Musical inspo - 'Skin of the Night' by M83
Trigger warnings still apply.
This update is set in the same AU as previous chapter, during Eddie and Rachel's series 4 relationship...quite near the end I imagined.
Grateful to you for reading.
Enjoy! x
ii.
"You've got a type, then?"
Perhaps he does. Her. This. Then. Now. Curves of a body under technicoloured lights. Arms perfectly lined as they reach above her head. Shoulder-length hair heavy like silk swinging, falling.
She said she wasn't a dancer. Clearly not the case when she has a drink in hand.
Another lie, he muses, with mock irreverence, as he watches her, with a sparkle in his eye. She has done this before. Expertly. Perhaps eons ago, when its purpose was for a living. To lure leering middle aged men to their deaths, waiting for the expletive prayers to leave their lips, coaxing them into her church. Atheists no longer.
Has he ever truly known her? Then? Unlikely. And yet he trusts her, perhaps more than he trusts anyone, and ever has, or ever will.
She calls herself Rachel. He swirls the name in his mouth and tastes it like two fingers of whisky.
If he has a type, then it must be 'mystery'.
Does he love her in spite of the lies? Or because of them? Because he understands now, that each of those untruths had been another layer. A thick armour. Another skin. Cover upon cover. Over naive teenage mistakes with consequences and turbulent childhoods and a scramble of teeth and nails and tears and sweat into a career that made her seen.
Rachel.
And, god. How he could see her now.
"What type is that?"
"Bloody gorgeous."
Their paths through life had collided again. And ever since, she had been peeling herself for him. A quizzical look when their eyes had first met. One layer. A warm look from shining auburn eyes. Another. A silence, between words, as if she wanted to ask him something.
As if she wanted to ask for his help.
More skin stripped back and relented to the battered pavements of the Waterloo scheme. Disappearing, through the cracks, like liquid, like whisky. Each one a question. Do I deserve your respect? Do I? Do I? Do I?
Tidbits of the truth, only for him. Scattered like breadcrumbs so fine he could barely see.
Then, a feast.
When the memory had almost entirely gone.
He sees it now for what it was, as he hadn't seen it then. Strategically placed. Barely concealed. A test. Clippings of the past. An answer to his unasked question. Do I know you? Do I know you? Do I know you?
"What does she do?"
"She's a headteacher."
"Oh yes, that'll do."
She was a clever girl.
There she was. The ghost of a girl he once knew, printed in monochrome, shrouded in shadows, had twirled and floated onto the wood surface of her desk in front of him. Passed through him like a shiver, cooled his blood like a virus. Haunting like a memory. It had been a clue. A gift. The final layer. The truth. Yes, he did know her, and her response was a calling from the wilds of his past. A drowned out scream in a thick forest. A kiss on the cheek of his youthful face at the door of his student flat. A barely audible whisper in the pitch black of a barely remembered past;
Come find me.
And he had. She had thrown herself again and he had caught her. With a note of acknowledgement. Of acceptance. Of understanding.
You've got that.
I thought you knew it.
The rest had been history. Still he had fought through the worst grime imaginable to have what they have now. For their lives to make glorious sense together.
She is toying with him. She unfolds herself. As obvious as a folder in the unlocked top drawer of a desk. The lights of the dancefloor flash white as she looks to him over a bare shoulder. The white glows on her skin and the shadows shine in her hair and darken her full lips. It is the newspaper girl again. He watches her in awe, a grimace at the only layer remaining between he and heaven. Clothes. The strap of her dress hangs limply by her upper arm.
She doesn't need the protection of layers now. She has him.
"Careful."
A pointed glare in the direction of his drinking partner is enough to put him in his place. The coldness in his eyes, when it comes to her, runs deeper than jealousy or possession. Instead it is born from a longing older than he. An anger that phantoms of the past could not simply be left at that. That the night they had, all those years ago, had been buried deep in his skin and was always meant to surface. Painfully. It is a part of a desperate and fervent feeling that one day, soon, he will lose her all over again.
"Chill out, mate. I know she's spoken for."
The thought of it. The taste of bile in his mouth. The feeling of hot, fresh blood between his fingers. The burning in his eyes. The mist that descends. He thinks it could make him capable of anything.
The thought of her, with someone else.
With a half smile, he assures her that he is still watching. Her own look is quizzical, enticing, pouted lips and wide eyes.
"She's really into you…"
"We're really 'into' each other."
The dream had torn through and become reality. In this realm, for this period of time, he has more of her than his soul has ever encountered. And yet he and Rachel had never been alone. Not in the way he had been alone with Amanda.
Her body moves and twirls like turbulence. He cannot keep up with her. She is painted now with the colours of other people's eyes. She is touched everywhere, at all angles until she is a rainbow of opinions and judgements and lusts. His mind is black with confusion. How could he have had her, amidst so many others, and yet it is now that he feels her translucence? Shouldn't this, the exclusivity, of what they have now, be enough to drown out the rest of the world and leave her tangible?
He knows it is not forever.
Perhaps she does too, the love of this life and all the others, as she looks at him sadly, suddenly frozen amidst the lights of colour and people. So, so many people.
And she approaches.
"How did you land that, Eddie? She's hot."
"She's not hot. She is a work of art."
"Fucking hell. You're insufferable."
With that, the stool next to him is left empty. One final set of eyes leave a deep red smear from the bottom of her form to the top as they pass by one another. He wants to gouge out the eyes and drop them in spirits.
She does not notice. Ignoring the empty stool next to him and walking straight into his arms, her hips between his knees and her warm face against his neck. He wraps himself around her as her body, soaked in alcohol, seems to melt into him, until they share a heartbeat. With each thud he repels the thick, colourful looks from the forests of insignificant people at her back, with a deathly glare.
Bars, to him, have lost their appeal.
"Do you want to go?" comes a soft slur from the mouth against his throat.
And with that he lifts her and smooths the hair from her face. And links their fingers with steady hands.
"I want to take you home."
And he leads her out of the bar and towards his flat, where they can be alone. While there is still time.
