(disclaimers et all in first chapter)
Chapter Nine
He slammed the door hard, pressing his lips together in a fine line at the reverberation that echoed throughout his empty townhouse. He was human: he had accepted the feelings that accompanied the state but he still hated being affected by cases. Normally he wasn't - normally he could control, ignore, repress...but this time it was too close to being personal; this time, he saw his relationship mirrored back, only with extreme actions employed to attempt a resolution.
He leaned against the door, locking it behind his back with one hand. He dropped his head back, letting it thump against the door. Pushing himself off, he shrugged off his jacket, lethargically hanging it up on the hook that overlooked his vacant shoes. He padded to his bedroom, where he peeled off his clothes in a daze.
He glanced in the mirror, looking at himself clad only in a white undershirt tucked into a pair of black boxers and white socks, pulled up past his calves. His eyes moved to his face, pale and ghostly looking, to the shivering lips and finally meeting the blank gaze that had just appraised the being in front of the mirror.
He felt it rise from his belly on-edge, up his esophagus, burning a path of disappointment up to his throat. A few steps found him bent over the toilet bowl, clutching the rim with tense fingers as his self-disgust was heaved forward.
His toothbrush was guided mechanically through his mouth, wiping away the taste of the self-destruction his guilt was gently encasing him in. His eyes refused to meet his being, refused to connect himself with vanity's reflection. He rinsed his mouth and rested his head against the mirror's cool surface, eyes closed - vision protected.
He hated himself for feeling that way, for imagining their death, for letting them hurt her...for hurting her, and knowing that he would continue to do harm.
Passion he shared alone, prompting him to wish she was only his friend, instead of his heart's desire. "Love brings one certainty: hatred," he mused aloud. Hatred on both sides of the spectrum, experienced by the lover and the loved: the lover hating himself for the hatred that festers in the loved one's heart, aimed at the lover. The complexity of his thoughts made his head spin, but he understood himself in confusion; he comprehended his unique puzzling emotional structure.
The third knock on the door finally registered in his semi-conscious state of mind and he numbly walked towards the door, logically knowing the familiar face on the other side. Protectively, he wanted to ignore, allowing his heart to remain injured instead of the feared shattering that he suspected to occur, but his sadistic desire forced his hand to grip the lock, opening up the contents of Pandora's box.
"What." His tone was harsh and unquestioning.
Catherine's brow crumpled with hurt, and she bit her lip, trying to control her emotions. "You going to invite me in or do I need to ask now?"
He kept his hand on the door, half blocking her entrance, half bracing himself upright. "Why? What's the point?"
She closed her eyes, leaning against the door frame. "We can't leave things as is, Gil. We can't give up."
He bit down on his tongue, knowing that venomous thoughts wanted to selfishly be released, to compensate for the pain that was swimming within. "Go home, Catherine." He spat out, moving to close the door.
Eyes still closed, she shook her head before grabbing his undershirt and pulling him to her, her lips crashing against his in a heated conflict of desire and rejection. There was no gentle words conveyed in her action, just an intense passion that needed to be released, and could only gain said freedom by the loving slide of his lips against hers.
He took a step back, her mouth colliding with his provoking opposing emotions into battling on the biased grounds of his heart. His body ached with a seldom felt tingle as her aura mingled with his and he moaned despite himself, when her tongue pushed past his acquiescing lips, to explore his mouth. He placed his hands on her shoulders, gently pushing her small frame away from him. "Don't do this, Cath...please." He panted, eyes downcast.
She took a step back, tears stinging her eyes as her ears registered the desperation in his voice. He wasn't just angered, he was wounded - damaged by her selfish actions throughout all these years. "Gil, let me -"
He slammed the door in her face, cutting off her words before explanation reached his being. Forehead pressed against the cool wooden surface of the door, he mechanically locked the door, and numbly walked back to his room. His lips burned and he dragged two fingers across his mouth, still wet from the moisture of her kiss. He crawled into bed and reached over to turn off the light, sitting in the darkness with his back against the headboard. His mouth moved slightly, reliving the kiss, still feeling her lips sliding against his own. He screwed his eyes closed, roughly clamping his mouth shut as if trying to erase the memory. He lay still, frozen in that position, until her image in his mind slowly faded to black...slowly faded to dreams.
Her hands still gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles had long since gotten used to the crippling tension that coloured her skin a pale, ghostly white. The one constant in her life had literally closed the door on her, destroying one of her reasons to hold on to reality. Gil and Lindsey. Her best-friend and her daughter. The loves of her life. As long as she still had her child, she could go on living, but how much air can one breathe when only half of their heart is beating?
Licking her dry lips, she pushed herself out of the car and stood on his driveway, facing his townhouse. She walked up the steps and placed her hand on the door, before retrieving her key chain from her purse. Her eyes immediately found his key, and she ran her fingers over it, caressing the cold metal before softly pressing it into the keyhole. A small click and she stepped inside, gently closing the first obstacle behind her. She toed off her shoes and padded towards his room, bathed in a chilled darkness.
She could see the outline of his form from the nightlight in the hallway. Taking off her jacket, she let it fall to the floor, before pulling her sweater over her head. She rearranged her tank-top before gently peeling the covers away from the bed. Sliding underneath, she sidled near to him; close enough to feel safe but far enough not to disturb. She tried to close her eyes, but she couldn't - even with the emotional exhaustion that had slammed into her body, she couldn't sleep. Her eyes sought his figure in the darkness, feeding off glimpses of skin and concocting the rest from memory and imagination. Eventually, his steady breathing created a rhythm that willed her to follow, and she soon drifted, slumbering deeply.
–TBC–