So Often It Falls Insufficient
Nicole Clevenger (November 2014)
Notes: A handful of pictures I wish we'd gotten to see in Series2, written to fill the prompt of Scars on my h/c bingo card. (Who else was I going to give it to, really?) Set between eps 2.05 and 2.06, with spoiler warnings in effect. If you're one of the unfortunates in America still waiting on Netflix, PM me or review and I'll happily share the free website I use. The BBC may have taught us more about patience in our fandoms, but no one should have to wait forever.
This fic is in no way connected to my "Tabula Rasa," but for any still interested I promise that one has not been abandoned. I make no money, because they'll never belong to me.
It's the first strangled shout that wakes him, but the second that actually registers. The first has him opening his eyes into darkness, the whisky still sloshing his thoughts from side to side inside his head. The second sends a flash of adrenaline through his chest. He gropes automatically for his pistol, can't find it in his holster. It's on the table beside him. Jackson lunges for it, and rolls off the sofa.
The impact with the floorboards orients him a little. He's in Reid's sitting room; his mind supplies the preamble in a series of disconnected pictures. Hours of wandering drunk and adrift had led his footsteps to the inspector's door, uncertain if the man was even within - there were few in the shop who didn't know he'd been spending his nights in his office, even if no one dared mention it. Jackson vaguely recalls pounding on the front door until it was opened, Reid appearing in his striped nightclothes. His normally smooth hair was mussed and standing up in all directions, something Jackson had found close to hilarious. He'd almost overbalanced and fallen off the front stairs when he'd reached a hand out to try and flatten it down.
The inspector had been less amused. There had been no conversation, no explanations. Reid had merely looked him over, there where he clung feebly to the doorframe, and turned around to head back upstairs. Leaving the door open behind him, an offer of welcome as near as the American's sodden brain could tell. Jackson remembers stumbling to the short sofa, barely the time to so much as glance around, before sweet oblivion could claim him as its prize.
"No!" Almost a roar, coming from up the stairs. Reid's voice. Jackson hauls his uncoordinated limbs up off the floor, his fingers closing around the metal of his gun.
Reid's home is an unfamiliar maze of shadows; Jackson finds the boundaries of more than one piece of furniture with shins and thighs alone. He trips on the first of the stairs in his haste to get up them, his knee coming down hard on the next. His cursing is swallowed up by the darkness.
Three rooms upstairs; only one with a closed door. Jackson throws it open, weapon at the ready, expecting to find a passel of enemies crowding the small space. He blinks, a moment of uncertainty as to whether he can trust the word of his bleary sight. There's no one here. Just Reid, thrashing about alone in his bed.
Jackson holsters his pistol, moving further into the room. Reid's clearly in the grip of some kind of a nightmare, flailing against an invisible attack. The American closes the distance between himself and the bed. He's unsure of what to do - brass being of little use against ghosts - but he sees no sense in leaving the other man to this torment. Leaning over the bed, he holds Reid down by his shoulders to stop his frantic writhing.
"Reid." It's almost inaudible, the volume of his voice uncertain in the soft moonlight. "Wake the hell up, goddammit."
The other man's eyes snap open under the press of his weight, confusion writ plain at finding the American's face so unexpectedly close to his own. He immediately attempts to shove Jackson off of him; Jackson takes an obliging step back. Reid hisses through his teeth, his hand coming up to clutch at his left shoulder. Jackson's own hands hover in the air between them, awkward in the face of the inspector's pained glare.
Reid pushes himself up against the headboard, his glance sweeping the corners before returning to Jackson's face. He's breathing heavily; even in this dark he looks disoriented. "Why are you in my room, man?" His words come a low growl.
Jackson drops his hands, hooks his thumbs into the pockets of his trousers. He doesn't like the look of the other man's posture, the hunched way he's trying to curl around that shoulder. The shadows here are thinning as his eyes adjust to the level of ambient light, but there isn't enough illumination filtering in through the room's one curtained window. He needs to find a lamp.
"Heard you shoutin' clear downstairs," Jackson says. The musty smell of the room itches at his nose; he wonders when the last time was this place had been aired out. He strikes a match and holds it to the candle he spots on the bedside table. The new light flickers across Reid's face, distorting his features. "Thought the damn house was under attack."
Reid slides himself to the edge of the narrow bed, swinging his legs over the side to put his feet on the floor. It's a sluggish progression, dragging with sleep and discomfort. He isn't moving that left arm at all, Jackson notices.
"An old dream," Reid mumbles toward the floorboards, scrubbing a hand over his face. From this angle, Jackson's got an excellent view of the mess of hair crowning his bowed head. "Forgive me for disturbing you." His hand slips inside his collar, to massage at the skin. His breath continues to cycle far too unevenly, in the surgeon's opinion.
Jackson squints at him. It's difficult to pinpoint why in all this darkness. And Reid's giving him nothing, won't even meet his eyes. He sighs, a headache beginning to blossom.
"Let me take a look," he says, nodding toward the shoulder. An unseen gesture.
Reid's head comes up fast at this; he obviously knows exactly what Jackson means. He winces, his hand shifting to his neck. The candlelight dances over his frown. "There's nothing to be done. Leave me. Return to your dreams of whisky and women."
"Hardly need dreams to enjoy such pleasures." Just need to go home. If she'd allow me. "And how 'bout you let the one of us with the actual medical knowledge be the judge."
But Reid shakes his head, pushes himself up to standing. His bare feet make no noise as he shuffles past Jackson toward the door. "Your learned services are not required, Captain."
It sounds intentionally distancing, especially with his subsequent exit from the room. Jackson, not so easily deterred, follows him out into the darkness of the house. The candle in his hand offers a narrow pool of light at his feet. He descends the stairs carefully, not yet entirely sober.
He hopes not to get to that point. For a good long while.
He makes it down the staircase free from any mishap, though there's a touchy second or two when the house's dust catches him up and he sneezes, his elbow making friends with the banister before he steadies. Reid's in the sitting room, a vague shape slumped in a chair in front of the remnants of a fire that has long since gone out. Jackson can't remember if the fire had been lit when he'd come in earlier. The scenery had been fuzzy at best.
"Reid?"
The other man's voice is still thick with sleep. He doesn't turn around. "If you've no desire to rest, then make yourself useful. There's a bottle in the sideboard near the bottom of the stairs."
Jackson almost runs into said piece of furniture when he turns to find it. The candle does little to brighten its interior; a bit of one-handed fumbling, and he has the requested bottle. He isn't sure exactly what it is as his hand wraps around it, but it hardly matters. "Glasses?" he asks, when his fingers can't locate any in the cabinet drawer.
"Why, Jackson – I'd have never expected you concerned with such trappings of domesticity."
"Not for me," Jackson fires back. "Just trying to cater to your delicate sensibilities. Guest in a man's home and all that."
"Guests, I believe, are generally issued invitation."
Jackson crosses the room with the bottle and the candle, his leg finding the coffee table as he goes by. He swears, limping the last couple of steps to the cold fireplace. Hands Reid the bottle, not missing the way the other man reaches across his body with his right arm to take it. "You opened the door," he says with a shrug.
"Truly you are a loss to the legal profession," Reid replies. "An argument worthy of a solicitor."
There's a pop as he removes the cork from the bottle. Jackson sets the candle stub on the low table, this time avoiding a meeting with the corner. He drops into the chair waiting empty at Reid's side. The light flutters in the breeze he creates, the flame jumping and spitting; it splashes their shadows against the mantle wall in front of them. They sit in silence for a while, watching the hazy dumbshow.
"And what is it brings you to my door in the dead of night?" Reid finally asks, taking a drink and passing Jackson the bottle. "I doubt it merely for the company."
Jackson's betting he already has a pretty good idea. The man didn't become Detective Inspector based on his interpersonal skills. He takes a swallow off the bottle; the burn down his throat leaves a sticky sweetness in its wake. Another swig and he hands it back over, searching his pockets for his cigarettes.
It takes a bit of effort to find them; he's starting to get concerned when his fingers brush against the pack. He pulls a cigarette out, and there's a comfort to the familiar way it rests upon his lips. He offers the pack to Reid as an afterthought. He's only a little surprised when the inspector takes one.
Must have been a hell of a nightmare.
Directing his thoughts this way helps distract from paths of his own down which he'd rather not travel. But Reid's waiting for an answer. "Me an' Susan had a fight," Jackson says, a cultivated casualness to the words. "It happens." As if he's free to simply turn up in the morning, hungover and apologetic. Like it'll all slip back into how it was.
He shakes himself, lights his cigarette. The smoke scorches along the liquor's abraded trail as he pulls the first drag into his lungs. He tosses the box of matches into Reid's lap, the little wooden sticks rattling in the room's quiet. He doesn't comment when it takes the man three attempts to get his cigarette lit. Jackson sprawls further into the chair, flinging a leg over the thin padded armrest and tipping his head back to blow the smoke up toward the invisible ceiling. He doesn't want to talk about Susan. Hopes Reid decides not to pursue the subject.
A longer silence, one settling down from the rafters to twist its fingers deep into his hair. There's a chill in the air, a faint numbness to the tip of his nose, his ears, that he's just now noticing. Jackson flips up his leather collar to protect his bare neck, glad for the drunken foresight that had led him to retain his jacket.
"I never thanked you." Reid's voice floats through the space between them, soft and rumbling. Jackson's eyes slide that way, but he can make out little where he sits backlit by only the dim candle. The end of the cigarette glows as Reid inhales, his attention on the black maw of the cold fireplace. "For your… efforts. That day at the Bear."
Well shit. He definitely doesn't want to talk about this either. He can still remember what she felt like in his arms, wriggling sweaty and half-naked like any common tart under him in some random bed. Can still see the look on Reid's face, when he'd tumbled out of the shop with a dozen blues behind to bear witness. Jackson doesn't think he'll ever forget that look. Not til his dying day.
He'd gotten his jacket off and round her shoulders, at least, that top button fastened at her neck before she'd smacked him the first time. The sound of flesh against flesh echoed loud through a smoky tavern already stunned into silence. It was a small victory, that cape of leather over her exposed skin, but one he'd been grateful for once he'd wrestled her out into the street.
Jackson scratches at the scruff along his jaw, puffing on his cigarette in an effort to stall for time. One breath too quickly upon another, and he chokes. "Hell, Reid, you don't –" She'd been screaming fit to rouse all of Leman Street, beating on him with her fists and screaming right in his ear. If his hands hadn't been so busy trying to keep hold of her, he'd have brought one of them up to cover her mouth. "Some things you don't need to thank a man for."
"Even so," Reid says. It's barely a mumble. "Thank you."
Jackson has no more of an idea of what to say to him now than he did then. Once Reid had gotten hold of her, it had freed him up to get to the laudanum he had in his bag. He'd followed behind as the inspector carried her limp form up to his office, his jacket still covering the lady and his eyes silently threatening any man who didn't know to drop his gaze. Reid hadn't seemed to notice anyone but his wife, his focus solely on her deceptively peaceful face. It had been a long wait in that tiny room for the doctors to arrive. He'd spent it perched on the corner of the desk, staring at the taut, motionless tendons along the back of Reid's neck. Having no hope of finding words to make any of it better.
Reid's eyes had been red and wet when he'd finally lifted his head, long after they'd taken her from the office. All Jackson had had to offer was a warm hand on his shoulder. And the questionable consolation of a couple of hours solitude, delivered by keeping everyone out of the room.
"Yeah," is all he eventually says; it comes out more of a cough than an actual syllable. Jackson flicks his butt into the dead fireplace. It disappears into the pile of dormant wood, not even inciting a spark. "You still sharing that bottle?"
It feels somewhat flimsy of a diversion, but it seems to work. The cigarette held in Reid's lips lights the end of his nose, the tips of his hair hanging down over his eyes, as he stretches awkwardly to hand over the liquor with his right arm. It doesn't reach the distance between them, and Jackson's nearly to standing before he can make the connection. As he grips the bottle he realizes one of them is trembling, shivery vibrations down the glass neck to or from his hand. He isn't positive, unsteady as he is at the moment, but he doesn't think that it's him.
Jackson takes the bottle and collapses back into the chair. The wood creaks a protest, and he doesn't have to be able to see Reid's expression to get the gist of the warning look he gives him. He takes a drink, misjudging to knock the thick glass hard against his teeth as he swallows. He runs his tongue over them, checking to see if they're all still intact.
The candle is dwindling low behind them, the end of Reid's cigarette dimming to a few pinprick embers instead of a bright glowing circle. "Want a fire?" Jackson asks.
It brings Reid back from wherever his thoughts are wandering; he takes a last drag off the stub of burning paper pinched between his fingers before tossing it into the fireplace. "Of course," he says, shifting to get up. "I'll –"
The rest is lost to a groan as he falls back into the chair. The shadow on the wall curls in on itself, flickering and exaggerated. Jackson struggles to get more upright, setting the bottle on the floor as he peers at the other man. "Reid?'
"A moment…" It's ragged, squeezed out between fought for gulps of air. Jackson's on his feet now, but it hasn't gotten any lighter in here. "The cold," Reid grunts. "Seizes."
"Christ," Jackson growls, annoyed he didn't think of it himself. "Coulda said something." He pats his pockets searching for the matches; he finds a box on the mantle before remembering that Reid has them. Crouching in front of the fireplace, he looks for something to get it started. Reid sucks in choppy breaths behind him. "Got any paper?"
"… left…"
And there it is, waiting in a basket. Jackson crumples up a few pieces in his fist, scatters them about the base of the piled wood. He supposes he'd assumed – if he'd given it any thought at all, the last year or so – that the diminishing outward signs had meant Reid's pain was fading, his wounds healing. Not that he'd simply gotten better at hiding it. Jackson well recalls when he could mark the length of a day in the man's posture, the senses of both doctor and con man working together to pick out every detail. Even if he wasn't allowed to make comment. He strikes a match, holds the flame to the balls of newspaper. Uses them to get the fire slowly going.
His knee cracks when he straightens his legs. Already the growing light is enough to define the edge of the table so that he can avoid it on this trip past. "Hang in there, Reid," Jackson says, spying a lump that just might be his bag. He crosses the last few steps between him and it, and scoops the satchel up off the floor.
"It... passes," Reid grinds out from the chair. It sounds forced through his teeth.
"Uh-huh." Jackson returns to his side, dropping the bag into his empty seat. He pulls the stopper of the laudanum in his hand. "And this'll help it along."
Reid's eyes flick up to Jackson's hand, his face. "No." He makes an effort to uncoil himself, though his fingers remain tangled in the fabric of his shirt. It's difficult to say if the jumping line of his jaw is caused by the shadows on top of his skin or the muscles underneath it. "Not necessary."
"If I had any morphine, I'd give you that. But this is the best I can do."
"It passes," he repeats. It's slightly more convincing this time. "And I would not wish for sleep."
Jackson studies him a moment longer, before replacing the bottle's cork and settling it back in his bag. "Let me take a look, Reid."
"Pointless," the inspector says. But he doesn't try to move away as Jackson inches closer.
The fire blazes now, tickling its light toward the edges of the room. Reid's eyes are closed, his long lashes dark and feathery against the washed-out pallor of his skin. He flinches when Jackson covers his hand with his own. He says nothing, doesn't open his eyes, when Jackson gently pries his fingers away from the shoulder and lays the hand in his lap.
Jackson slips a few of the buttons loose, peels back the corner of Reid's nightshirt. The irregular ridges and craters of the scarring look even more wrong in this quivering light, and he thinks about firing up the overhead gas fixture. But in truth there's little he can do with the extra illumination. He has not the skills to repair two years worth of badly healed muscle and bone.
Reid pulls in a sharp breath through his nose as Jackson runs his fingertips lightly over the ruined skin. He's seen it before, of course, has heard all the stories. Rumors gathered eagerly when first laying the groundwork for his new persona here; scraps of fiction and fact woven together, but none he'd been able to confirm. Other than that mishandled confrontation in the deadroom, the one that had ended with his ass on the tile floor. Reid had made it abundantly clear then that this was not a subject lending itself toward discussion.
A sensitive matter both literally and figuratively. Reid's still got his eyes closed, his fingers gripping tightly around the armrest. His skin twitches under Jackson's seeking hand. "Can you stretch it out at all?" he asks Reid, his free hand shifting to support the man's elbow.
"No, please –" The objection comes far too quickly, and Jackson feels him tense even further in anticipation of more pain. Reid's hand comes up to try and push his away.
Jackson ignores him, cupping his elbow as he attempts to carefully straighten out the arm. "It'll help."
"No. It does noth– Gah! Stop, man!"
Jackson releases him; Reid folds himself protectively around his shoulder, his breath coming fast again. Jackson unbends to stand upright, rubbing at his eyes while fumbling for his cigarettes. He's frustrated, his hard-won medical knowledge of little use here.
His matches have fallen to the floor; he picks up the box, strikes one to light the stick in his mouth. He inhales deeply, savoring the burn down his throat, and gives Reid a minute to compose himself.
"It like this all the time?" Jackson finally asks. It almost sounds as casual as he tries to pitch it.
"Mmm." Noncommittal, but not a no. Jackson scowls.
"Sounds exhausting," he observes.
Reid dismisses this with a jerk of his head. His lips are a smashed, thin line. "A fitting punishment," he gets out. There's no trace of self-pity. "A daily reminder."
"Of what?"
"Of my failures."
The statement sits bald and matter-of-fact in the darkness between them. "We're just men, Reid. Doing the goddamn best we can."
He has to believe this. And with it the hope of redemption. There's little reason for him to keep going otherwise.
"And yet so often it falls insufficient, does it not?"
Jackson grabs the bottle, throws himself back into the chair. He adds this subject to the growing list of things he has no desire to discuss tonight. "Scars are a mark of what a man's been through. Things survived."
"And yours, Jackson? Do they all speak of battles in which you would claim to be victorious?"
Jackson's fingers find his neck, the slender raised line of Duggan's broken glass. He'd thought it would leave a more indelible sign than it had. "No."
He turns away from the fire to pass Reid the liquor, but the other man's got his head back against the chair's meager padding and his eyes again closed. The night collects in smudges under his lashes, his protruding lower lip. Jackson shrugs, takes another drink for himself. He stares into the flames, the fluttering glow playing tricks on his peripheral vision.
"I had thought the dream gone at least," Reid says softly, as if to himself. "Still it clings to these walls. A mistake, perhaps, to have returned here."
Jackson feels well acquainted with mistakes these days. And the troubles that can come with floundering to rectify them. "Got to keep moving forward, Reid." As if it's as easy as all that. "'Sides, I doubt that pretty councilwoman would take too kindly to a tryst in your tiny office…"
"You overstep, Captain." His eyes are open now. Pale and sparkling with the fire's reflected fervor.
Jackson holds up his occupied hands in a gesture of surrender. A bit of lit ash falls to kiss the webbing between his thumb and index finger; what little alcohol there is left slaps at the inside curves of the hoisted bottle. "Calm down – no offense meant toward the good lady's name. Or yours." This seems to relax the lines of the man's face somewhat. Reid reaches vaguely in the direction of the bottle, forcing Jackson to shift in order to stretch it into his hand. "Just figured it might've factored into the decision, is all. Call me a romantic. For wishing a friend a richer love life than my own."
"And what do you know of romance?"
Jackson sighs. "Not a hell of a lot, apparently."
This brings back the silence, though Jackson can't guess whether it stems from Reid's fatigue or his mollification. He finishes his cigarette. Watches as it's swallowed by the flames.
"She threw me out." The words slide through the hush, unexpected even to his own ears. "Out of my own damn home." The fire sears its imprint onto his retinas. He doesn't look at the man beside him.
"No doubt you shall charm your way back in."
He wants to think this is a possibility. Needs to. If it's not, there's nothing left. "I dunno, Reid. Maybe not this time." It hurts physically to admit it aloud.
"I have faith in your skills in such matters," Reid says. "Until then, make use of my sofa. Perhaps the discomfort of attempting to sleep upon it will provide you with the inspiration you currently lack."
"Sure." He's less than hopeful. "Thanks."
"You will not be so grateful, I think, after a few more nights with that as your bed."
"All the same. The kindness is appreciated."
Jackson has no idea how long they sit there, but the fire is beginning to dim and he's smoked three more cigarettes before he thinks to offer Reid another. When he turns to do so he finds the inspector asleep, his chin nearly touching his chest and a loose hand precariously balancing the empty bottle mostly upright on his knee. He doesn't stir when Jackson removes it from his hold.
He tips it back, but it's as dry as suspected. He debates launching a search for something else.
Instead he uses the poker to move the wood around in the fireplace, encouraging a resurgence of the high licking flames. Jackson slouches back into the chair, feeling the warmth spread through the heels of his boots. His own eyes are dry and stinging. He finds it much more comfortable to allow them to remain closed once they have.
"Sweet dreams, Reid," he mumbles, before he nods off himself.
At the moment, it's the best he can do.
end.