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control_issuesSomeday, in a place that's sunnier and more tangible than here, there might be an equation in place for when you plus another equals one. This isn't that place. She's too far away to equal half a person, and he's too present.
Dani's drowning. Her hands are shaking and her eyes are burning. She thinks about a time when she was much younger, sitting in the bottom of the swimming pool during one of her parent's barbecues. She sat there because it was quiet, and because she couldn't think of anywhere else to sit. Not with her father's family, whom she didn't look like. Not with her mother's, whom she had to pretend not to understand. There was her, and the water, and no questions. She closed her eyes and she felt safe -- like she could disappear.
Only now she's older and she has disappeared. Gone past those pills, that room, his smile, their sickness. She's sat at the end of the universe, covered in puke and crap, and realized -- she was so sick. And maybe she didn't want to get better, maybe she wouldn't ever get better, but she didn't want to fade to black with the rest of them.
She wants to be here, insofar as she'll ever be capable, so she runs to the shower and reaches for the knobs. She thinks she might have called out her new partner’s name, like she thinks she might have called out for God or her mother. But she is alone in this, she has to be.
Except that arms are coming around her, getting her into the shower, helping her get the sickness off. Gasping, she turns around. She's ready to kill him, ready to make him pay for ever--
"Reese," he whispers urgently, grabbing onto her wrists. Only she's not Reese, never Reese, not since she took the job. She's Dani, his Dani, his girl.
"Reese," he whispers again. "Are you Detective Reese?"
She wants to be. Fuck, but she wants to be. But there's an in between, a wall that someone with stronger legs could walk through. Instead, Dani pushes him up against the shower wall with the water still running. She kisses him harshly, because their kisses weren't ever soft.
He goes stiff for a moment, before her hands go to the waist of his genes. And then he's not him, not the man she remembers, because that man always waited for Dani to do the work, to come to him. This man moves with her, moves roughly with her. He lifts her up against the wall, and his mouth comes to the hollow of her neck, where it stays. Her fingernails rake up and down his back. His pants are shoved down and hers are on the floor, and neither of them has bothered to take anything else off.
He moves with her. He comes with her.
When it’s over, when she can open her eyes without blinking, she climbs out of the tub and picks her jeans off of the floor. He tries to help her out, and she shrugs him off.
Outside, when they’ve agreed not to talk about it—not to ever talk about it—there are forms to fill out and witnesses to question. A beat cop comes up to her, notepad in hand.
“Are you Detective Reese?”
She doesn’t look at Crews out of the side of her eyes.
“Yeah. I’m Detective Reese.”
Dani's drowning. Her hands are shaking and her eyes are burning. She thinks about a time when she was much younger, sitting in the bottom of the swimming pool during one of her parent's barbecues. She sat there because it was quiet, and because she couldn't think of anywhere else to sit. Not with her father's family, whom she didn't look like. Not with her mother's, whom she had to pretend not to understand. There was her, and the water, and no questions. She closed her eyes and she felt safe -- like she could disappear.
Only now she's older and she has disappeared. Gone past those pills, that room, his smile, their sickness. She's sat at the end of the universe, covered in puke and crap, and realized -- she was so sick. And maybe she didn't want to get better, maybe she wouldn't ever get better, but she didn't want to fade to black with the rest of them.
She wants to be here, insofar as she'll ever be capable, so she runs to the shower and reaches for the knobs. She thinks she might have called out her new partner’s name, like she thinks she might have called out for God or her mother. But she is alone in this, she has to be.
Except that arms are coming around her, getting her into the shower, helping her get the sickness off. Gasping, she turns around. She's ready to kill him, ready to make him pay for ever--
"Reese," he whispers urgently, grabbing onto her wrists. Only she's not Reese, never Reese, not since she took the job. She's Dani, his Dani, his girl.
"Reese," he whispers again. "Are you Detective Reese?"
She wants to be. Fuck, but she wants to be. But there's an in between, a wall that someone with stronger legs could walk through. Instead, Dani pushes him up against the shower wall with the water still running. She kisses him harshly, because their kisses weren't ever soft.
He goes stiff for a moment, before her hands go to the waist of his genes. And then he's not him, not the man she remembers, because that man always waited for Dani to do the work, to come to him. This man moves with her, moves roughly with her. He lifts her up against the wall, and his mouth comes to the hollow of her neck, where it stays. Her fingernails rake up and down his back. His pants are shoved down and hers are on the floor, and neither of them has bothered to take anything else off.
He moves with her. He comes with her.
When it’s over, when she can open her eyes without blinking, she climbs out of the tub and picks her jeans off of the floor. He tries to help her out, and she shrugs him off.
Outside, when they’ve agreed not to talk about it—not to ever talk about it—there are forms to fill out and witnesses to question. A beat cop comes up to her, notepad in hand.
“Are you Detective Reese?”
She doesn’t look at Crews out of the side of her eyes.
“Yeah. I’m Detective Reese.”
