AN: This is a story that starts in season two after episode 6 - the Mobassa Cartel. In this AU, Liz and Ressler turn to each other to deal with their job and life problems. Chapters won't be after every episode - just some, and they won't necessarily reference each other. Probably going to be shorter chapters then my other multi-chapter "The start of something great". Maybe. Hopefully. Gonna try.
*Drug mention*
Chapter 1 - 2x06
It was Liz who wrapped the blanket tighter around her partner's shoulders, who pressed herself into his side as they sat there in the back of the ambulance, who felt his body tremble with silent sobs as he mourned his losses and the way they had led him to this station in life. It was Liz who dried his tears and took him by the hand and led him out from under the judgmental eyes of onlookers to the security of their SUV.
"Ress?" she started softly. She wasn't sure where the shortened version of his name had come from but it had a weird sense of appeal to it. "What do you want to?" She let him climb himself into the passenger seat and then went around to the drivers, shutting the door behind both of them. He sat shivering in his seat so she turned on the engine and cranked the heaters.
She seen him try to pull the blanket around his shoulders and fail because his hands shook so badly - though that not from cold.
"Do you want to find a hospital here and wait it out? Do you want me to toss the pills for you? Or do you want to take one more to take off the edge and slowly wean yourself off? What do you want to do?"
"I want to go home" he said simply, his voice far from steady. "Take me home"
It was a question, she could tell from his tone and way he said it. Like a sick dog he wanted to retreat back to the safety of his lair. Curl up in his bed and escape reality.
"Ok" she said.
The plane ride home was short and sweet and uneventful.
His apartment was dark and unwelcoming but the illumination of the lights revealed a hideaway Liz was not prepared for. Everywhere she turned was a picture, a shirt, a plant, a book that spoke of the lover he had shared this space with.
The memoralia of his first love was unnerving and as she helped him into pajama pants and into bed she couldn't shake the overwhelming desire to climb in after him and make him forget her.
She knew that under normal circumstances he'd refuse her but he was vulnerable right now and he didn't have the strength to refuse.
He'd told her, mostly, his lived experiences of the day in the ride home. The terrible chase through the forest, stumbling over his own feet, slow and clumsy under the effects of the drugs, sharing a fire with half a dozen stuffed humans.
The fight, the stabbing, the conviction that he was looking death in the face.
The fact that he'd been called a junkie. The fact that he was.
No, he wouldn't refuse.
But then, forcing him under such circumstances would be akin to rape.
And that she wouldn't do either.
She heard stumbling in the other room and sprang to her feet. There was no way she was sleeping tonight. Not on the couch.
She was half expecting to find him on the floor in his own vomit and was shocked to find that not only had he retained control of his bowels but he was in his feet. That was about all that could be said for the gait he had was far from walking, but his feet were under him.
He was shoving things that used to occupy his bedside table in a box. Audrey's things, she realized. The ones she'd found glaring just earlier.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Packing" he said simply. "Her things."
"Do you want to forget her?" she asked, trying to be gentle, but kinda confused. She wouldn't be forcing him.
She knew that he, and likely many others, would not think himself attractive under such circumstances but Liz found his vulnerability and weakness quite attractive indeed.
As for the sweat - well she intended to get there anyway.
"No" he said in answer to her question, "but within reason. I need to get through this and I don't think I can if I'm staring at this." He held up a framed photo of the two of them. Her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist she hung from his back. He had a smile wider and more genuine then she'd ever seen in person. "It's all wrapped up together in my head Liz. I started the pills for my leg but I kept going because of her and the baby."
"The baby?" asked Liz.
"7 weeks" he said, his voice pinched and tears slipping from his eyes. "It had eyes and ears." And that was all he intended to say about it.
"Oh Ress" she stepped forward and took the picture from his hand. It was shaking, she noticed and she didn't want him to wreak the picture. "I'm so sorry." Clearly the loss was devasting to him, he had just chosen not to share it with the world.
"Don't tell okay?" he asked. "It's none of their business and I'm not sure I want them to know."
"Of course" she said. "Come on mister. We need to get you back in bed. You're not so steady on your feet."
She lifted the covers and he obediently sat down. She tucked him in again and collected the rest of the items in his room that were clearly feminine and placed them all in the box before placing the box in the closet.
She looked over to see him holding his head in pain and turned off the light to help with the headache. Then she sat beside him.
"You won't forget" she said. "You'll never forget. But for what it's worth I think you're doing the right thing. Remember the good times, not the bad. Not this."
He nodded almost imperceptibly.
"How are you feeling?"
"Like crap. Like I need drugs."
"Good thing I got them now then, hey?"
Another tiny nod which he seemed to regret right away.
"How about some natural drugs?" she suggested.
"Huh?"
"Endorphins. They're your bodies own opiates."
"Great" he agreed, thinking her to be kidding. "But you do know what the release of them entails?"
"I do" she agreed, dead serious.
Tom was gone. Irrelevant. And a wimp of a man if today had shown her anything. Look at what this man had been through. The power and conviction of his love for a woman who had been dead for the better part of a year.
While the physiological need for drugs wasn't admirable, the reasoning behind it was.
She felt suddenly that she'd never met a man quite like Donald Ressler before and never would again. And if he'd have her-?
It wasn't even a question.
He rolled slowly to his back and looked up at her in the light of the moon that came through his window. Like night and day his mannerisms changed. His eyes got dark and soft, laced through with pain. His hands fell limp to his sides, headache forgotten, and his legs uncurled themselves, unfolding to lay straight to the end of the bed.
"You'd do that for me?" he asked, his voice full of awe. "Help me forget? Even for one night?"
"For you" she said nodding. "For us. Yes."
He made to sit up but went too fast and fell back, clutching his head.
Liz bent forward instead, placing herself over top of him. He was sick from withdrawal, but not ill. She couldn't possibly catch what he had. And she'd be gentle.
She left his bed an hour and some later, leaving him sleeping soundly. The endorphins had worked. Two orgasms and he was dead to the world, his sex-messed hair falling on the pillow where his face was pressed into it.
He looked serene and relaxed and his body was giving off a welcoming heat that drew her closer to him. She had no desire to go. Wouldn't have if it weren't for Tom.
Tom. Hiding in a ship at the docks until she decided what to do with him.
She truly didn't know what to do. She couldn't tell Ressler. That would ruin the one good thing she had going.
And yet when Tom had said "you can't hide me forever" that was exactly what she'd wished to do.
Instead she had gone back home to a man who could actually be bothered to break a sweat when he took her to bed. Not over and done with no care for his partner.
Of course Ressler had been sweatier then normal, but it wasn't all withdrawal. Some of it had been the activity they were doing. And either way, he'd placed a lot of emphasis on her pleasure, despite desperately trying to seek his own and forget old demons.
And she'd going herself giving in return. More then she ever had to Tom. And when she had left his bed it was with the knowledge that they'd both been satisfied.
And with the desire to return. Which is where she was headed right now.
He'd need her when he woke again.