AN: Usual fanfiction disclaimers apply.
Hello! My apologies for being so absent. I just finished my semester, so I was writing final papers and everything was a bit of a mess in my personal life. This little Bobby/Alex story is what I had been working on, and it's *VERY* rough. However, I wanted to finally get it published because I couldn't stand seeing it sitting around on my drive collecting dust. I hope you'll enjoy!
Kerosene in my hands
You make me mad, I'm fire again
~ Lana Del Rey
Yep.
The word replays over and over in Alex's brain as she drives home to her new apartment. The ride is somewhat shorter to work than her home in Rockaway, but it's still long enough to think of all the irritating little things from the day. What she still has to unpack. What she has in the fridge for dinner. What her partner has done to betray her.
Yep yep yep
By the time she reaches Forest Hills, the only word in the English language she can recall is yep.
Alex moves with mechanic joints as she locks up her car doors, walks into her building, and rides the elevator to the fifth floor. When she gets off on her floor, she comes across a neighbor whose name she doesn't remember. His friendly smile falls upon seeing her expression, his skin visibly paling. She's sure she'll never get the chance to introduce herself now, considering her face is plastered with the rage she's been struggling to hold back since leaving the parking garage at One PP. No one wants to meet the angry new neighbor with a chip on her shoulder.
Yep
Everyone asked her why she stuck by Bobby, why she never jumped ship. In the beginning of their partnership, she'd complained constantly. Even after she warmed to him, he still brought the brass down on them far more than she liked.
But now, after having installed himself as the most important person in her life not related by blood, she found herself revisiting those questions again. Why did she stay? Why would she keep a person around who so obviously wasn't caring for her at the level she cared for him?
The hurt of his betrayal is worse than giving birth. The pain's cold claws dig into her back, latching on like a parasite. Her stomach rolls.
Alex goes through the normal motions of getting home. Throws the keys on the table by the door. Drops her bag and her mail on the kitchen counter. Stands and stares at the empty, quiet chasm of an apartment she now calls home.
The hum of the fridge rings in her ears. Her new sink has been dripping, and the plunking of the water drumming against the metal basin joins the fridge's melancholic song.
Drip
Yep
Drip
Yep
Drip
Yep
Dr...yep yep yep
All these years, all their time together, and this was the way he repaid her loyalty - to betray her trust and keep her in the dark. The person she believed she could count on, the one she'd chosen to say, "Fuck it, who wants to be a captain anyway?" for. He had thrown her beneath the tires of his love of the job in an effort to return to his career of catching the bad guys. Alex refuses to cry, even as her heart stings like liquor in a skinned knee.
So she stands in her kitchen, and seethes.
Alex wants to believe this is just anger. She longs to let the heat of her fury wash through her like a forest fire because she most definitely is angry. But locked in fierce combat with that anger is just...hurt. Her eyes burn. She opens the humming fridge and grabs one of the beers in there.
Beer has never been Alex's drink - Joe was the beer drinker. Alex only drinks it when she has to, or when she wants to feel closer to Joe. She pads across the living room, weaving between the moving boxes she still needs to unpack, and sits on her sofa. The beer tastes metallic on her tongue, spreading through her mouth and causing her face to scrunch.
Yep
When Alex blinks, she doesn't see her husband's face, though. She sees him. Him in all his manifestations.
The man in crisp designer suits who was charming and restless and committed to justice for the victims they helped.
The man with gray-streaked hair and tired eyes and a dying mother.
The man staring at her, helpless to explain, when she first learned of his lies...the one she parted from with a Yep just an hour or so ago.
Bobby is the longest relationship that Alex has ever had; she's known him three whole more years than she knew Joe. She's poured every part of herself into this relationship with Bobby. Every shard of glass, every ounce of blood and sweat. He is part of her the ways she knows she is a part of him. He's a virus in her veins.
"Fuck you, Bobby," she mumbles, taking another sip of the beer that tastes of plastic.
Alex sits in the dim living room, staring at the blank wall she was yet to hang her family photos. Her body is weighed down by invisible boulders. Time stops, or it slows. She's not quite sure.
Yep
Yep
Yep
As she drinks and tries to banish Bobby from her brain, a tapping on the door joins the symphony of yeps and drips. Alex thinks she imagined it until the tapping grows more persistent. Rolling her eyes, she rises from her couch and stalks to the door. She is too irritated to bother looking through the peephole, and yanks the door open. She hopes the look on her face is enough to drive the intruder away. She wants to continue to fume late into the night.
But Alex's stewing will have to wait, seeing as the object of her anger has chosen to appear to her tonight. Bobby has removed his tie and loosened the top buttons of his shirt since she saw him.
Yep
Alex finds herself too shocked to speak at first. Surely he should have known better than to show up so soon. His eyes gaze back at her, boyish in their naivete. Since ridding his face of the beard, he looks younger. She sees the wiry hair at the top of his chest peeking out over the undone buttons.
Yep
There's a cautious light in his eyes as he meets her gaze. It's the hesitancy that sets Alex off, and she must resist the urge to slam the door in his face.
"What."
It's not a question. She knows he's here to beg forgiveness. The guilt radiates from him, fills her doorway, and the wave threatens to overwhelm her. He's a whole foot taller than her, but in this moment he could be a tiny child who stands with the full expectation of being drawn and quartered for his actions. He almost shrinks further as he stands in front of her, shoulders slumping forward, face falling and growing a shade paler.
Yep
Alex wishes with all her might she could recapture that iciness from earlier. The frost of indifference would hurt him more than any amount of fury.
And Alex wanted him to hurt. The desire is wicked and cruel, but she doesn't care. He has hurt her, and she wants him to know it.
"Eames," Bobby begins. "Can...can I come in?" His voice is so soft she almost thinks she's made up hearing him. His eyes probe into hers, sinking in like a fish hook.
She hopes her face is set in a glare that would wither spring flowers, but she slides sideways to allow him through the threshold. The door shut firmly behind them, Alex stalks back to the kitchen and busies herself with getting a glass of water, even though she isn't the least bit thirsty.
When she turns toward him again, her heart thundering in her chest, her mouth curls with anger.
"Eames," he says again. He says her name with that same caution he had in the viewing room. "Listen, I know I'm probably the last person you want to see -"
She snorts. "Gee, what would give you that impression."
Bobby keeps going, even as he winces. "But I - I couldn't leave this until later. I have to fix this, and I have to fix it now."
"Maybe you should have thought about that before you broke it," she snaps, dumping the last of her water out into the dripping sink. She clenches and unclenches her fists, and struggles to smother the steadily building tirade threatening to burst forth. Her stomach churns. If she looks him directly in the eyes, she'll be unable to control whatever emotion is brewing within her. So instead, she sets her face to stone and goes around him to return to her crowded living room.
He follows. She feels him lumber behind after her.
"I know, I know I screwed up," Bobby pleads. "But you have to understand - I needed to get my badge back."
Alex barks a laugh. It is brittle and sharp, even to her own ears. "I told you, I get it."
I get that your job meant more to you than me. I get that catching bad guys is more important than me. I get that I care more about you than you do about me.
"No, no you don't," Bobby argues, his voice finally gaining the hint of a bite.
Alex feels the anger that is lurking in her blood spike. To stop her hands from shaking, she folds her arms around herself.
"I did what I did to get back to you, Eames," Bobby growls.
She rolls her eyes and huffs a laugh. "That's a load of shit," she says. "You ignored every call I made. I had to track you down at a damn restaurant. I left you messages. So don't try to tell me you were trying to get back to me!"
Bobby scrubs his hands over his face and mumbles something incoherent. He shakes his head. "You know I couldn't help with any cases while I was suspended."
That lights the fuse that explodes within Alex. Her vision clouds red. Previously, she meant to avoid looking him in the eye. She won't risk forgiving him too quickly, and if she meets his gaze it might happen.
Or rather, it might have happened, if not for the words that just left his mouth.
When Alex whirls on him, he's not expecting it. His eyebrows migrate upward as she takes several steps towards him. If he thought she was mad before, he has something else coming. Her heart thrums in her chest.
Yep yep yep was just the eye of the storm, Alex realizes. That one word was a buffer. A buffer for all her hurt and rage building inside. The real storm has come now.
"And that is why I know it had nothing to do with me!" Alex says, jabbing a finger into his chest. "It was only about you. You and your theories and your work. I'm just your Watson, the one who has to smooth everything out so you can keep doing your god damn work!" Her fury reverberates through her body, shaking her bones.
Bobby shakes his head. "Eames, that's -"
"No!" she snaps. "No, this time you're going to shut the hell up and listen to me. While you were wallowing and feeling sorry for yourself, I was doing everything I could to bring you back. I called the Chief of Ds every week. I hounded Ross every day. I even called Dr. Olivet to try and tell her I needed to get ahold of you. None of that was because I needed you to do the job. I don't need you for that - I had a career for over a decade without you, and if you didn't want to come back I would still have a job and a career. No, I wanted you to be back. Because I wanted you. I checked in on you, I tried to contact you, because I cared about you and your selfish ass. But all you cared about was coming back to this job and showing everyone that you can still pull off a case...that you're not crazy." Alex pauses for a moment, gulping in the air she'd denied herself during her speech.
Shock is written all over Bobby's face. She watches him blink. His mouth opens, closes, and opens again. He's considering his next words carefully.
It's the first wise move he's made in a long while, Alex thinks.
Bobby returns to rubbing his face. Both his arms go up, long and bulky. He begins to pace as he rubs the back of his head. Alex feels queasy, as if his frantic thinking and movement is making her seasick.
"That's not what I meant, and you know it," Bobby says, shaking his head.
"Yeah, well treating me the way you have, there's no other way to see it," she says, each word meant to hit him over the head like an iron bar. He comes to stand in front of her. Without her boots to give her a few extra inches, he towers over her in a way she isn't used to. He stares down at her, dark eyes drilling a hole into her that she isn't sure what will fill it back up.
Bobby shakes his head, but he keeps his eyes on her. "I wanted to...I wanted to reach back," he admits. "It was too hard. I didn't want you seeing the shell I'd - what I ended up as. I'm nothing without the job. I've always been - I mean, I've always been, er, a bit rough around the edges -" he tries.
"Understatement," Alex cut in.
"- but I've been able to get through it because I had this job. I'm good at it. It gave me structure, a foundation. Take that away, and I have nothing. I'm a mess. That dark place I'm always afraid of getting lost in was here, Eames. And I didn't want any of that to touch you. I didn't want you to see me like that. Because, for better or worse, you're the person I can't stand to lose. I wouldn't survive it."
For the first time since he has arrived at her apartment, Alex sees Bobby's shame and humility. It shines back at her from the silver sheen glossing over his eyes. The knife lodged in her chest twists when he bows his head.
Alex imagines him in the dark place he's been. She sees him in her mind, unshaven and expressive eyes full of sorrow, with his head bent into a tumbler of scotch. She sees his face grow gaunt and the anxious energy buzzing throughout his body he'd had so much of when they first met drain from his body. And even though he stands before her now with a smooth face and dressed presentably in a suit, Alex knows the shadows still linger around him. He has his job back and still has a foot in the dark dancing with his demons.
Yep
"Do you really not know me?" she asks, cupping his face in her palm. "When have I ever not accepted you?" She gently urges him to lift his face so she can look at him. He resists at first, but she succeeds in getting him to meet her eyes. She sees his apprehension and fear. She knows he can see her anger and hurt. With a steady hand, Alex touches Bobby's forehead and runs her fingers through his hair at the crown of his head. He's close enough that she can smell the remnants of cologne and a tinge of sweat. The air becomes thick with his anxiety and her anger. Heat blooms in her cheeks. They stare at one another until Alex's eyes fall on his lips and she can't stop herself from grasping his collar and yanking him down to her height. The sudden move destabilizes him, and he grabs her hips to stay upright. His lips hover above hers.
Holding him, Alex revels in having this man, her partner, back, even if it's just physical proximity. She inhales his musky scent. His hands burn on her hips. He might have been shocked at first, but all she sees now is desire. Desire to be held, desire to be close to her. She feels it as his fingers curl into the fabric of her shirt. One of his long fingers hooks into her belt loop.
"Alex," he murmurs.
Her name. He never says her name. It's honey to her ears.
"Yep," she murmurs right back before claiming his mouth in a bruising kiss.
The kiss is searing. It burns Alex's lips, and it's all she can do to not pull Bobby closer into a death grip. Her arms are around his neck, and the fire behind his lips meets the kerosene within Alex, and the reaction is a nuclear meltdown years in the making. His arms wrap around her and pull her into him. His height and bulk threaten to swallow her whole, but every bit of energy in her blood gives her the strength to give as good as she gets.
They do not say much in their long-awaited dance. When he tries to talk, she nips at his lips and touches him in a way he forgets how to speak. Alex prefers not talking. There's been enough said between them tonight, and probably enough to last a lifetime, and besides, she doesn't believe words can express what she's trying to tell him.
Yep yep yep
Soon, the chanting of her one-word farewell becomes replaced with the sound of zippers and heavy breathing and soft sighs. They stumble amidst the boxes. One pile falls with a thud. Neither of them notice, nor do they care. When the back of his legs bump the edge of the sofa, she gives him a solid push so she can straddle his lap.
They fuck, right there in her living room. There's no magic, no earth-shattering epiphany. There's only Alex's anger, Bobby's shame, and a sense that this is just right. He says her name in her ear, and he speaks it like it's the only word he knows. When she looks down at him and traces his lips, the look of reverence in his eyes as he gazes up at her makes her feel as though her heart might burst. In his eyes she sees the darkness he wrestles with, threatening to consume him. When she kisses him again he tastes bittersweet, and she hopes to smother whatever haunts him until there's nothing left but honey.
The early morning hours find them in Alex's bed. Sweat clings to their skins. She holds him, her tired fingers stroking through his hair. With a deep inhale, she breathes in Bobby's scent, commingled with her own.
"Stay with me," she murmurs against his forehead. "Okay?"
Bobby nods against her chest. His lips graze the dip at the base of her neck.
"Yep."