"Brigitte Snaps Back"
Chapter Eleven
"Lessons in Death"
Brigitte rushes back inside, dragging Sam along. She takes him straight to the bedroom.
"Sit down." She says, pointing at the bed. He does, watching her every move. She sets down her bag and takes off her coat. She takes off her sweater. Then she takes off the long-sleeve t-shirt underneath. Sam doesn't know if he should be confused or hopeful.
Brigitte gracefully removes a band from her wrist and pulls her hair into a ponytail.
"Take off your jacket and shirt." She says.
"This is going in a different direction." Sam says with a half-smile, "But okay."
Brigitte picks something up from his pile of anti-lycanthropy stash, and when she turns, Sam sees the X-Acto knife, held in her thin fingers.
"Déjà vu?" he asks.
"What did you think I was gonna do?"
"I don't know, to be honest. Not this."
Brigitte rolls her eyes. She sits down next to him, knife in hand. Sam looks at it. Then he looks at the pale arm next to his.
Then he gets it.
"Oh, you're out of your mind." He says, "Swap blood? Seriously?"
"No." she says, "The first sign is healing. The faster you heal, the closer you are. We can track our healing, see what the monkshood's doing."
Without further ado, she digs in. Sam watches in shock as the knife's tip sinks slightly into her arm and she drags it along the skin, opening up the gash. Once done, she draws two more lines, right next to the first. The sight of her blood, bright red and now trailing paths across the white, makes his skin crawl.
The way she does it, without even flinching, without any indication that this means anything to her at all, sets his mind on fire.
"There. That should do it." She says, "Now you."
"...you've done this before, haven't you?"
Brigitte flashed an all-knowing smile.
"Exsanguination." She said, "Death by blood loss."
"I know what exsanguination means."
She gives him a lopsided smile.
"Sure ya do." She says, "There are several major arteries you can easily reach with something sharp. Common carotid artery, in your neck. Femoral, in your thigh."
She looks and he's listening. He's tense, mostly because he knows she's going to cut him, but he's listening still. He's not making a face or nodding in mock agreement, he doesn't look like he secretly hopes that she'll stop talking. He's hanging onto every word.
Weird.
"Then there are the ulnar and radial arteries, in your lower arm – those are the veins everybody tries to cut when they slit their wrists. Like this."
Without warning, Brigitte slices Sam's wrist, eliciting a surprised and pained exclamation from him. Sam grabs hold of his arm, right below the elbow, and Brigitte smiles again.
(death is my game, not yours so let me teach you how to play)
"That's not where the tourniquet goes." She says, with the slightest of giggles, "The veins spread out before they hit your wrist. It bleeds a lot, but it won't kill you anytime soon. Here." She holds his hand and moves it up, and then grasps it over his bicep, "That's where it goes."
She smiles. For her, this is like playing house with Ginger in their basement room, in which the family always disputed over what's for dinner and killed each other. She supposed that others played those kinds of games, only with more family and less death.
(with a few more scars, this could be home)
"Jesus Christ, it hurts worse than I thought!" Sam hisses.
"It's supposed to." She holds up the X-Acto knife, its tip now stained, "I like these knives."
"I'll take your word for it."
"So where do you want the next one?"
Sam takes a deep breath. Exhales. Glares at Brigitte's wide open eyes, half-contained smile. She looks excited to the point of giddiness at the prospect of cutting into him.
"Oh, you're serious..." he says.
Brigitte grins.
Iodine and bandages follow, and Brigitte is just in the process of finishing up Sam's arm. With well-practiced fingers and a soft touch, she cleans his wounds. Sam glances at the room – the bed is a mess, the sheets have blood on them, and they look like they've either gotten matching tattoos, or, judging by the red spots forming on the white gauze, cut themselves open.
The cuts on Brigitte's arm are burning, deep and slow. She takes that as a good sign. Part of her wants to stay here, in his room and cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, and cut and keep cutting until there's nothing left of either one of them. Cut herself to pieces while he watches, while he pays attention to her destroying what is now Brigitte Fitzgerald, maybe to reveal something beautiful in the wreckage.
(together forever)
Madness in the sanctity of self-harm. Brigitte feels the tingling across her scalp and wonders if it'd be so bad if she did it after all.
(dead in this scene, I'll be dead in this scene but for you)
"I think we better clean up." Sam says, "Just in case somebody drops by."
Brigitte stares at him.
(die with me?)
Sam sees her staring at him with that look in her eyes that he has seen before. The same look when she first brought him the dried monkshood, that betrays her normally cathartic facade. Desperate. Needing. Something is aching inside her, an ache she can't cut out, no matter how many blades she annoints.
"Bloodletting forces your heart to replace the lost supply." She murmurs, "The cleaner, fresher blood helps."
She gets closer. Sam is frozen in place. Her knees push aside their supplies, the cardboard box of the gauze crunches slightly. Her eyes get closer and closer and closer... Sam can't move as she presses her cheek against his and holds him. He feels one of her hands slide up his chest and her fingers snake around his neck.
Her body gets closer. He can feel her warmth.
Sam can't speak.
Her lips trace a trail across his cheek and a moment later, they're on his. Brigitte feels an electric feeling spread throughout her body, starting with the contact point. As Sam responds and they get into the groove, she starts digging the slow burn, the grinding non-urgency of it all. There's just warmth and flesh and saliva and desire that she feels –lets herself feel- and she lets the momentum carry itself.
She wants to feel it for herself what it's like.
(sine qua non)
Sam parts his mouth and her tongue slithers in, lazily exploring, picking up the bits and pieces of his cigarettes. He pulls his legs onto the bed, and shifts to give her room. Brigitte follows and shifts on top of him. He's getting hard, and she feels it there, between her legs. She shivers.
Brigitte withdraws for just a second. Sam opens his eyes and sees that hers are barely an inch away, burning into his very being.
(without which not)
Brigitte blinks.
(he's still here)
Brigitte withdraws, her hands on his shoulders.
(I killed him and he still hasn't thrown me away)
A moment of hesitation, and then it passes.
Brigitte quietly gets off of him. She goes to her bag and pulls out her diary. She takes one of his pens.
"What time is it?" she asks.
Sam blinks a few times. What?
"The time, Sam."
"Uhh, it's..." his wrist watch says "...3:13 PM."
Brigitte writes down: November 9, 3:13 PM - INCISION.
"We should keep track of the times to see if we heal faster." She says as she closes the notebook and slips it back into her bag, "We should cut again when these heal."
She leaves without another word. Sam is left to stare at the ceiling, uncomfortable now due to the mercifully fading hard-on confined to the space of his underwear, and wonders just what the hell that was.
Brigitte almost makes it into the living room before the door is knocked on. The owner of the hand that knocks is sturdy, strong, and means business, Brigitte feels. Sam comes rushing out of the bedroom, slipping on his shirt. He passes Brigitte his jacket, and Brigitte remembers the bandages. She puts it on. Sam buttons his cuffs and opens the door.
Wallace Rowlands is waiting for them on the other side with his arms crossed, and a look on his face that says he is not amused in the slightest.
"Am I interrupting something?" he asks.
"No." Sam says. Brigitte hunches, becoming as small as possible.
"Well, I'm not going to take too much of your time. Three things. One. Ms. Fitzgerald."
Brigitte looks up at him, eyes pleading.
(don't say it)
"We've concluded our search of your house." He digs into his jacket and produces a key on a hollow ring, "You can go back now... if you want."
He presents the key. Sam takes it and passes it to Brigitte.
"Two?" Sam asks.
"Since that part of the investigation is concluded, your mother will be transferred for the convenience of her trial. There's some paperwork, but we've done most of it since she confessed. She'll be gone tomorrow, so if you'd like to visit her, now is the time."
Brigitte disappears. She puts herself in a box and buries it behind a brick wall. Sam, mindful of her, glares at Rowlands to get on with it. Rowlands takes his cue.
"The final thing. Jason McCardy has gone missing. His mother tells me that you two were supposed to meet him, but he never showed. Is this true?"
Brigitte can feel her heart pounding faster. She steals a glance at Sam, who's standing there, calm as death. Sam nods.
"So, any ideas as to where he might've gone?" Rowlands asks.
"How should I know?" Sam asks.
"Where were you going to meet with him, again?"
"Bleachers." Brigitte says, a bit too hastily.
"At the school?" Rowlands raises an eyebrow.
"We can smoke there." Sam says.
Rowlands raised an eyebrow.
"...moving on. You know the school is closed pending the investigation. What were you planning to do, sneak in?"
"There was no murder then." Sam says.
"So, in that case, I take it you're all friends?"
"He comes around to hang from time to time." Sam says.
"And, you?" Rowlands' eyes burn holes into Brigitte's. Brigitte averts her gaze. Hello, boots.
"I'm just with him." She says, "That's all."
"Well, okay." Rowlands says, "You know where to find me if anything happens, or if McCardy decides to call. Until then, don't go anywhere."
"Wouldn't dream of it." Sam frowns.
Rowlands walks away. Sam closes the door and sighs.
"Shit." He says, "Wow. You're a better liar than I thought."
"I have to be." Brigitte says, "You think he bought it..?"
"That you're with me?" Brigitte flinches, "Yeah. Hook, line and sinker."
(she's just begging for negative attention)
Pamela Fitzgerald feels an odd sense of calm. The holding cell is a simple one. Bars, cot, sink and bowl. It's drab and gray, but it gives her more solace than her (perhaps) over-decorated home ever has.
She remembers the last conversation she's had with Brigitte, the moment she's admitted that everything has gone to hell. She has gone over where she might've gone wrong a million times since she's found the severed fingers of Trina Sinclair in the yard, and she knows all the answers. Failure to go a shade orange not being one of them.
But she knows that for once, she's acting like their mother instead of trying to act like a hybrid between their mother and their best friend which, let's face it, she never was and never would be.
She's finally doing the right thing – facing 25 to life to protect her daughters.
So Pamela is very surprised when she's told she has a visitor and Brigitte walks in, followed closely by that boy, what was his name...
The boy sticks his hands in his jacket's pockets and leans against the wall while Brigitte's fingers curl around the bars.
"Mom..."
Her voice is almost pleading. Pamela knows that if she still has a heart left, it's broken now.
"Brigitte, what are you doing here?"
"They're going to transfer you tomorrow."
Pamela nods with a faint smile.
"I wanted to see you."
"Oh, Brigitte." Pamela stands and holds her hands over the bars, "No matter how much you grow up, you're still my little girl. Why do you feel so guilty? Because of something I did?"
"If I hadn't..."
Pamela tightens her grip. They're watching. She's seen enough police procedurals to know that, and part of her would love to hear Dominic DaVinci's take on the whole thing.
"I will have none of that, young lady. I made my bed." Pamela looks over her shoulder to the cot, which, Brigitte sees, is immaculate, "Now I'll lie in it."
Brigitte feels a lump in her throat as her mother begins to sob. Helpless in himself, Sam stands coldly in the background.
"God, I swore I wasn't going to do this." Pamela says, "But if there's one thing I'm proud of, it's raising you, Brigitte." Her hand caresses her cheek and Brigitte is certain she's crying then, "You turned out better than I could've hoped. So I guess my little lessons took. Think about that when you're feeling guilty about things you haven't done, hm?"
(but what about the things I have done, mom, what about the bodies I've made, the death I've brought home)
Pamela waves Brigitte goodbye. She wonders if her instruction, for her not to come again, nor to wherever she's going, nor to her jail cell, will take. She has a feeling that this will be the last time she's seen her daughter, and thinks this good. She sits down on her cot and thinks of happier times, when her daughters' tea parties meant stuffed animals and plastic cups, not a dollhouse full of cleaning supplies and cyanide teapots.
Brigitte gets in the van right before Sam. She buckles her seat belt. She looks down. There's a bottle of rye whiskey by the gear shift. She takes it, turns the cap off and takes a large gulp. It burns her throat as it goes down, and the taste is so bitter, it's almost sweet. She barely manages to swallow before the coughing fit takes over. Sam, incredulous, lights up a cigarette and waits for her to finish. Brigitte takes another swallow. And another. She's going for the fourth when Sam snatches the bottle from her hands.
"I think that's enough." He says, and puts it back to where it was. He smokes quietly. She stares at Bailey Downs, following the length of Leland Street, towards whatever lies beyond. She thinks of Ginger. She thinks of the cuts in her arm, now aching dully.
"You okay?" Sam asks.
"No."
(nothing will be okay ever again)
"So... what now?" he wants to know.
"Just take me home." she says.