If this looks familiar to you -- it should I'm moving many of my one-shots to this account.
I got the idea for this from a few of my other fics; that is, never actually naming the female. So, she can be Lisa, she can be you, she can be me, she can be Nicole Kidman -- it really doesn't matter, and it's up to you to decide. I thought this fandom needed a little variety from the typical J/L, though if that's your thing, you can pretend the woman is Lisa. Whatever, you know? So let's go!
Hey, by the by, this was originally written in the first-person perspective, so if you come across an I, or me, or mine, I'm sorry. I tried to catch them all, but I'm not the fastest trackster at the starting line.
Disclaimer: Yeah, so I don't own Red Eye, or any of the characters in it, though I would love to have my own personal Jackson Rippner to, you know, take out political figures, and creep people out by stalking them, and, um ... just be sexy ...
Sit. Stay. Lie Down.
It's after midnight, and she's only about half-awake. It's always after midnight. And she's lucky to have slept twenty minutes in the whole duration of his abscence. He was only gone for two weeks this time -- "a quickie", he'd say, and kind of smirk of in that way he does, more in the eyes than the mouth. She might chuckle. He's away more than he's here, anyway.
She hears the key in the lock and opens her eyes, waiting in the darkness for his muffled footsteps on the thick carpet. Her gaze turns to the digital clock on her bedside table. It stares back at her with its unblinking red eye -- 3:03 A.M. A normal person might groan. A year ago, she would have groaned, being awakened at three in the morning. These passed six months, she's been sighing with relief at the witching hour, and other hours she's been brought out of nightmares by the noise of an unlocked door and the weary intrepidation of his feet.
He turns the knob to the bedroom door and opens it with callous indifference to whether or not she's awake. He wants her to be awake. She watches him cross the room uneasily, not waiting on his eyes to grow accustomed to the dark. He's in a good mood. Sometimes, when something goes wrong, or when a target or tool decides he's Charles Bronson and brings him close to failure, he'll flip on the bedroom light and storm across the floor to the bathroom and fling open the door. Everything must have gone as planned. He's only tired, tonight.
He opens the door to the bathroom and turns on the light, blinding her eyes in a momentary flash. She keeps her eyelids squeezed tightly shut, waiting for the blare to soften.
"Good morning, Jackson."
He makes an incoherent sound of greeting. In the reigning silence, she hears his clothing rustle softly on the tile before he starts the water in the shower. He leaves the door open -- doesn't like the steam to fog up the mirror. Cautiously, she opens her eyes a crack to accustom herself to the light.
Six months she's been living like this. Six months she's been his well-trained, faithful dog, waiting patiently for Master to come home and offer table scraps and a little attention. Jackson Rippner has plenty of dogs -- Dobermans with deadly killshots and bloodhounds with noses to sniff out prey, and her, his ever-faithful bitch.
She knows he has other women. Doubtfully in the same way he has her, simply because his life is complex enough having both her and his work. And also because few women can give away their decency and self-respect to live in an empty bungalow waiting to be an assassin's whore. At least not for this long. It takes a special kind of person to stoop to her kind of existence. But that certainly didn't mean she's the only woman he has between the time he leaves here and the time he comes back. He's attractive in that dangerous way that women know will be like fire ... and leave scars, when it's all over. Women like that; she couldn't say she didn't. A man with the power to nix political and social figureheads worldwide is dangerously sexy. She isn't about to pretend that it's not.
The sound of water droplets clanging against porcelain and skin ceases abruptly. She hears him step out of the shower, and look to the bathroom with adjusted eyes. He doesn't really bother too much with drying off. The shower has woken him up, given him a second wind. His work leaves him apprehensive; some men would keep a punching bag, or cross their feet and meditate, or drink themselves into a stupor to wear that feeling down so that they could continue doing his kind of work. Jackson Rippner says a punching bag will make a man violent when there are alternative means, and meditating will make him think about the will of God and morality, and drink makes a man useless under every circumstance. He believes that sex is the only healthy way to relieve his kind of stress. When he told her that, she knew she wasn't the first woman to wait in agony for his return, never knowing if he was dead or alive until he walked through that door again.
He crawls beneath the covers and leans over her -- a hand on her shoulder, lips close to her ear, water dripping from his hair onto her temple.
"Hey," tender in his own way.
She turns to meet his lips, almost angry at her own relief to feel his hands on her again.
"I've missed you," she tells him quietly when his kisses stray from her lips.
"I've missed you, too." In the standard way, he's lying about that. But in a selfish sort of way, he's telling the truth. Maybe he doesn't miss the sound of her voice, or the way she smiles, but she'd be damned if he doesn't long for the peace and abstract normalcy of being with her.
She thinks that in the back of his mind, he believes she's in love with him, and that's why she lives in this bungalow on the beach, waiting for him. Maybe she does love him. She knows you don't love Jackson Rippner the same way you love other people. He asks you for your all -- a forfeit of yourself for the sake of him and his sanity, without having ever offered the same to you. You love Jackson Rippner because you can't seem to fall out of love with him. You don't love him as a wife loves her husband, or as a sister loves her brother. You love Jackson the way a dog loves her master: someone who provides you with your basic needs, but ultimately keeps you around for his own enjoyment.
She must love him. Why would she endure alone here for weeks just for a few hours, a few days of extasy? If it was for the company of any man, she could drive into the city. But she stays here, waiting. She must be stupid. She knows she's stupid. She's stupid because she never wants to give this up. Never wants to give him up.
He won't wake up until six tomorrow night. Then he'll want scrambled eggs peppered with cayan and a black cup of flavored coffee -- caramel pecan -- with which to swallow six Ibuprofens at once. He'll finish his eggs and ask for two shots of espresso, and she'll tell him he's going to die between the cayan and the overdose of Ibuprofen and espresso. And he'll say if he's lucky enough to die of something so natural as a bad stomach, they'll bury him grinning.
The coffee makes him coherent -- brings his wit back. After he gulps down the Ibuprofen, he'll tell her how long he's back for: a month, a week and a half, two days, just as soon as I finish this coffee ... It's always shorter than what he tells her. God knows how many times she's sat there, alone in the twilight, sipping a half-full mug of lukewarm caramel pecan.
She wonders what would happen if he didn't have his job. Would she be so willing to cater to his desires if she took him for granted? Would she tell him to make his own damn eggs , and buy Tylenol instead of Ibuprofen? She thinks he knows her -- much better than she knows him. She thinks he keeps his hand on the leash by depriving her of him. She's eager to please so that he might be tempted to turn down a job and stay for a few months. But he knows ... he knows if he did that, his dog might grow a brain, and tell him she's tired when he says, "roll over."
"Ohhh," he sighs, turning over on his back and staring at the ceiling, heaving for his breath. "I'd go crazy without you," he struggles out, turning his soul-piercing gaze to hers. It's the closest he'll ever get to saying "I love you."
He would go crazy without her, but she knows -- and he knows -- he'd go crazy with her. He'd lose it because he'd lose control over her. Jackson Rippner has a physical need to be in control.
She half-smiles at him. "You're already crazy."
He doesn't hear her. He's almost asleep. He opens his arm towards her without opening his eyes.
"Lie down by me."
She's already laying, but she draws closer. She doesn't know why he wants her here beside him. She figures she ought to be down at the foot of the bed.