Addison and Derek's first meeting. Addek Angst (-ish). Set in a very very alternate universe. . . .
Blue Eyes
(3)
She wakes with a start, initially unsure of what it is that had invaded her consciousness enough to rouse her, but once she's blinked blindly into the darkness a few more times, she realises it's Milo's whimpering.
This is why she doesn't rest at all, doesn't want to, because she only gets more tired once she does.
So, she drags herself out of bed, because she has to, shivers into the cold air and makes a mental reminder to ask Damon to fix the window once all of this is over.
If all of this is ever over, she adds.
"Hey there, little guy." she whispers, picking her son up from his crib and noting that he's dressed differently than earlier.
Well, Damon's at least taken care of that one.
The baby burrows his little head into her chest in search of her skin and she feels such an overwhelming rush of love for him that she almost can't breathe. It still amazes her how even now after the three months he's been here with them how much she loves him, how utterly perfect he is.
His whimpering subsides and she rocks along with him a little until she hears an almighty thud that freezes her - one that couldn't possibly come from anywhere else other than the basement.
Shit!
"Damon?" she calls without raising her voice too much. She doesn't want to draw Derek's attention to his name like he had with hers and she doesn't want to unsettle Milo either.
There's no answer so she hisses his name louder. "Damon?"
Well, of course, there's no answer. He's in the basement.
But then she hears another thud, a much much louder one - a bang perhaps - and her stomach drops.
Derek.
Milo must have sense her unease because his previous quietness, that all lasted seconds, gave over to a small cry, and then a louder one when she offers her lips to his head. She feels like a terrible mother again and when there's a third thud, that couldn't possibly get even louder, she just has to lay him back down on his crib despite his protest.
The guilt over not being enough for him multiplies tenfold.
She takes the gun and heads downstairs, trying and failing to block out Milo's cries but she can still hear them when she's in the hallway and she already knows, when she spies the open door to the basement, that they'll be heard down there too.
With the Glock out in front of her, she takes a cautious step, first heading to her boots that are sitting by the door, and once they're laced on her feet, she heads down the wooden stairs as quietly as she can.
She opens her mouth to let Derek know she's armed but then thinks better of it in case she needs the element of surprise to help her out.
And as soon as he comes into focus though, she realises what that thudding was all about.
Derek is lying practically motionless on the concrete floor, blood pouring from his nose and pooling beside him. She covers a loud gasp with her hands when her eyes linger south - one of his legs is bent at an angle which makes her think it's probably broken somewhere, and Damon is standing beside him, a little breathless.
"You piece of shit." she catches him spitting at the man they've held here for the past three days, the same man whose eyes are open, albeit barely, and fixing on hers, only on hers.
Now all she wants to do is run.
Run as far away as she can get with Milo, far from this city, from Damon, from this basement and that rope and cable wires and Derek, from the shadows of her past that still follow her everywhere because she's stuck in this life she never signed up for.
She didn't sign up for this. (That, she knows she did, but not this miserable one. - not to constantly fear whether today will be the day they'll end up in prison, not to have a man chain in their basement.)
She never intended to end up like this.
And yet she doesn't run. Ever. She wants to run so badly but she never can. And she thinks Damon knows that too, that she won't. Ever.
She can't run now. She can't because her feet won't move and her mouth won't open and she's not even sure her finger would work if she tries to pull the trigger.
Derek's still staring at her though, almost lifelessly, until Milo's cries filters through to her brain, she registers and turns her head back to the top of the staircase briefly, contemplating if going back up to comfort him is the best idea but she knows this is much bigger.
This mess is what she needs to sort out first.
She turns her attention back to the pool of blood on the floor and Derek's crumpled body and she knows then, that he knows about Milo. Can tell somehow and someway by the way he's looking at her.
Shit!
Only when she takes a final step on one of the creaking stairs does Damon turn around and notice her. He looks at her, then at Derek, then back at the question in her brows. He doesn't say anything to her, only throwing in one last kick for good measure, then heads up the creaking steps without uttering another word.
She's not really sure what she should do now.
Follow Damon or check on Derek?
Somehow following Damon seems easier.
Always has. Oh, yes, it is. Maybe that's why she's here today.
"I went to his place. There's cops everywhere." he hisses, stomping into the kitchen and searching for the bottle of brandy she knows he's probably going to drain dry. She's still unaware of the time - the view outside the windows shows nothing but blackness - but it ceases to matter at this present time.
"You went to his place?" she asks, forcing the confusion to fade and tells herself to stay in the same room as him rather than upstairs to comfort Milo. "Why?"
"To get paid. Figured there'd be a car or something I could sell. Pay the debt that way, so we can just kill him already."
Addison's stomach lurches at the thought.
"Where is his friend?"
"In the wind. I don't know. Fuck Addison. You think the cops gonna find out, this leads back here?"
Yes.
"Not if his friend comes back. You know where he went?"
"That's what I was trying to find out but that asshole down there wouldn't tell me anything."
She holds in the sigh threatening to leave her lips but it's a harder feat than she'd anticipated. "So, what, you thought beating him up would help?"
She can't help but think how even more ridiculous this mess have become.
"Helps in reminding him who's in control here." He turns with the bottle in his hand, victoriously - if only in regard to finding the alcohol.
"Are you?" She can't help but ask.
Damon's head snaps up at the same time as his eyes narrow venomously.
"Of course."
Of course not.
She can't deal with this ridiculousness anymore but she doesn't say that out loud. Though she really really wants to.
Ignoring Milo's cries seems to only get harder and harder by the day and so she heads up to his room, two at a time. Her life now, a never-ending series of staircase these days it seems.
Her son's little arms are outstretched for her when she enters, face is a crimson shade, her heart splintering when she sees the tears on his skin. And that's when it hits her.
If Damon had found out that the cops were at Derek's place, then that can only mean he's either taken their child with him when he went there, or - possibly worse - left him here while she was sleeping.
She scoops Milo from his crib, furious, and shushes him with a promise (or like a lie.) that he's okay; that she's here, and heads back down to the kitchen.
"When you went to Derek's place earlier," she stomps, not waiting a second to storm accusatory in her tone. "Where was Milo?"
"Here."
"You left our son here, with him in the basement and -"
"- And! And what? You want me to take him with me?!"
"One of us stays awake at all times." she bites. "That's what you said. That's how we'd keep Milo safe."
"He was safe, Addison! There's a lock on the basement door, you sleep with a gun, you -"
"- Get a plan, Damon!" she warns, her tone low and seething.
She can't be the only one doing all the work here anymore and they can't have him down there for too long (three days is long enough.) and she doesn't want to be here when Damon kills him."Get a fucking plan or we're leaving!"
She will run, if that's the last thing she does, she promises.
She turns to leave, rocking the crying baby in her arms, carefully cradling his head with her palm when she feels a fistful of her red strands being yanked back roughly.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going!"
Her stomach drops, she instinctively holds Milo tighter, almost clawing at the fabric of clothes, startling their son further into an deafening scream, while her other hand tries grasping and digging for anything to hold on to so she wouldn't fall.
"You don't get to tell me what to do!"
She freezes. Shocked. Her heart leaps into her throat as she watches his hands reach out for her, one clawing the neckline of her shirt, the other closing around her wrist. She didn't even have enough time to cry out because as soon as her brain stops short-circuiting, he jerks her violently towards him and then, pushes her up against the wall, hard. She hears the back of her head smack against the concrete. She feels it too.
Shit!
She winces.
"What are you doing?"
His hands tightens around her and a bubble of panic rises in her throat as their son in between only cries out louder. She shakes her head and raises her free hand to push futilely against his chest, trying to twist her body away.
"Let go! Stop it! Damon!"
And suddenly he's leaning up close, flattening her against the wall with his body, bringing his face to hers and hissing in her ear. "You have nowhere to go." he reminds her, "I am your family. Yours doesn't even care about you. I am your family. He's my son too. So, don't you dare threaten me like that again."
Her heart seizes any traction. "Okay." she breathes, "Okay. Okay. You're scaring Milo."
He looks down at their son, the lines around his eyes softens, perhaps with shame. He complies and steps back, holding his hands up in surrender.
She burrows Milo higher on her shoulder, feels his hot tears seeping into her shirt. "I'll be in the living room. Is that going to be an issue here." she tells him, picking up the stuffed animals from the floor so she can focus her attention on soothing their child.
She half expects him to follow, to apologise but he doesn't. Of course. There's the noise of liquid tipping in the brandy bottle and all she can think of is what just happened.
Damon's never hurt her. Never physically. And no one's ever touched her like that. Nobody. She've never been so terrified. That was a first and that better be the last, because she's leaving if it ever happens again.
She will run.
Her breath catches in her throat and a strangled cry tore itself from her lungs.
She will run.
She thinks about Derek and his twisted body lying below them and ... what if it were Milo?
Suddenly, she hears the sounds of keys scraping against the counter, followed by Damon's boots on the floor.
"Where are you going?" she asks.
"Out."
"Where?"
"To get a plan."
He says no more, no apologies and shuts the front door behind him.
Addison takes Milo and the stuffed animal and carries them upstairs, setting them in the crib he seems to spend more time in than she'd like. He's content enough though with the little white rabbit and she waits for the noise of the car engine to fade, then fills a plastic bowl with warm water before fishing a clean flannel out of the bathroom cupboard.
With the bowl balancing against her hip and her gun in her other hand, it's hard to manoeuvre her way around without spilling the water. So, she's more than a little damp by the time she makes it down to the basement but it's a small trade-off for having the security of her weapon.
Her breath catches in her throat when she sees Derek lying there, body twisted and already swollen with bruises. She makes her way over tentatively, setting the bowl down first and spilling a little more of the water accidentally.
"Your face," she whispers, shocked even after all of this time at the brutality of the way in which Damon operates sometimes. "You should have just told him."
Derek keeps his lips pursed closed - not that she expects him to talk to her after what she had witnessed (and did nothing to stop.).
She sets the gun down on the floor, barrel pointed at him like always but he stares at her the whole time, just watching; waiting, she supposes, to see what she'll do. To see whether she'll try and break him too. Except, she decides, he must sense she doesn't have the same intentions as Damon does because he makes no attempt to shy away from her. The silence is overwhelming and the heat of his gaze on her is only making her feel more suffocated, and so she speaks again.
"I brought something to clean you up with."
"You think he isn't going to notice if my face no longer has blood on it?" Derek grits out - the words threatening to betray his pain out loud.
She looks at him for a moment, that power in the blue of his irises - despite the overpowering pain there - threatening to overwhelm her at any moment, but she manages to find some casualness from somewhere deep inside of her, pull it up and out into the room before this all goes horribly wrong. Or, more horribly wrong. "He's not going to be thinking about your face."
She squeezes the water out of the flannel but then as she steps closer, realises the angle he's lying, due to Damon's ministrations, is going to mean the droplets will trickle onto him and so she sets the flannel back in the bowl, wiping her hands on her jeans.
"Do you want to sit up?"
Derek doesn't answer and she figures she can't really blame him. She looks back at his leg and the awkward angle that it's bent at. She could untie him and even if he tried anything, he wouldn't be able to get very far. Besides, she's the one with the gun.
"I'm going to take the rope off," she tells him. "But if you try anything, I'll shoot. Don't forget that."
He still doesn't respond but he's watching her intently as she loosens the knot in the rope, sliding the ends until his wrists are free - expect for the cable wires. He pulls them in towards his chest and she notes the redness of his skin where the plastic has grated it away.
"Your wrists are sore." she tells him, like it's a fact he might just have overlooked in the grand scheme of things. Her words are clumsy and she regrets them the instant they leave her mouth but for some reason, Derek responds.
"Tried to pull the tie off. Obviously it didn't work."
Addison isn't sure what makes her make the offer she does - stupidity, probably - but yet, "If I cut it, do you promise not to do anything?"
"My legs are tied to this radiator." he says. "And I'm pretty sure this one is fractured at the very least. Couldn't get far if I tried."
The thought should comfort her somewhat - at least in this situation - but it doesn't. It just sends another wave of guilt washing over her. "I'll be back in a minute."
She practically races up the stairs and to the kitchen, almost forgetting the gun in her haste. Grabbing the pair of scissors and a couple more cable wires from the drawer and with an ear out for Milo who thankfully remains quiet, she heads back down more cautiously, gun aimed at Derek until she's sure he hasn't moved. Again, she sets it by her side - barrel end pointing his way - and reminds him not to do anything stupid. The wire breaks with one clean cut and she lifts away the plastic gently, careful not to slide it against the broken skin.
It takes some effort and she can't not hear the wince that escapes his lips when he pulls his body up into a sitting position, and with her help, Derek finally arranges himself so his leg is at what she supposes might be a more comfortable angle.
"Thank you." he tells her softly; so softly she feels like a fraud. He shouldn't be thanking her for anything. Rather than say that however, she just nods and squeezes the excess water from the flannel.
He watches her the entire time.
Eyes boring into hers each time she looks up from the bowl of water which is now pink-brown with his blood. It's smothering, the way he looks at her sometimes, and she only notices when she wipes at his forehead that her hand is shaking.
His attention is finally diverted enough it seems for him to notice it too, and rather than commenting or ignoring, he lifts his own hand, settling his palm over her wrist, circling around, so that his thumb meets his middle finger.
She glances down at their joined limbs and feels her breath hitch high in her throat. She forces herself to swallow and continue wiping gently at the dried blood, all the while his hand still remaining on her wrist to stem them from shaking.
If he had noticed the coloured finger marks on her wrist and neck, he doesn't make a mention or any acknowledgement.
Eventually, she needs to clean the flannel and so he drops his hand from hers. When he doesn't put it back there, she tries desperately not to feel the sense of loss that has no right to accompany this situation but it hits her anyway, a smack between her eyes like a hazardous warning.
Once she's finished cleaning his face, she takes a proper look at his injuries. One of his cheekbones is flaming red with undertones of purple and green, his eye matching that with a smattering of yellow too.
His lip is split and she realises there's a caking of dried blood at the corner of his mouth and so she dips the flannel, squeezing the water out for a final time before tentatively sliding the material across his skin. His breath is hot against her hand; hot in the coldness of the basement where it fogs between them, her own mixing in too she supposes, until there's a culmination of them both, storm clouds gathering and threatening to spill over.
"You have a child." he says, eyes locking on hers and she keeps her hand there against his lip.
It is silent for way too long as she panics, tries to come up with a story and can't, until she swallows past the lump in her throat. "If you do anything to hurt -"
"- You think I'd do that?"
"I don't know you." she grits out, dropping her hand so some of the excess water from the flannel trickles down her wrist and drips onto her jeans. "People do horrible things all the time."
Like what they're doing with him.
"Well, if you're going to know one thing," he tells her, shifting slightly and her neck prickles, flames and burns as she edges back towards her gun, "it's that I wouldn't hurt a kid."
He makes no mention of never hurting her or Damon, and she knows he would given half a chance. Knows he should, too.
"If you know where your friend is," she says, changing the subject because the last thing she wants to do is give away details about her son. "You need to tell him."
"So, he can kill me faster?"
"So, he can get the money and let you go."
Derek makes a sound something between a laugh and a groan - his ribs reminding him, she figures, that he's injured. "He isn't going to let me go."
She doesn't know what to say to that; isn't sure how he's managed to figure it out. They have to be better, she thinks. Bring him food and let him use the bathroom, try and convince him there's something better than the worst possible end to all of this so he'll give up the information and his friend.
"I've known that since the first day I got here."
"He will. I'll figure something out."
He stares at her like he's contemplating, thinking whether to believe her.
He shouldn't.
"How are you going to help me, when you can't even help yourself? ... So, please don't do anything for me that will only get you and your child hurt." he says and stares and she pulls at her sleeve to hide away the evidence.
"You need the bathroom?"she asks, bringing out the cable wires in order to end this train of conversation.
Something in his eyes flickers, disappointment maybe, but as quickly as it appears it leaves again. His reply is staccato and clipped. "No."
"Okay." She loops the wire around his wrists, careful not to catch the sharp plastic against his broken skin. Next comes the rope - a perfectly executed figure of nine knot that binds him helplessly back to the radiator.
The atmosphere shifts and she can't look at him when she bends to collect the bowl and her gun. She turns to leave, limbs heavy and eyes burning with what she hopes aren't tears.
"Addison," he says softly as she's almost reached the top of the stairs. She tries desperately not to feel her heart jerk at the way he says her name but like everything lately, she fails in her attempt. Dipping her head, she turns it just a fraction towards him. "I don't blame you."
She says nothing more, just lets herself out of the basement and locks the door.
Damon's return is signalled when the front door flies open and ricochets back off the wall, leaving a handle-shaped dent as a token of gesture. It's close to three and the sudden intrusion makes her realise she's been dozing on the couch, about which panic sets in when she can't immediately locate her gun, and only ceases when she finds it beside her feet on the floor.
He's drunk.
She can already smell the alcohol radiating off of him and he's barely stepped into the living room. She figures there's no plan yet - he'd have been more purposeful and much more sober if there was one - and whether or not he's driven back seems irrelevant because she's so unbelievably tired that the only words she has the energy left to say are, "It's your turn to stay up. I'm going to bed."
He doesn't argue or apologise and he doesn't tell her he's come up with something to get them out of this situation either. All in all, pretty much what she's come to expect.
She checks on Milo before slipping into her own room and swapping her jeans and sweater for an old pair of leggings, hoodie and thick socks to keep out the cold. It's been too long, she thinks, since she's slept next to Damon so his heat can keep her warm. Too long also, since she's been held by him (or even held by anyone.) and she finds herself looking forward to the day Milo can offer his arms in a hug.
Her train of thought drifts to Derek as it so often does during the minutes she isn't down in the basement with him, and she finds herself wondering whether or not he holds anyone at night.
Sure, he's left behind his friend but does he have a girlfriend? A family of his own?
She's never thought about it before and she doesn't think she's seen a wedding ring on his left hand but that doesn't mean there isn't someone much like herself (except wholly and inherently better than she is.) waiting by the phone, listening to the news and out for any noise that might signal his key in the lock or his boots outside the door.
It almost doesn't matter though, she figures, because whether or not there is someone waiting for him at home, Derek isn't going to get the chance to see them again - at least, not if all of this plays out the way Damon intends it.
She curls up under the sheets, drawing her legs to her chest so she's conserving as much heat as possible. Her head rests on the pillow and again, her thoughts turn to Derek and the single blanket she had given him, his lack of pillow and no doubt aching neck, his red, broken skin so alike her own hands when the wet and searing cold attacks them if she's forgotten gloves. She should give him a pillow at least. A pillow and a hot drink of sorts - maybe a coffee, but then, that would defeat the objective here, wouldn't it?
This can wait until the morning, she tells herself, this display of guilt so obvious it might as well come shining with a neon sign.
But then, it's cold now. It's night right now.
Her eyes and limbs protest as she moves the sheets back and out of bed because trying to sleep is absolutely futile - her brain isn't about to switch off any time soon for her to get some rest.
There's a spare blanket in the cupboard that she drags out, the patchwork squares pulling up a kaleidoscope of images before her eyes.
It's one her grandmother knitted her.
There are four pillows on her bed, two of which are redundant for the remainder of the time he spends down in the basement and so she tucks one under her arm, the blanket draped over the top and she grabs the gun with her spare hand, stopping only to put her boots on.
Damon is, as she suspected he would be, pretty much comatose on the couch with the only indication he's alive being the loud snores. She thinks of Milo back upstairs but then Derek's words filters through - if you're going to know one thing, it's that I wouldn't hurt a kid.
Somehow, she believes him.
So, she unlocks the basement door, clicks on the light and waits the obligatory twenty seconds for the bulb to work properly before heading down, gun extended as always.
He's blinking in the sudden light at her when she edges closer, red-eyed and wracked with exhaustion and confusion.
"Brought you these," she tells him. "Maybe you can sleep."
He seems to stare at her for a while like he's unsure as to whether she means it, whether she's going to dangle these two luxury items in front of him and then take them away again. But then she finds his words, rough and dry in the cold. "Thank you."
She wishes he wouldn't thank her.
It makes it harder, going back upstairs and knowing he's grateful for the scraps of basic human decency she grants him when Damon seems dead set on giving him nothing. Instead of voicing this however, she simply nods and turns.
"Can you …" he trails off, indicating the pillow and blanket with a movement of his head. "I can't adjust them myself."
Well, of course.
Another oversight and she lets out a sigh she didn't know she was holding. She sets the gun down - pointing towards him of course - and picks up the pillow.
"Against the radiator?" Her voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.
"Yeah."
She leans forward to secure the pillow behind his head. There isn't much room and she makes the mistake of looking towards him when he leans his head back. Because suddenly, he's everywhere - his scent invading her nostrils, breath tickling her neck (and somehow not tickling it too, somehow something much more significant than just tickling since it travels everywhere on her body.), eyes burning into hers and she feels her own breathing falter - feels it catch and stick in her throat so she's forced to swallow hard several times.
"You want the blanket too?"
"Yes." His lips are so, so overwhelmingly close. Dangerously close. "Please."
Tearing her eyes away, she steps back towards the folded blanket with its patchwork squares and hidden secrets.
His arms catches her eye, folded and bound to the radiator, but they look strong. Full, she decides, like a shield. And she finds herself on that train of thought that she had upstairs earlier - the one where she wonders whether he holds anyone at night, wonders too, what it would feel like to be held by him.
"Addison?" he asks, and it breaks her from her reverie, makes her look back at his face, red.
"Sorry." she replies without thinking, only realising after she's said it that it's the first time she's apologised.
She bends to tuck the material round him and he offers the smallest hint of a smile. "Thank you."
She can't hear it again and simply nods, picks up the gun and heads back upstairs. By the time she lays back down in her bed, tears are streaming down her face and she does the only thing she can, and screams into the pillow.
Thanks so much for reading. Please let me know what you think. I would love to know what you guys think about this universe.
REVIEW!!
Oh, and if you guys can, please check out my other story, it's called Find Your Voice.