensi or Deeks or Sam or Callen. But those eyes are daggers and they're cutting into you just enough to draw the blood out. Not enough to kill you.
(He's not real. He was never real. You were never afraid of him, you were always safe, always. And you haven't felt safe in a very long time - three months, two weeks, six days, and four minutes; and you don't understand why you're still alive.)
You won't speak to him, hoping that maybe he'll just go away (and it hurts - you tried to convince yourself that you could live without him but you've always been a liar), and you wander out to the living room. He follows you, just like you knew he would. And you're less disappointed than you would ever really admit.
He doesn't bother you at first, he just looks over your DVD collection, runs his finger down the spine of Back To The Future. Your favorite movie, his favorite movie. He almost looks sad; you wonder if hallucinations can be sad. Maybe, maybe if the hallucinator is sad? Are you sad? Yes. You think you might be very, very sad.
(Sad mostly means tired and scared and lonely and confused, but also just entirely wholly sad.)
You were always afraid of the inside of your own head, until he showed up and he promised; "you're okay, Nell, you're not crazy," but maybe he was only ever the inside and the outside and everyside, and he never promised because he never existed.
Only he did. He was alive, and now he's not. But he was alive.
Alive.
It hits you all at once, that you're being haunted by him. He's haunting you. You were there and you lived and he didn't, and maybe it is your fault but you don't think that you ever deserved this.
(you can't breathe and sometimes your legs don't work right
and sometimes you forget
and
you
can't
remember
what he was like before
and that's terrifying to you because you still love him but you don't remember why
it doesn't matter
he's backing you into a corner and
eric,
please,
leave,)
He doesn't leave.
"You're not real, you're not real, you're not real," you breathe, over and over and over until you almost believe it.
But he's got you pinned to the wall by your throat and what's more real than that and you're less scared of dying and more terrified of the fact that Eric's gone he's gone your best friend is gone.
Your eyes roll back and you collapse into the ground and he vanishes.
"You were never real."
He's gone.
/ / /
(You are waiting for him and you can't stop; you can't stop because he never stopped waiting for you.)
/ / /
He is lying beside you now, eyes wide open, closed, open again, drawing in shaky breaths through his lips. This is just like last time. You remember, he was frozen and he was almost on fire until he wasn't, because you saved him. You saved him. But you can't this time, you're right here with him, and you're both going to be on fire.
The flames lick at your ankles and you want to run but you can't. Go, he's screaming, go, but you both know that you're trapped, you've always been trapped and you wouldn't leave him even if you could. You shake your head, furiously, feverishly, you can't, can't, can't breathe you can't breathe. Eric. Eric, you can feel him leave and you don't want him to leave, stay please stay, Eric, Eric please, Eric -