Better with you
Better with you
This hell feels better with you
~
This day is like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. Her horseback riding lessons happening in the mornings, and the days are whiled away with no books, no entertainment, no employment, no distraction. The same as every single day for the last two months. It's a listless existence with no purpose.
There is, Audrey supposes, one single upside, while she spins the ring on her finger (the one she can't quite ever fully adjust to having on it; can't forget is there), and it's that the hands in the mirrors and windows are gone. In the end they hadn't been worth any real terror or concern. A benign trick of light and image that no one could explain or effect, but could not actually affect them or even force them to look at.
She almost misses it, strange as it was. At least it was something happening.
Something to cut through the absolute unchanging nature of this place.
Another day draws towards a close, and it's normal at this point: how exhausting monotony can be, how relieving going to sleep and putting away one more endless, unchanging day. It's easy to slip, silently and smoothly away, almost as soon as her cheek touches the pillow. Habit more than hope. Another box that is checked at the end of all the few boxes to check each day in this place.
Everything that is until the world rolls slowly and softly into vibrant colors.
The sharp, deep green of trees. And a grey impending sky all around. The sudden sound of two voices speaking, that collapsed with a turning confusion, into a woman with blonde hair and a man in a plaid shirt packing themselves into a car, while she rocked on the balls of her feet. Hands in her own pockets.
A feeling of. Guilt. Weight. Inevitability. Hope. Doubt. Acceptance. Uncertainty. Ownership.
It's a press of heavy stones, pulled from the salted sea air she smells on every breath.
But as if there were no words left to say.
(Had there been words said?
Had they all spoken, and she'd just now forgotten?)
Her hands in her pockets as the car starts, and they drive away. Without a word to her either, and Audrey turned, adrift, looking to her side, where she suddenly saw Nathan. Beside a large old, but almost stunningly, blue truck. Writing something onto a notepad. As though he didn't know she was there.
No. No. That was normal. Right. The writing.
He was doing his job, like he alway had.
A bubble of relief whispered out through her, as though she was mist and fog more than bones and skin, only for it to be eaten in that impending grey sky. Except it wasn't in the sky. It was inside of her. Inside of her stomach. Inside of her chest. Inside of looking at him. Inside of his name, his face, his posture, his actions, in her head, in her vision.
All those same feelings swelled. Some heavier. Some deeper. Some more ... electric.
Even with the sharpening weight of every step as she turned and walked toward him.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-26 03:02 am (UTC)Sides. Wars. A battle in Haven raging just beneath the surface. On one side, the Troubled.
On the other ––
(The Rev, collapsing. Hole in his chest. All his empty soul leaking out.
Parker, gun smoking.
Colleen, trusting hand inches from the husband who could kill her with a touch. Saying: for better or worse.
When it's worse. And worse. And worse. But they still get through it together.)
His phone chimes, breaking the circling thoughts. Anchors him back in an intention that feels like months ago. Years. A lifetime.
Looking at her, hands in her pockets. She's given her whole self to this place. This job. These people.
She never hesitated to pick a side.
It jerks him back into action, searching for a piece of paper and a pen in his pocket, scribbling the address that had popped up on his phone's screen as the car's engine starts and the sound of her boots is muffled in the crunch of tires on gravel.
He's no good at hiding things from her, but he tries for a moment, anyhow, blocks the address with his body, looks over his shoulder at her before turning more fully. Phone and pen tucking into his back pocket as they watch the SUV turn down the drive and disappear past the dark green trees.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-26 11:37 am (UTC)All black paneling, and all black windows, concealing the people who were inside of it.
Carrying them off ... away. As the car vanished beyond the far trees.
"It's going to be tough for them," her own voice said.
A tidal stir of impossibility and hope and reason under that surface.
The weight of it, of them, still there on of those words. Not gone at all.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-27 10:25 pm (UTC)He'd gone back and forth on it. Wondering if it was the right move. If it was wanted. Helpful.
Glancing at her now, he doesn't need to feel to know it was right. Recognizes this peaceful content by the quiet in his head, if not by the squeezing in his chest.
Blue eyes tracking to her, and back to the SUV, now disappearing amidst the green. A tiny smile tucking against his mouth. "Trust me."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-28 12:35 am (UTC)A comparison she should have made before speaking.
Something she can't take back, any more than the rest of it.
There's nothing to do but continue from it. "Well, I hope they make it."
Her voice sounds dubious. She can hear it. But. It doesn't change it either. It doesn't make it untrue. She does. Hope. Hope they make it. Even under the oppressive weight clouding her thoughts, her feelings, it's there. Hope. A strangling, thorny, necessary kind hope. Struggling for light. Refusing to be tied down. Weighed down. To lay down under it.
Leaves her staring at that empty road, feeling such a deep attachment to it. That emptiness. To that car that isn't any longer in there to fill the emptiness. The people who left inside it. The need, almost bottomless, for that. For those people to be able to meet the challenge before them. A need like the first, but not it, snaking through it, like it means more. The bigger scale. Them, and everything else, maybe, if them.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-28 12:40 am (UTC)He'd bet money on it. They'll make it.
Even if he's not wholly clear who, in his head, he means.
Arms crossing, he looks over at her, the uncertainty in her face, the way she's shifting like she's not sure she did the right thing. He's not used to Parker being anything but a hundred percent behind her decisions. Not used to her questioning herself. "Still thinkin' about what he said?"
She looks back but doesn't respond right away, and he clarifies. Before she maybe takes it the wrong way. "'Bout Haven not being safe for the Troubled anymore?"
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-28 12:52 am (UTC)She took a step forward and turned, to faced him, feeling that awful thing, that resembled part of an ocean beating at her, more than an accidental puddle, that questioned the acceptance of everything she'd fought. They've fought about. Of everything, she's been denying, and refusing to hear. "Maybe you're right."
Not him. Not whoever he was. That Nathan is asking about talking to her earlier. Not the man in the van, and the woman with him. Nathan. Nathan, who she doesn't even entirely want to look in the eye. Hands balling a little in her pockets all over again. "Maybe by shooting the Rev all I did was make things worse."
Maybe Nathan is right. Maybe it is all her fault. Everything that happened from that point forward.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-28 01:02 am (UTC)It's immediate, if low, moderated. Eyes earnest beneath furrowing brows. "You did what you thought was right."
Which is what she always does. Which is Parker's hallmark. Which is why he ––
He isn't unhappy to see she's weighing her actions against her steadfast moral compass. Or his. Audrey's temper can run hot sometimes, and occasionally she acts first and thinks...never.
In some ways, he's glad she can second-guess herself, put her actions under a microscope, step back from being the Sheriff in the Wild West frontier town Haven can occasionally be.
But sometimes things are black and white.
And that was one of those times.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-28 02:56 am (UTC)and for her to push off from it, him, those words,
throwing her gaze off to the side of him, again.
The same with the sudden stance of being on her side, that she didn't need out of pity or something like solidarity suddenly now. Which didn't seem any more right as she thought, as she felt it, than any of the rest of her thoughts and feelings, which came pouring out with a shake of her head, denial and too many other things at once. "I don't know what I think anymore."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-28 03:11 am (UTC)"Audrey."
One word, with a wealth of solid trust behind it. A word to build a foundation on.
One name, certain as brick. As the tide.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-28 03:22 am (UTC)and Nathan just says her name. Calling her on it.
It should help. It would have before. That goading steadiness. It doesn't.
It just hurts and she snaps back, direct to his face this time. "I'm serious."
This isn't a game. It's never been a game, but especially now. With all that's happened.
"How am I supposed to know right from wrong, if I don't even know who the hell I am anymore?"
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-28 03:34 am (UTC)Blurted out before she even finishes, because he can't not. Like a hammer striking his knee. A wave curling against rock. Nor agrumentative. Imperative. "I do."
Clear as a candle lit in a church. Just as faithful. "Because of you, I..."
Glancing away, for the first time, hands slipping into pockets, shoulders lifting. "I can..."
The pause after is pregnant as the breath held between lightning and thunder. Blue eyes flick up to watch her face, gauge the moment.
Judge it wanting. "Never mind."
Shakes it off, the...it wasn't important. He isn't. Not in this moment. There's a priority here, and it isn't his feelings.
It's her. Which is why he reaches to his pocket, glances at the paper he'd tugged out of it before handing it to her without fanfare. "Found this for you."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-28 11:31 am (UTC)It's almost a frozen traction that holds her. Staring up at him.
Despair and hope and fear and need and disbelief that wanted to believe.
As he repeated himself to that doubt as if it was written clearly on her face. Or because she's negated the last two or there things he's said, and her head tilts to the other side as she shifts, when he starts the sentence about himself. Twice. And then just stops. Just takes it back out. Nevermind. Leaving her uncertain what he might mean, how much. About what. Leaving her further adrift.
But he's looking away, and he's digging in his pocket, like she missed it. Whatever that door was. Whatever it meant. Before she's staring down at a folded piece of he handed her, and trying to pull it all back. "Whose address is this?"
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-28 09:37 pm (UTC)He pauses, watching her face.
Voice quiet and measured as ever, only different from a comment on the weather by the intent way he watches for her reaction. "If I'm right, it's Lucy Ripley's."
The real Lucy. The way Audrey 2 had been the real Audrey.
(Even when every bone in his body resists thinking anyone could be more Audrey than Audrey. This Audrey. His Audrey.)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-29 12:48 am (UTC)Not Nathan. He wouldn't -- He wasn't the -- Even if he -- he'd --
Audrey's voice trembled out of her mouth, hollow on choked emotion,
and threatening to crack more with each word. "How did you get this?"
She's staring at him, still, as he starts talking, but she can barely hear the words. It's his voice. It's the prickling at her eyes that nearly threaten to tear with trying to even hold the paper, the knowledge, a though. The only other thing is his voice. That calm, steady, just barely moderating up with something like pride and pleasure in his tone, and she doesn't know the words he's using, she doesn't know how to even think, and even if that's what gets her in trouble too often, she can't stop herself again.
She steps in and onto her toes, throwing her arms around his shoulders, crushing him in the circle of her arms, gratitude bursting out of hope, all of it at least as painful as it is possibly possible suddenly. Because of Nathan. Because of Nathan. Her eyes clenching shut as hard as her arms are holding to the solidness of him suddenly.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-29 01:13 am (UTC)But before he can finish, or blink, or know what's happening, Audrey is pressed against him, warm body against his chest. Soft against him. Arms around his neck. An avalanche of sensation that sends him stuttering, unable to do anything more than shift to keep from stepping back under her sudden weight, the nerves that are suddenly lighting into life. "I, uh..."
Bound and determined to finish this thought, even as his arms go around her waist, even as his mouth goes stupid and smiling. Because he did it right. This. This thing that she needed. He could do that for her. "Photos from the Glendowers––"
He doesn't even know what's he's saying anymore, tugged down into her. He can feel her cheek against his neck. Can imagine the way his heart leaps gladly to beat as close to hers as possible. "People who remembered her, I, I hired a P.I. in Portland..."
It's gibberish. None of it matters. None of the work or the worry. Nothing except Audrey's face, as she finally pulls away from him. The disbelief and the hope. Scattered across a woman who has never been anything but self-contained.
If he could feel his smile, he thinks it would probably seem that his face was about to split right open.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-29 01:25 am (UTC)Like it's the one proof this real. Any of it. He is. Nathan found her an address. Nathan might have found her.
Audrey pulled away, but not far, only far enough to drop her weight back to her own feet, holding the paper up and pointing at it, her voice still trembling as she tried to get the words out, looking between it and his face, " This is -- is less than an hour away."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-29 01:33 am (UTC)Get answers. The ones she's been looking for, maybe. She's shaking her head, looking as back-footed as he's ever seen her, but it won't last long. She's been searching for this almost as long as she's been here. For the woman who they thought might have been her mother. The woman who might have been her, once upon a time.
He's not sure he buys it. That Audrey could be anything or anyone but Audrey.
But that's not stopping him from being pleased at how his little gift has gone over.
After this year, after Chris and the Rev and Evi and the rest ––
She deserves it. And more.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-29 01:45 am (UTC)It's been impossible, but he never gave up. He never gave up and somehow, somehow.
All there is is the paper, and Nathan's face in front of her...and a woman one hour away.
"Thank you." It cracks, again. Barely. It's not big enough.
She's not even sure there are words big enough.
For all the answers she might finally get.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-29 01:54 am (UTC)That is to say, he didn't...
She's his partner. (Not just his partner.) He wanted to help. So he did.
It's not often he gets to use the stubbornness Audrey's always teasing he has too much of in a positive direction. "I hope you get some answers."
Eyes on her face, unable to look away. Mouth still quirked towards a pleased smile, even if he did it for this, not for her thanks. For the sudden open possibility in her face. For what she might learn. "I hope you come back and tell me what they are."
It's almost light. He feels light. For what seems like the first time in years. Light in his head. In his chest. The sense memory of her pressed against him only just now beginning to fade, and he's giddy on it.
Certain she will, come back and share this. She's his partner. It's what they do. No matter what else she might mean. To him, or to this town.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-06-29 02:14 am (UTC)She has to look back at him, back away from the paper, to make sure he knows she's serious. Even with everything suddenly blown and shaken all around her, that hasn't changed. That hadn't changed. It couldn't. "You know, no matter what she says or--" Which could be almost anything, of the millions of things she dreamed and dreaded. But he couldn't doubt that, she couldn't let him. "--or what happens, I'm coming back."
Even those answer to all the questions couldn't keep her from coming back. To Haven. To. To him.
No one else. No one else would have done something like this for her. Just him.
Just Nathan standing there, staring at her with an intensity nothing else touched. One that seemed almost impossible to read. Except that wasn't true. Even held back, she knew the things it wasn't. The things it sometimes hid, and it makes the next words come out stronger, because he has to understand, how true it is, how unshakeble. "I promise."
But that's not enough. It wasn't enough to promise. I wasn't enough to mean it.
Those two words didn't mean enough, they did mean what she hadn't said before;
It's barely a thought, to finally use the words he said first. "You aren't just my partner either."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-03 11:39 am (UTC)(While she walked out of that barn with Chris. Fingers interlocked.)
The last words she places carefully. Making his mouth tug a little unruly for a second. A lopsided something like a smile he can't help.
It's true. They've been more than partners for a while now. Regardless of what Dave and Vince might think that means.
He doesn't know what it means. Only that hearing her admit it feels like being handed an olive branch. And reassurance.
Shoulders moving lightly. "I'll be here." Where he always is. He's not going anywhere without her.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-03 03:17 pm (UTC)The word that comes out, more press, than certainty, as she stepped to the side of him. "Yeah."
It feels hollower than it was supposed to, walking away. Not like she said it wrong. Not like he didn't understand; not with that small smile and the quietness to his voice. They'll come back to it later. It's a promise. Later. When she comes back. After Lucy Ripley. After whatever happens with Lucy Ripley, if it is Lucy Ripley. It's a promise. Hers. His. Not not. Never now. Always later.
But later --
More dominoes. More questions. More cases. More things they can't predict.
And it's not. It's not enough. It's still not enough. Not good enough for what she means.
Words are not enough. Words can change. They can be taken away. Forever. There's a certainty building in her, beside something like fear, and something like fragileness, and something else so tired of always waiting, always having to go ( she still has to go now). She can't think about it. About going. About stopping to consider, not even him, when she turns. It's only few steps, she barely feels, with her heart suddenly in her throat.
Reaching up to catch the side of his face and push up to kiss him.
Clear. Something so much clearer than words. What she meant.
What he did.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-03 11:35 pm (UTC)But she's not, and when he angles around, hands slid into his pockets, all he sees is the back of her head. Breeze tugging at blonde strands.
Giving him just one second, a breath's worth of time to wonder if he should say something else (though saying isn't exactly his strong suit) before she's turned with the purpose he expected to see her walk away from him with.
Back to him.
Directly into his chest before he can even get his hands out of his pockets, or parse what's happening, while she's shoving up on her toes and her hands are against his face and he can feel them, but only until she pushes up and her mouth is there. Caught against his.
Not enough time to ask what or why, when his eyes are closed, and he can feel, he can feel, he can feel. Her. soft lips. Wam breath. Hands tight on his face. Kissing him the way she does anything else. Like she's trying to make a point. Take a stand. Draw a line in the sand and set fire to everything past it.
Hands floating up out of his pockets. That he can't feel. He can't feel them. His shirt. His jeans. The ring on its chain around his throat. Nothing but her. Like the way it used to feel when he was a kid, dove to escape searing sun into frigid, clear, dark water. But the opposite. He's burning.
And too late to get his hands up, to find her hair, the back of her head, her waist, her hips, before she's ripping away and he doesn't want to open his eyes, even as he lets her go. Like maybe, if he looked, it would turn out to be a dream. An illusion. Something he wanted so much he made himself believe it happened.
But there she is, walking away with that purpose to her step. To her car.
And all he can do is watch her.
And consider that this is going to make pretending to himself that much harder than usual.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-04 03:15 am (UTC)A wash of feelings. A whole world bigger than an ocean. Bigger than her. At the edge of a kiss that's more than I promise could have ever tried to touch with just sound. That feels stripped, like lightning, to the core of herself in kissing Nathan, even as half of her still hummed with the stark necessity to leave, to leave as fast as possible. Even him. To take this chance more fleet that the quickest breeze.
The one he gave her. The one he found, even when she left it in her own later. He didn't. He's more than she knows how to deserve, or how to feel any less than everything she puts into this simple press of lips. Anything less and it wouldn't be enough (it's barely enough) anymore; anything more and she won't be able to still go do it (she has to go). A cold reality, with its own brand desperation, even when she pulls away, her lips still warm and her eyes on his face, as her steps wobble.
He's still standing there. Not quite frozen, eyes still closed, half in movement, and she has to turn away.
She can't look at him. She can't watch him open his eyes. She can't do that and still do this. Not now.
Audrey turn on her heel and dashed forward, clipped and fast --
Blinking at the brightness of the morning light on the ceiling of her bedroom.
Blue eyes wild for a second, before her hand came up and covered her mouth.