The "Cold" Trilogy
Part One: "Cold Nights"
A/N: This is the first part of a trilogy of oneshots. I thought about combining them into one story but I figured that with the way I planned to write them, they could be read separately. They make more sense together, but they can still stand-alone. And for all those who are reading my other WIP "Nixie" yeah yeah I know, I should be writing another chapter for that, but with three more chapters of fluff before I get into the angst on that one, I needed a break—needed to write something nice and depressing. Also this is a little bit ooc. Not too bad, but its more of a 'what if' sort of deal than a realistic, 'it could happen fic'. At least that's how I perceived it. R&R and let me know what you think!
WARNING: Suicide / Self-mutilation references—depressing and dark in general! NOT A CHARACTER DEATH FIC!
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The cold metal rested as if it were a slumbering beast, slowly and methodically draining the warmth from the palm of his hand like a leech sucking the life out of him. It lay there, seemingly harmless, yet he knew it for what it was: temptation—temptation to leave everything behind: all his troubles, all his worries, and all his pain. It called to him, there in the darkness; the beast was by his bedside and it knew his name.
The night was unseasonably cold and while the rest of the city closed their windows and turned on their neglected heater, he couldn't seem to make himself care. His bedroom window was wide open, the chilled night breeze drifted in silently, billowing the pale curtains making them look like eerily pale fingers reaching for him, reaching…
The ghostly light of the pallid moon tried in vain to frighten away the bleak darkness of the night, but to no avail; it only shone in through the window and cast nightmarish shadows across the walls, each seeming to move on its own accord, living, breathing demons of the night.
They were waiting.
Would tonight be the night? The night he finally went through with it all? Would the cold night finally claim his soul and numb him from all his worldly pain?
He pressed the cold steel of the round gun barrel to his temple, his skin was damp and clammy as the night breeze ruffled through his wet hair. He held it there, his finger resting just behind the trigger.
He closed his eyes…
…I promise…
The seemingly distant memory came back to him in fragments, and slowly, slowly, he moved the firearm away from his head, resting his hand in his lap, the black metal gleaming at him mockingly.
What right did he have to live? He had taken lives but that wasn't what haunted him, no; those he'd killed were from self-defense or for the protection of others. No, what haunted him in the late hours of the night were the ones he failed. The innocents he failed—sometimes he could hear them screaming in his dreams, robbed of life too soon…
…because he failed.
The times where he hadn't been able to figure it out quick enough, the times he had been wrong, and all the times he hadn't been able to save those who had been counting on him.
Sleep was the enemy—oh how he hated to dream.
But he'd made a promise. A promise he intended to keep.
Things weren't always horrible; he had good times with his few friends and with his family. But at night, in the cold night, it was just him and his demons. Humans weren't meant to observe brutality and gore on a day-to-day basis or even a weekly basis. Yet there he stood—that was his job. People die and he has to find their killer. All the worst aspects of humanity—greed, lust, anger, utter insanity—the list went on. Day after day people were killing other people and for what?
Sometimes there wasn't even a reason and those were the worst nights.
He tried to work even more, to help even more—to the point where the only sleep he got was from complete exhaustion on a couch in the remote corner of the office. That was the best sleep—the kind where he was too tired to dream.
But then he couldn't do that anymore. Other people, people who cared about him, made him slow down—go home and sleep. But sleep never came easily to the small apartment bedroom—the walls held so many secrets. He was sure that if the walls could speak and if they could tell those caring people some of the things that he had done to himself….
But the walls couldn't speak, they couldn't tell anyone where to look for the scars that were hidden on parts of his body where no one would ever see.
The razor thin lines on the side of his leg were a feeble attempt to ease the pain of seeing yet another mangled body of a child…
The self-inflicted burns on one side of his chest distracted him enough from when the horror of multiple raped and mutilated women became too much…
When he'd passed out from the pain, it was the most fitful rest he'd had in weeks…
No one knew.
He didn't want them to know. Their disappointment would be too much.
He leaned forward; the weight of his gun seemed to increase ten times as he pulled out the small lock box from under his bed. It was a faded green, not dissimilar to a shade of green often seen on army camouflage gear and he found it to be appropriate.
He was constantly at war with himself.
He opened the box and ever so gently, he laid down his personal weapon—the one no one knew about—into the secure box with only a minor metallic clang echoing into the empty dark of the room. He closed and locked the box shut, returned the key to its hiding place and calmly slid the metal box back beneath his bed.
He laid down beneath the white sheets, trying to ignore the hisses of contempt from the demon-like shadows, the pale fingers of the curtains that reached for him beseechingly and the silent calling of the beast beneath him. He stared at the ceiling for a long time, repeating to himself over and over, that he'd made a promise, a promise he was going to keep—the beast would have to wait.
His nightly ritual was now complete as he drifted off to sleep, just a bare two hours before his alarm would sound. The ritual of holding the cold steel of the firearm in his hands and pressing it to the side of his head, reverently relishing the bite of the freezing cold metal against his warm skin, soothed him…he knew that sooner or later when his promise was either broken or when he was truly alone in the world, then, and only then would he give in to the lurking beast within his heart. Only then…
Special Agent Don Eppes dreamed little that night, for once. But he knew that nightmares always return and that the pain of loss never fades away in the melancholy dark of cold nights…
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