Hi again. Thought I'd forgotten about this one, didn't you? Nope, just got trapped in a holiday season vortex for a while. Seems I'm still not quite ready to deal with the dark stuff, so for one more instalment let's dwell on the McSwarek hook-up. Just for a leeeeetle bit longer. Mmmmm.
And I know I'm not the first person to toss in a gymnast reference, but I couldn't resist.
Disclaimer: I've been stopped by the Toronto police five times in the past month as they do their holiday R.I.D.E. program checks (Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere), and I keep having to squelch the urge to ask them what they really think of Rookie Blue. Which is not mine.
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"And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye." - Herman Melville, Moby Dick
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He knows it's a bad idea even as he's dialling her number. Incredibly stupid, even.
But the assignment isn't really going according to plan. Sam really hasn't been able to gather any new info in more than a week, and he's getting twitchy. Things at the warehouse have been strung as tight as piano wire, but nothing seemed to be coming down the pike to break the tension. Boyd has been on his case, and he's just about on his last nerve. Even though Boyd's not wrong, because if Sam is honest about it, his mind has been …. elsewhere.
Tangled in the sheets with a slim brunette with Bambi eyes and, um, impressive flexibility.
(So much so that he'd remarked on it, and she confessed with a conspiratorial grin that she'd been on provincial gymnastics teams all through high school. Even been short-listed for a Commonwealth Games team.)
(It explained a lot.)
He's too much of a pro to completely lose his focus, of course. He can compartmentalize, and he's been doing this way too long to ever underestimate the likes of Brennan or his associates. He's not about to get careless. But part of him feels like he owes himself a little reward. A brief break from all the sturm und drang in the air. A night to unwind and drop the façade. Just be Sam. With her. Which, really (while he's on this honesty kick) is the best version of him.
Part of him figures that if can just see her one more time, he can get it out of his system – for a while, anyway - and then get back to making something happen on this op. (Though he hasn't seriously believed that for months now, maybe years. He isn't getting her out of his system anywhere in this lifetime, really. And certainly not after the soul-shredding sweetness of that night last week.)
So mostly, he thinks that he should just try to wrap all of this up as quickly as he can.
He's got somewhere he'd really rather be.
Funny how, that night, he'd felt like they had all the time in the world, but by the time he had to usher her out the door into the frigid pre-dawn air, he felt rushed. Cheated. Like they hadn't even begun to explore each other the way he wanted to.
He just wanted more. Wants more.
He resists and resists, but it's no good. He's dialling.
And it's a good thing he wasn't planning any polite preliminaries, because that's something Andy is clearly not interested in. The wild woman from the night of the blackout is back, launching herself at him in the doorway with a hungry moan, and if he hadn't already been ramped up just at the thought of her coming up the stairs, well, that certainly would have done it. It was no fluke, he realizes … she's voracious.
And that is so all right with him.
For the next few hours, they do very little talking. After all, she has made the effort to come all the way across town. He wants to show his appreciation. He is very, very thorough.
Not that his brain has completely ground to a halt or anything. There's a little voice from way, way in the back of his cranial auditorium that says he's never willingly let himself dive in so deep before and not ended up panicky, like he was physically drowning. Come up sputtering and backpedalling and retreating to the shoreline.
Sam keeps waiting for that feeling, but it doesn't come. He can't quite believe it, but she feels like safety to him, and it's already …. changing his priorities.
He doesn't really know yet whether that's a good thing. Never saw himself wanting all the normal, common-or-garden variety stuff that guys like Ollie wanted. Mortgages, anniversary presents, peewee hockey, taking the dog to the vet. Never saw the appeal. Maybe he still doesn't, but god, with her feels so much better than without her.
It occurs to him that she'd be laughing herself silly if she knew just how much overthinking was going on on his end …
He just wants to live in the moment tonight. So yeah, maybe he's deliberately hammering his better judgement into a pulpy mess on the floor when she murmurs, hours later but still slightly flushed from their exertions, "Ask me to stay" …. And he does.
Over the next 24 hours, of course, he's going to replay that call a couple of thousand times in his head. And he knows, knows he should regret the fuck out of it. But he can't quite bring himself to.