Those Three Little Words

You can’t seem to care anymore. You still put on the face for everyone. Let them think you’ve worked it out in your own way.
You haven’t fooled a single one of them.

Laney watches you silently, doesn’t show you pity because she knows you’d resent it. Mothers you from a far though. Makes sure your lunch isn’t just liquid and the aspirin for the hang over really is what the bottle says it is. Your are not suicidal, you don’t have the capacity for it. But she watches you none the less.

Tseng watches you like your prey. Just waiting for the moment to swoop down and do whatever it is he thinks should be done. Whether it’s to offer you help in the form of friend or executioner you aren’t quite sure of. And you are pretty sure he is as much at a loss as you are.

Rufus keeps you busy. Makes it so work hours are work hours. Anything off the clock is your own, but as long as you’re in the suit you’re on his time. He doesn’t think you know it, but you know it’s his own way of showing support.

They mentioned paring you off with a newbie; you threw a chair through the window. You liked that chair. It was one of the swivel chairs. You’d drive Rude crazy buy spinning round for an hour straight. Oh he never said anything, but you could see his eyebrow twitch and he would grip his pen just a little bit tighter.

You guess you could use his chair, it hasn’t moved since the last time he sat in it. Everything is exactly where he left it. The last person who tried to take the pen lying across the last report your partner ever signed is recovering. You’d apologize, but you don’t think you’d really mean it. ‘Sides, least they still know your level of skill hasn’t lessened with your blood to alcohol ratio.

You might have appeared as a slacker before, but there was certain amount of pride and care in the way you appeared not to care. You did what you did and you did it well despite what others might think of you upon meeting.
You are lost in the suit now. The door to your office shut and locked and it makes your skin crawl, but it’s the last place you spoke to him, and if you keep it as it is you can almost pretend he’s still there. Asking you if you plan to work anytime soon. You’d shrug him off and say no. No he’d repeat. You’d nod your head and grin; he’d crack his knuckles and wait. You’d give him the what did I do now look and he’d raise an eyebrow as if to say like you don’t know. Eventually you’d either scribble your name a few times or go to get coffee, when in reality you knew that he knew that Rufus had a new secretary and being the office whore you had to at least make a pass at her.

The door to your office opens and for one brief moment you’re hopeful. Only you and he had a key. You try not to seem disappointed when Tseng looks at you sitting on the floor. Figures he’d have a key too. The broken glass crunching beneath his feet as he stands behind you.

Go home and sober up he tells you. You swat his hand away and stand on your own, shards of glass clinging to your palm, tiny cuts welling with blood and suddenly you’re fascinated with your palm. You wonder if Rude bled as red. It’s that same two hands that grip you once more. Only this time the voice tells you it will pass.

You shake your head, because you know he doesn’t know. Partners die. You get that. But Rude was so much more.
You don’t know how but you’re staring at a bandaged hand while making your way home. Only home doesn’t end up in the cards for you. Because when you wake up the next afternoon, hung over and disorientated you are aware of two things. One, this isn’t your bed. Two, that isn’t your hand making its way over your thigh to make nice with your dick.

You look at the clock briefly and know you’re in for it when you eventually show up at work, but all thought process is erased when hand becomes mouth. You’re pretty sure there are healthier ways of dealing with everything, besides fucking and drinking, but at the moment you can’t seem to be bothered. As fingers brush past the cleft of your ass, you’re even more aware of how wrong this is. Because it isn’t the one you want to be with. The skin isn’t dark enough, the shoulders are not broad enough, the aftershave isn’t right and the hands are too small. And when hair that isn’t your own brushes against your skin, you have to fight the urge to vomit. Sex for pleasure and fucking to forget is not foreign to you. Drinking for fun and drinking to drown demons are concepts you are well acquainted as well.

You just never thought you’d use them to escape Rude.