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Part 5: Drifts of Snow
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It was the year 1986; and he thread upon a fragile ground. Delicate thin ice beneath his feet – unsure whether it would keep his weight or whether it would crumble, crack and splinter till he fell into the depths of cold suffocating water. It was an existence composed by hesitance most of all; he hesitated in everything he did – felt too consumed by doubt and a wrecked thing of guilt. Guilt, hesitance – anger, betrayal; it all crashed together and made it impossible to distinguish any singular feeling embedded within him. Instead he was left with this complicated mesh of emotions that rampaged through his mind in endless propagation and toil.
Adrift on a reckless wind, flying whichever direction the fickle mind of his chose; sometimes there was a rhythm to it – mostly it felt too vague to resemble any kind of design. It was cause and reaction; only the cause was hidden and obscure. That left him to rely only on reaction – something that had guided him in the past but now it felt like abandon. Now his nature balked; he could feel the creature in his depths roar at the confusion. Adrift in the wind, small insignificant snow flake floating around in a dark space; he was afraid to fall to the ground. The ground was not permeated by the same degree of frost; its humidity would melt him upon contact.
It was a storm of unrest in his being.
A snowstorm of considerate strength within him, wrecking through neurons and leaving his mind in state of confusion; it was nothing less than the culmination of something he had predicted years back. He had always imagined there would come a point in his life where he would be overthrown by his world.
It would have been a natural progression but hesitance was accompanied by anger.
He could feel the two opposing forces residing within him; it only contributed to his confusion.
It was a very peculiar feeling; peculiar only because he had never imagined he would become this addictive by an inexplicable tension of aggression. It was a very raw feeling; something that brought forth bonfires and explosions inside his skull. Something that lighted his very body on fire – an inferno of anger that no longer was contained – no longer repressed.
He felt unhinged; unchained and free to roam from the depths of darkness. It felt as if something had cut a hole into his skin from where darkness could leap; no longer trapped within the refines of his body. It was not necessarily a bad thing, he tried to tell himself. It was not necessarily something meant to be quenched.
Maybe he had become tired of blending in; tired of slumbering in high grass and stealthily roaming – tired of hiding. Maybe he longed for company; something that would not remind him he was a failure. Maybe he only needed to be acknowledged, fragments and all.
Sometimes dark creatures had enough of solicitude.
Sometimes predators craved danger.
Jaw clenched he watched as the physician stitched the two vertical gashes along his lower abdomen together. The wounds traversed along with his lower ribs, an angry color to the torn flesh. He watched steady gloved fingers around a pair of tweezers and surgical scissor, neatly bringing that little hook on the end of a nylon thread through his skin. Skin numbed he felt nothing when the sharp end pierced through his skin and drew the edges of the wound closer together; he felt nothing but a warm burning anger within – felt compelled to force his eyes on the two wounds, to remind himself of this feeling nesting within him. It needed to be kept in flames otherwise it would begin to slumber again; otherwise it would pave the way for that cold feeling of hesitance. He needed warm anger instead; something to keep warm by.
The exam room was small, white and detached walls – the bustle from the otherwise busy emergency ward outside a hush; subdued as if under water. The headrest of the exam bed was elevated; he wanted to be able to look as the two wounds came together with sutures; he did not want to lie back and gaze into the ceiling. Upon arrival he had shed his bloodied jacket and shirt; the two crumbled garments lying in a plastic bag at the feet of his partner now – evidence. His badge and gun still in his belt, the holster attached to jeans that still felt too cold for comfort. They afforded him no real warmth but he was not going to part with more clothes; even if dark spots of his own blood lingered in the denim. He felt exposed enough as it was.
Fortunately a blanket had been thrown across his upper chest as the doctor sutured his abdomen back together; the wounds had not been deep enough to warrant any damage. They hurt like hell though. He felt as if he seeped coldness from every pore in his skin, something like freezing ice having settling into his marrow. Cold from within, making it impossible to garner any semblance of warmth – it was the reason he kept his jaws clenched and tried to breathe through his nose. He had a feeling his teeth would start chattering otherwise. He had been swept in a thermal blanket in the ambulance; it had felt absolutely wonderful – scorching. Now he was just cold.
His partner leaned against the opposite wall, eyes alike fastened on the doctor and the stitching. There was a grim expression on his partner's face; mouth drawn into a perpetual frown. It had been an awful case; one of those that just kept on going in a spiral – one of those that ended with the discovery of bodies; plural. The frown only deepened when the door into the exam room opened and Sharon stuck her head in, eyes so light they appeared almost luminescent – a small line at the corner of her mouth that told him she was stuck between a feeling of worry and hesitance. Her signature red hair a dead on route to frowns in the department nowadays.
Soft and sweet Sharon; always appearing when he found himself in trouble to his chin, always ready to grace him with a warm smile. Only her features were not soft. Her smile was not the sweet little tug of lips he had come to know from too many nights spent on her couch; hard eyes and hesitant smile instead. The frown was merely thrown back at his partner; he could have told the guy that frowns would do no good against her.
Surprise was but a small emotion at her presence, foremost was the sudden feeling of something tempering down that burning flame within; anger slipping out from every corner and nook in his body at the sight of her – steadily leaving him colder and colder albeit. He would never admit it but she always managed to calm him down, even if he wanted to delude himself into thinking he would rather not see her. Even if he felt opposed to being calm.
The eyes of his partner fell on her with surprise as well; suspicion set deep in the lines around the older man's mouth. Having known his partner for a long time however he read the sadness beneath the other more vivid emotions, beneath the frown. No one trusted the rat squad but her betrayal had been so much worse. Her betrayal had been personal; to all of them. However much they frowned they could not hide the sadness beneath at seeing her in internal affairs.
Her transfer, it cut deep into his bones - into the small chambers of his heart. He had not even been in the same division as her but he knew it had cut even deeper into the hearts of her previous division. It had come out of nowhere to everyone.
Transferring to internal affairs was much worse when you had been adored by the many detectives who worked homicide and narcotics; it was like seeing your little sister suddenly turning around and giving you the finger, running off with boys you knew were up to no good. To him it had felt as if she had left the savanna altogether; going in search of mountains and altitudes that were in no way their way of life. She had left him in the high grass and gone in search for castles in the sky.
It was a betrayal; and he had told her as much. It was the first time he realized that there were some truths that were better not uttered out aloud between them; he should never have told her his opinion about her transfer. It had only deteriorated the fragile state of their bond even further; she had felt betrayed as well.
The physician drew a large dressing band across his abdomen, drawing a bandage around his abdomen and back as he was urged to sit up. It tingled with pain as he was guided to sit up, his legs swinging over the edge of the bed. The doctor told him instructions about the wounds – but his eyes were fastened on her, having trouble listening when all he heard was the creak of ice beneath his feet, cracking and groaning. The bond between them was as fragile as a frozen pond where you had no potential way of knowing whether it was frozen past the point of breaking or not. Sometimes he felt she was essentially trying to break the ice, hammering down a shovel upon the fragile ground; sometimes he was sure there was only him to fault if the ice broke.
The doctor and his partner left through the door leaving only Sharon standing with him in the room, arms crossed. Somehow they must have sensed he needed to be alone with her. The doctor most likely assuming the missus had shown up; his partner hastily making a retreat, most likely heaving a breath of relief at him being someone else's problem now. Even if she had betrayed them she was better equipped to handle the angry wounded animal.
"What have you gotten yourself into this time?"
"Some bastard decided to slice me up, then locked me in a storage facility."
It had been one horrifying hour of striding through the small dead space with carcasses of dead cows hanging from the ceiling – coldness so permeated into the air that his own breath had turned to vapor in front of his eyes. He chose not to explain the wild intensity that had kept him riled up – savage beast as he had tried to keep warm by walking; he chose not to tell her his knuckles were raw and bruised from banging on the metal door – or that he had alternated between roaring for help and roaring profanities till his throat was as raw as his knuckles. Most importantly he chose not to tell her about the dead bodies in the cooler among the cows – chose not to tell her it had clicked when two officers had opened the locked metal door; clicked when he saw the creep in handcuffs – suffice it to say the cold and dead carcasses had gotten to him – the wounds in his side had made him lose all control.
It was etched into the cells of his retina; the dead cold smell of meat permanently a memory in his nostrils. He was probably in for a suspension; for punching the creep right in the face, for continuing to land his fists into the handcuffed murderer - the two officers had been unable to hold him back. It was still within him the feeling; still so savage he could taste the taint of metal on his tongue. That and the photos of dead young working girls back at headquarters; the reason they had been tailing the bastard in the first place. He had pummeled his fists into the bastard.
She came further into the room, came to stand in front of him, just outside reach. There was something different about her. Usually she would have approached him with a solid stride; not these tentative steps. Usually she would have met his eyes but now they flickered away, going along his bared abdomen and chest, uncertainty in the depths.
He couldn't help but feel guilty at her sudden different façade; it seemed to have lingered long in her eyes after he had initially put it there. He had never imagined he would be the reason; had never thought she would not fight back with raging fire. Instead he got silent hesitance; it both confused him and wrecked him with guilt. The look in her eyes now was almost the same naked look he had encountered when he had confronted her about her transfer; just faded now.
He still vividly remembered that look in her eyes when he had raged about her sudden decision to transfer; a very sudden color to her eyes he had never seen before. Gray-tinged ice; maybe she had never imagined he would feel it as a betrayal. How was he supposed to threat it any other way when it happened out of the blue; when he heard about it from the narcotics division and not herself?
That hurt look albeit how much she doused it with something else had been ever present since.
He had nothing to compare it too yet – it was a novel expression for him; only he knew that the appearance of gray-tinged ice in the depths of her eyes reminded him of winter. Dead winter; raging more wildly than a possible fiery fire. Dead winter; almost so heart wrenching he felt an inner need to apologize and make it go away. It tore at his skin – inflicted him with the heavy feeling of guilt and something inexplicable. Mostly it felt cold.
She was far out of his reach when she was like this.
She seemed like a different creature; not one he felt acquainted with. Maybe he had gotten too comfortable in his knowledge of her and had not seen this coming – he had not been prepared.
In the years to come he would be able to put together this fragment of her with the rest of her existence; be able to reconcile dead winter with her. It was as much a part of her as any other emotion; only he had never seen it before this day. It was merely a manifestation he had never laid eyes upon before now; it had been locked very deep into her being. In the years to come dead winter evolved and brought along revelation; it was not merely impression of hurt and agony she projected; no it was a twirl of repressed anger – injured being left in a corner, teeth bared in repressed pain.
In the future he realized it was reserved especially for him; it was after all a true part of herself she let slip and not a foreign thing as he had first assumed.
"Why are you here? Did the bastard file charges?" The words were hard but his voice was merely soft; he had no strength to put force and anger into it, had no need to bring her into a conversation that would only end in pain. He was too weary to instigate anything that would sap his energy; angry words with her were bound to do just that.
That and there was almost a hint of defiance in her eyes that dared him to anger her; as if she was waiting for an opportunity to vent on him. He had no desire for such an invitation; she would rip him apart he was sure.
No, he kept his tone soft. Softness brought her closer; anger would have pushed her away. She stepped into his space, again a shy appearance to her approach. Wild animals never approached foreign things without a slip of hesitance; maybe he had to remember that sometimes she recoiled at things she did not understand. Obviously he had catapulted himself into that category.
She traced the line of his jaw with a warm hand; everything felt warm compared to his skin that still felt the aftermath of the cooler.
"My name's on your emergency contact list," she told him, voice calm. Calm as the dead of winter; calm only in the absence of movement.
His hands landed on her waist of their own accord; he could see the confusion around her mouth. Touch always felt so peculiar when they deigned themselves to linger in it; he curled his fingers around her and brought her further into his space. It hurt like hell – the stitching in his side protesting at the movement. He didn't care. His arms went around her middle and drew her in; enveloping himself in her scent and the familiar of her warmth.
They rarely hugged.
"You're cold," her tone was soft; he felt one hand tracing down his back in a hesitant pattern, so soft it was barely a touch at all. The other went to the nape of his neck; into his hair and brought him closer. He turned his head sideways, ear and cheek enveloped by the warmth of her beating heart. The soft pressure on his back disappeared; came back clothed in a blanket as she drew it across his shoulders.
He could feel the impressions of her breasts; feel the inhalations of her breaths that brought him even closer to her chest. He tightened his grip around her.
"Sometimes I understand why you transferred," he told her.
She sighed; per silent agreement it had been decreed a volatile subject. It was imbued by the need to tread lightly; to be conscious of the fact that the wrong word, the wrong tone would undoubtedly push her towards even higher altitudes.
"But most of the times I do not."
She chose not to speak; but he felt her fingers tightening in his hair. He could imagine the danger signs in her irises.
"It feels like a betrayal. You couldn't have chosen anything else but the rat squad? It doesn't suit you – it downright disagrees with you," he mumbled.
"We've been around this a thousand times," it was her way of telling him that if he continued in this manner she would surely disappear.
"I'm sorry."
He looked up and caught her gaze; her eyes were so clear, almost clear like ice. It was a discovery he had made about her that he wished he would never had uncovered; she became dead winter when something he did or said hurt her. Others would see it as her being merely cold; they would not be able to discern the nuance in the look.
"I know, I'm sorry too," her voice was soft again – eyes even beginning to thaw. She rubbed his back and he leaned into her again.
However close he was too her he could still feel the darkness between them; they were drifting apart. He could feel it in the steady heartbeat of hers, feel it in the tentative hands on his back – in the little steady breaths that ghosted into his hair, warm.
The thing between had never been something of hesitance before; had never been something where they had to tread carefully around each other, tentative and afraid to say the wrong thing. It was not in their nature to be fragile around each other but somehow it had become so tenuous that he was afraid. It went against everything he knew; it did not suit either of them. But it was a matter of fact; they were wary of each other.
Importantly they were on their guard; predators being wary of each other were never a good thing. It was bound to bring more complications than comfort. Everything would be covered in a little bit of mistrust now; he could already feel it slipping in between them; almost tangible in the air.
He wanted to anchor them together but he was afraid it would only bring them further apart.
Distrust and fear; the two worst things to put into the midst of their friendship.
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