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sil-te-plait-tue-moi · 27 days

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something in the night - part ii

part i - masterlist

(2002) rust cohle x original female character - 11k

age difference, guilt, mutual pining, jealousy, references to depression, alcohol abuse/alcoholism, implied/referenced drug use, explicit sexual content (shit smut), third person pov

“You gotta breathe, kid.” Rust’s voice seems far away but strong enough to feel like an answer. He doesn't explain, he rarely does, he just grabs her right hand and brings it up to his chest, to his heart, adding enough pressure she can feel the heat he radiates.

Read on AO3.

Hi! Here's the second and final part. I'm genuinely not happy with how this turned out, I think I have stared at it so hard nothing I wrote makes sense to me anymore. I hope I didn't ruin the story with all these bad written nonsense.

Summer had faded into autumn and his question kept snapping at her heels.

Are you alright, kid? Are you alright, Parker?

Everybody knew there was something else. Wounds pull when they are not done yet. But what proof was there of it? There was nothing left to do but to wait for it to crack, for the good years to disappear. And they do. There's no foundation to hold it together any longer.

Now it just keeps getting harder to pretend.

Parker is not hammered. That would be dangerous. But she is tipsy enough to question where she is for half a second. It only becomes clear she is not at her apartment once the black ooze darkness of the forest behind her childhood house attempts to swallow her whole.

She parks where the trees are thicker and turns off the engine. Bruce Springsteen's song comes to a sudden halt, filling her space with dreary silence, the thunders outside muffled by the glass windows. Maybe she had been listening to Nebraska too much again.

Nothing had warned her otherwise. Not the signs, not the rugged, cracked feel of the asphalt, not the oil refineries out in the distance glistening in the water. She had learned to enjoy that dizziness of thought that came with ignoring your problems with alcohol. Though right now it made her wonder if she had lost it for good, if her dozing off had now morphed into just plain blackouts. When she really thinks about it, she settles for the easy answer, the one that doesn't leave her teetering on the verge of a freakout- which is, that it's probably just the habit. She had done that route so many times in her life that she had found herself driving on autopilot. It happened more than she would have liked to admit, but it had been a while since she had driven all the way up here, probably not since the new owners had called the police on her, scared she might be a burglar studying up the zone. She had swallowed the pity in their eyes when she told them she used to live there like cough medicine.

Her brother had convinced her to sell it, and now she missed something she had tried to get away from all her life. Though she doesn't remember ever seeing it like this, the house, so lively with other people that it almost shines against the darkness she is hiding in. If she concentrates enough, she can picture herself in her childhood room, so still, empty, like it always was. She can hear the loud banging of the doors, the tossing of keys, recognize each and every step. She should really stop doing this to herself. Visiting this place that has changed so much it's no longer a part of her anymore. Not so strangely, she likes how it leaves her buzzing with an inexplicable fondness. This place fucks up your head so bad carcasses can be a fond memory too.

There's a brief moment when she looks at herself in the review mirror then, it's a small impetuous movement. She had unconsciously avoided any reflective surface after leaving Chase's apartment. As if her body was now reminding her, forcing her to look .

Everybody always told her about it. It was there. On the slope of her nose, on her eyes when she put on eyeliner. It had always been there, the resemblance to her mother. Her brother used to brush people off when they made that comment. He didn’t like being reminded of her and Parker often found him avoiding her eyes when they had dinner on their own late at night after school. If her father thought the same, he never said a thing. She just never had been able to see it until then.

It's like seeing a ghost. It makes her sick to her stomach.

She has a dream that night. Rust is driving through the wetlands with her. It's getting dark, and the road is becoming harder to navigate but still he drives, pale eyes fixed on the yellow lines ahead. She is in her work clothes but she isn't sure where they are headed. Maybe a case. She hasn't worked a case with Rust in a while.

There's a beat. A few images she can't make out much of and then the car has come to a stop. Now the one behind the wheel is her. There's a burning house in front of them and the pouring rain is not enough to put the fire out. But she is kissing Rust, and his moans vibrate through her body. She swears she can feel his fingers digging harshly on her side. What else could matter right now? She is just beginning to enjoy his warmth when his other hand comes up to her face and he presses her cheek against the glass, pushing her away, so hard she can feel how it cracks.

The wet swish of a passing car startles her awake. The sun hits right on the edge of her car roof. It blinds her, and the motion to cover her eyes makes her cheekbone hurt.

Yeah. That is still there.

Outside, the house seems now more quiet and she sees a man assessing the storm's damage overnight, she recognizes him as the one who bought her father's house. Parker turns the key to start the car and the tires spin endlessly in the fresh mud. The forest doesn't hide her Metro anymore, and the man waves at her.

If she wants to get out of here, she will have to wave back.

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Her job in the file room gives her certain leverage to handle the situation but she still takes a few days of leave, frames it as a flu or something to give the worst of it time to heal. When she comes back, no one stops by long enough to take a good look at her face or cares to knock on her office where the light is brighter, so a little makeup is enough. The yellowish patch spreads above her cheek, covering the curve of skin underneath her left eye. It is faint but it is there. She tries not to think about it too much, enough is looking in the mirror when she gets up, feeling it pulse while she drives to work and then back home.

But that morning her alarm clock doesn't go off and when she finally arrives at the office he is already there. He who she had managed to avoid just fine until then.

Rust is perched in front of the computer, the made-in-error files are the only source of light in the room. The lack of windows here makes this place seem like Parker's own kind of mausoleum. He seems to have been here all night and she wonders how the fuck he still manages to read in the dark without needing any sort of glasses.

"Hey. Could you look for the-" his eyes seem hollowed, veiled by a familiar desperation when he turns around, and mid-sentence he sees. “What the fuck happened?”

The rough scrape of the chair against the tiled floor makes her wince but his voice is soft despite the anger it clearly holds.

“Nothi-”

“Don't lie to me,” Parker swallows hard, and when she finally dares to look up, there's a hardness pulling in his eyes that she hasn't seen in a long time. Not since he disappeared for weeks back in 95 and came back with those two kids, where anyone with a keen eye would have seen the adrenaline of coke, things that cannot be muttered, and God knows what else. It's useless to try and lie about something he is seeing right through. “This is why you've been avoiding me.”

She takes a deep breath and takes a small step back, closes her eyes for a moment. An affirmation. Of course she didn't want him to see, he doesn't need to read her mind for that. Either way, she needs to put some sort of distance between them. Her pride won't let her be in the open just like that.

“You haven't been here all week,” it's a low blow, but it stalls.

She didn't have to ask about what had happened in the interrogation room with that junkie. Most of the time the charge of atmosphere in a police station tells you everything you need to know, and the halls speak. She knew his interrogation tactics were rough. After all, he had to lend his hand in return for a sin, and not a lot of men could do that; but this must have been something else, something that tumbled him off the edge he was standing on. She knew that feeling.

Rust looks away from her to the side, the muscles of his neck straining as he presses his jaw tight. She can see he is trying to calm himself down, yet the wildness in his eyes is still pulsing. He breathes out, long and shaky and brings his hands to his hips, like he always does when he is furious. Parker bites the inside of her cheek hard, only stops when she is sure she will draw blood. That's when she answers.

"He had been trying to pick an argument all night. I wasn't really interested in what he had to say. But he kept talking and talking and I just– I said some shitty stuff," For Chase, it had come easy, almost like a reflex, second nature. Clearly, after a snap like that, ugly and bitter, a bad habit from childhood that came back once in a while to visit her at her worst, she didn't blame him. This had been brewing for some time now. The whiplash was inevitable. Parker lets out a nervous chuckle that dies pretty quickly when her breathing starts to get a little ragged. "I can get pretty fucking mean sometimes,”

His fingers carefully grab her chin and move her head to the side, studying, his thumb lingering above the still-tender skin. They have been close before. But not like this. Her dream tingles underneath her skin. The tip of his black shoes touches hers. Half hidden in the dark of the room, the bright whiteness of the computer doesn't get to reach them. It makes it all worse.

“ Motherfucker."

“It doesn't hurt,” she whispers. Her eyelashes brush against his thumb and he withdraws his hand quickly, like he just now realizes where it was.

“That-" Rust steps back as if a spell was broken. She watches how he takes his jacket and notepad, his steps are rigid, like he is thinking each and one of them. He grips the door handle, trying to hide the brutal force that rushes to his limbs, to his heart, before yanking it open. "That ain't the point, Parker,"

She curses to herself the moment he disappears, takes two angry strides to turn the fucking light on.

Rust doesn't say a thing about Chase after that. She doesn't either. They don't tend to press too much on the spoken word after big moments like that. Even though Parker is always pining for Rust's attention like a mangy dog, she often finds herself needing to withdraw from him for a while.

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So, since neither of them even talk, she doesn't find out he beat the shit out of Chase until Marty shows up upset he wasn't notified of their break up properly. It would be funnier if it was a soap opera. Marty ambushes into the kitchen, while she waits for the coffee machine to finish brewing. She thinks that coming all the way down here for shitty coffee is one of the tortures she will continue to endure in hell when she dies.

"Could you pour one for me too when it's done, sweetheart?" Marty slides an empty cup her way and leans back on the counter. Parker stares at it and has an enormous desire to smash it on his head but she takes it and places it neatly next to hers. He stays silent for a beat, but as she stares at the coffee machine sputtering black liquid, she doesn't even need to look at him to feel his next words. Deemed to happen. "By the way, thank you for filling me up, huh? I made a fool out of myself the other day when I bumped into your boyfri– I'm sorry, ex-boyfriend and asked about you two,"

"Yeah. I forgot to tell you about that. Sorry,” she offers lamely, uninterested, gives him an apologetic smile that borders on a grimace as she crosses her arms. She had gone off with her life like nothing happened. Chase had stopped calling even before Rust had seen the blow. She hadn't stopped to wonder too much about his disinclination to pursue her, figured the grip on her holster on his apology visit had done the trick. Also, she wasn't really Girlfriend Of The Year, he knew he was probably better off without someone like her. Now, she was glad she got to go home to sulk in the comfort of her precious loneliness. She missed that. No more of the unbearable heat of his body.

"What the fuck happened to his face? Huh? Must have been some really nasty fight. I told him he should press charges against whoever did that to him, that I'd help him. He scurried off like a little mouse." if he notices how she straightens up all of a sudden, she ignores it. The glass wall allows her eyes to dig into Rust's profile, who works diligently on his desk like he does every day. His expression when he notices her stare tells her nothing. "Did you do that? Didn't think you were that feisty,"

Parker comes back to herself quickly enough to find Marty looking at her expectant, waiting for her answer, for any type of sign she is listening.

"No idea. He probably pissed off someone at the bar," she knows he can place two and two together, but the bruise on her face is gone and Rust is technically not even part of equation, so he has nothing to work with. She breathes more easily then. Yet it's the only thing she can offer to him as she busies herself by pouring the coffee with shaky hands.

"Why didn't you tell me?" the way he asks, softly and worried, makes her feel somewhat guilty, but when she looks at him she can see he is trying to hide the disappointment in his face. "I guess I felt a little... I don't know. Since me and Maggie set you two up...”

"What does that mean?"

"You seemed like a nice couple. I figured he was good for you, why throw that away?"

"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but things come to an end," She slides his empty cup back to him. "And I think you are big enough to pour yourself your own coffee, Hart,"

Parker ignores his don't be like that as she leaves the room. Once she sits at her desk, she has to dig the heel of her hands into her eyes to stop herself from picturing Rust's bloody hands. The vertigo on her stomach is not exactly one of queasiness.

Deep down she wants to see him. She wants to see the real thing, how he left him, if it is as gnarly as she has pictured it. She thinks about hanging around his usual spots to see if she can catch a glimpse of him, maybe even invent an excuse to drop by his house. And she gets her wish, because she sees him a few days later without having to hatch any elaborate plan.

The supermarket music seems louder than usual and she knows that fucking Avril Lavigne song will be stuck to her head when she wakes up tomorrow. She has been standing on the frozen aisle for a good 10 minutes now, staring at packages that look all the same, starting to get desperate about her lack of indecision about what her dinner will be.

Chase doesn’t see her right away, he's hand deep inside one of the freezers. Parker knows she should make a discreet exit. Fantasies are fantasies for a reason, but she is glued to the spot. She stands there, still, and she stares. He is like a mirror of what she was, but worse. His left eye is still a deep purple, and there's some swelling down on his jaw too. A bruise like that, you don't get to miss the hospital after it. He closes the door of the freezer with a loud thud and Parker gets out of her trance, but not quickly enough. He grabs his cart and hesitates a moment before heading her way, but when he does he makes sure to mutter a quiet fucking crazy bitch as he passes her. Parker can't help the loud snort that comes right up from her belly. A few old ladies turn around to stare at her, which only makes her laugh harder.

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Their slow slip out of reality seems to synchronize together and an unspoken deal is born between them. Maybe it had been since that night at the lake.

Rust starts to work the Lang case again, despite Marty's reluctance and the boss's disapproval, and asks for her help in his own kind of way: by not saying anything at all.

The open sky ahead is black and threatening. It’s always imposing to witness a storm coming for you, especially on open fields like this. Clouds twisting and rolling on the horizon, slowly arriving to threaten the town. Although it's still somewhat far from where they are, she knows that if she doesn’t start the engine now, she will have to face the whiplash of it as she drives home. But she is waiting for him. The abandoned Tattle school behind her, ravaged by time like most things out here, casts a creeping bad feeling on her neck and serves as a reminder that everything in this place grows crooked.

That afternoon he had tossed the keys her way and even though he said nothing she still followed him suit without question And now he is at that school for what feels like an age. She doesn't interrupt, even if he called her, she doesn't know whether she would have the strength to step inside. She sits there and waits, trying not to let the strong scent of him that lingers blur her head. F or a moment she considers pinching herself and check if this isn't another one of her dreams, but the vibration of the thunderstorm against the windows of his truck beats her to it and tells her that this is indeed real.

When he returns, hours later, he brings the smell of rain with him. Humid and earthy. In other places, it would mean hope. Here, it means decay.

He is quiet on the ride back to town, lost in whatever he saw back there. Parker won’t ask, not now, not when he seems so into himself. The rain quickly catches up with them, what had started as droplets back when she started driving, now slams hard and thick against the windshield and she can’t see past it.

“I think it's best if we wait,” she says as parks on the verge of the road. Everything around them blurs into the water, and they are cut off from the world. She thinks that if this rain keeps going, the wetlands will overflow and drown them with the rest of this place and its secrets. She finds the thought tempting.

“He is still out there,” He is looking out the window, past the curtain of water. His fingers touch his thin lips, missing the feeling of a cigarette between them. “I knew he was still out there. It was dormant in me, I didn't want to see it.”

How could he have known? She thinks.

“Shouldn’t Marty be here?”

“Marty doesn't have time for this,” Rust gives a long sigh as he shifts in his seat. He is coming down to the present. The truck feels a bit suffocating.

"Doesn't have time or doesn't want to get involved again?" she whispers more to herself, but Rust lets out a soft, resigned chuckle at her words. Both get lost in the clatter of the rain against the car. After a while, she continues. “Do you think you are close now?”

“Something tells me it will be very long before this is over,”

From then on, her actual job becomes a secondary thin. She lets him invade her space. Drives him anywhere he needs to. She enjoys following him around, watching him try to crack what seems to be an unbreakable case. She doesn't mind when it gets too late. She stays. She doesn't care when her desk becomes too crowded for two people because it's meant for one. She lets it all happen because at least like this she can feel something, at least like this she can have him close. She knows it's fucked up, that she should find satisfaction in other stuff, in getting better, on finding some purpose. Not in this. In this half-thing that isn't even hers. Yet it's so much easier.

What can go wrong with the last two men standing?

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The headache pierces through her head. It's a sudden pain that forces itself from temple to temple, strong and commanding. She has her thumb and index finger pressed against the bridge of her nose to see if the pressure brings any comfort. It doesn’t.

The building is probably empty and there's a humming quietness but for the turning of pages. The room is dark except for the table lamp they are sharing. It reduces the scene to what seems an instant. He is sitting on the other side of the desk, right in front of her. He is supposed to be reading, but he is watching her out of the edge of his file instead. Since he has established himself here, there's little they can't see from each other. At least, that's what Parker thinks.

“You should go home, kid,”

“It's fine. We still have to go through all these. It's just a headache, it will go away,” she places her glasses back on her face and blinks once or twice before getting to read again. Not contented by his weary silence, she looks up to give him a reassuring grimace that is supposed to convince him she is alright.

“Give me your hand,” Parker squints her eyes at the uncharacteristic request. Rust leaves his file beside him and leans to take her hand, they are so close he barely has to move at all, and without warning, he presses his thumb against the joint of her thumb and her index finger. She doesn't expect it and she has a knee reaction that makes her boots hit his shoes, hard. He doesn't seem to even feel it.

“Fuck, that hurts,” her first response is to attempt to take off her hand from his grasp but he is stronger. He holds her firmly in his palms.

“Come on. I'm hardly pressing," she squirms on her seat, but as she feels the heat of his fingers spreading, she doesn't try to take it away again. "It's a pressure point. It will help with the headache,”

Parker's mind struggles with the reality of it as she comes to terms with what's happening. It almost feels like a scene taken from her dreams. With his eyes on her face like that, she doesn't know what to say, stays quiet as a mouse, his touch so debilitating Rust can see how her body instantly relaxes the longer he keeps it going.

“He broke them,” he mumbles suddenly. Out of nowhere. Since she can't hide her face back on the files, her confusion is evident. With his free hand, he lifts his finger languidly and points to the glasses that sit low on her nose. She pushes them back closer. They had smashed against the floor when Chase hit her, the cheap glass shattered to the point of unusable. These were very similar in design but chipped and old and didn't work anymore. She is surprised he even noticed at all. “You wore those when you first got here. I remember. You changed them a few years ago,”

“Uh. Yeah. Haven't bought new ones yet. These were the only spare ones I had,” what can you say at that? I remember. The fact that he does makes her head spin around. She is so scared that her face will betray her, that she fixes her eyes at how his fingers work on her skin. Rust massages her slowly but with force, she can feel his thumb piercing through the muscle, pressing round motion first then up, smoothing.

“They are crooked,”

“My dad was sick of me coming home with these things broken, he made me wear a cracked one for a year," Parker chuckles with embarrassment, quickly meeting his eyes. “Don't worry. My glasses are always like this,”

“Not when you worked downstairs,”

No, because you always fixed them for me. But I don't work downstairs anymore.

“How long do you have to do that? Or are you simply going to press into my hand until this pain is stronger than the other one?” Rust's lips quirk in an uncharacteristic smirk. It's a brief movement, something an untrained eye would miss completely. Not because it's unlike him, but because she never thought she would see it again. Especially directed at her.

“You can always tell me to stop," He knows she won't. She finds herself short of words at that. He can take her silence as he wants. "Do I make you nervous, kid?”

Parker doesn't remember the last time she shared such a closed space with him. There were fleeting moments, of course, across the years, working some special cases, asking for his help with a particular difficult interrogation, moments at bars and beers shared. Nothing that deviated from a co-worker relationship, always with Marty around. But there were moments that she knew he enjoyed too, despite his unbothered facade. Until it stopped all of a sudden.

It had been long ago. Before the file room. Back when the rut was beggining to get deep and her Tuesdays nights after work were spent pressed cheek down on the cold floor of her house struggling to ride an orgasm through the alcohol-soaked blood because the cold tiles felt funny against her warm skin.

She had driven Rust to his house— no, to Laurie's house. They had been seeing each other for a while then, and he looked different. Didn't stay after hours, didn't seem like he was half away in another universe. He also didn't even look her way at all.

The first day she had ignored his hesitance in the parking lot, but his truck was at the shop and Marty was outta town and it wasn't like he was gonna ask any of the other detectives. She had let out a sigh of relief when he circled around her Metro and settled down by her side.

Then the day stretched into a week and with the passing of the days, she didn't need any more of his instructions on how to get to her place. Rust even seemed more relaxed, and Parker feelt like she has stopped doing whatever she was doing to make him so cold towards her. A give and take, you get to spend more time with him in the car but he goes home to his girlfriend. You go home to nothing.

That particular night her focus on the road is automatic, the ride silent. She is too aware of him. Of how he occupies a space that's hers. His presence is heavy, it weighs down. She even dare ask a few questions to make conversation, despite being awful at it, like when his truck is getting out of the shop. Play uninterested, pretend this isn't the moment she waits for all day.

“Soon. Is this a bother?”

“No. Not at all. I was just asking,”

Laurie is the one who motions her to get inside when she drops him off that night, says something about giving Parker this casserole she made too much of as a thank you for getting her boyfriend safe and sound back to her the last few days.

Parker limits herself to smile politely and nod. She tries not to stare around the house too much, so lived in, unnervingly cozy. She knows that if she fixates on those details, she will have to drink double tonight.

Comparison with Laurie had come easily back then. It was a thing learned by the very motion of being a woman. Parker knew she didn't stand a chance. Not with her. Her kind wasn't like Maggie's or Laurie's, nurturing, focused on their careers, on starting a family, grounded in their own maturity. She felt funny admitting she envied that sort of control, at least the illusion of it. Parker's mind strayed away from things like that, especially as of lately. She felt like her life was a spillover out of control, swallowing all sorts of things on its way, how on earth could he like that? She had a thing where she tended to lean towards melancholy too much– her mother's words. It had been a problem when she was growing up and it was a problem now too. Got into her head too much, made everything important seem like a problem for another day.

Laurie was a good woman for Rust. She knew that. Rust knew that. That didn't make it any easier to bear the gaping hole she felt in her stomach each time she saw them together. A wounded animal had more dignity.

“You would think a light change takes a day and those guys have your car hijacked for a week now,” she says with a smile, shaking her head as she prepares the casserole. Then she turns to Rust, who leans against the countertop awkwardly and stiffly as he drinks from a bottle of beer, his eyes quickly move from Parker to his girlfriend. “I told you you should have taken it to that other shop,”

“I'll do that next time,” Laurie doesn't catch up on the strained tone of his voice because she doesn't even spare him a look as she moves around the kitchen looking for the foil to wrap the thing up.

Parker starts the car and makes the bad decision of looking back at the house. Laurie is on her tiptoes hugging Rust, swaying as they both laugh and kiss. He takes a few steps back inside and the door slams shut. The casserole sitting on her passenger seat seems like a threatening figure and the smell of it brings it back to the moment. Guilt spreads all over, Laurie had been so nice to her and she only wants to throw the thing out the window, hear the smashing of the glass against the concrete.

The sharp sounds of ceramic plates and silverware ring loud and uncomfortable in her ears as she tries to find a fork in her kitchen sink. She hasn't even bother to turn on the light. When she finally takes a bite of the casserole, it tastes so good it makes her want to cry. So she sits on the steps of her back door, her lit cigarette moving through the darkness as she watches the stray dogs that hang around her house lick the whole thing clean.

When she gets to work the following morning, Rust's red truck is parked in his usual spot.

“Are we playing that game again? The one we answer questions we don't want to?” Rust shrugs.

“Only if you want to,”

Alright.

“Doesn't Laurie get mad that you stay here so late?” he shakes his head, his face unphased. The pressure on her hand stops, yet he doesn't let go. “Why?”

"Because she has her own stuff,"

“You know I can tell when you lie too, right?” now his fingers press harder, it almost feels as if he is stabbing her. Her breath hitches and he ignores her clear ow.

“I’m not lying,”

“You are not telling the truth,” She sees right through him like he sees right through her. They read each other like they want nobody else to read them. That's their curse.

"We aren't together anymore," there it is. She wonders who left first.

"Did you do it?"

"It was better if she made the decision. That way she'll move on faster,” Did you love her? she thinks of asking, but she knows that would be to reach her limit. He seems to sense she is on the verge of it, so he places her hand slowly on top of the table.

“You should tell Marty before he freaks out,”

“He already did,” Parker breathes out a soft laugh. “Now answer my question,”

“You know you do. You don’t need me to tell you that,”

“I guess I wanted to feel you say it,”

“Do you have another question? I jumped my turn, so go you again,”

“Does it feel better?”

“A lot, yeah,” the headache is almost gone and the spot he had been touching, feels hot and tender. Parker hopes she will be able to remember the feeling for a long time.

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Rust knocks on her door a few nights before he is suspended. He looks worn, the redness around his eyes tells her he probably hasn't slept in days and a bottle of whiskey hangs dangerously loose from his fingers but he isn't drunk. She welcomes him by leaving him to close the door behind him. Her house is dark and silent as they drink, neither daring to point out that this, this type of house visit, is totally uncharted territory for them.

“I am going to visit Tattle,” he tells her suddenly, snapping both back to the moment and finishing his glass with a quick gulp. He sounds decided, like he has battled with each and every consequence this decision brings, or simply he doesn't care about anything anymore but the truth. Either he gets to the bottom of it, or he loses it for good.

“The boss already—” you'll get suspended, she thinks. “I'll drive you,”

“No. You've done enough for me, kid. I don't want you Slater on your ass,” He is already on her ass, so it's a poor excuse. Parker looks at Rust, he seems to be balancing himself on a tightrope and anytime now, the balance will tip off. But he has already made up his mind and whatever she says, despite how much she wants to go with him, it won't make him change his mind.

“Alright, Rust,”

There's a long moment after that where neither of them dare to say another word and their drinks are refilled and the sky outside darkens until it's pitch black. She sits on the edge of her kitchen table desperate to look at him, it's not every day you have Rust Cohle illuminated by the soft light of your home, but he will notice. He leans against the counter, eyes somewhere on her tile floor. The hum of her fridge and the soft buzz of the dim light of her old kitchen extractor are the only signs of time moving between them.

“What did you see that made you wanna leave it all behind?” Parker is startled by the sudden break of his accent through the stillness that lingers. There's genuine curiosity under these words he chose to utter, and in the mixture of the night air and the whiskey and his presence, she doesn't feel the need to lie about certain things anymore.

“I had this case. Wasn't really a hard case just– She had done it, you know? I just needed to talk to her, fill out the papers, it was pretty straightforward stuff really. No bumps on the investigation, nothing. She was probably around 17. Stabbed her mother while the woman was making dinner. No signs of struggle, she had just stabbed her. When I asked her why– she shrugged, like she was bored. I tried to see if there were signs of abuse, mistreatment. I don't know, mental illness. The father was gone but they were a nice family. I just couldn't understand. I couldn't get the image of her little her sister–” she stops to take the last long gulp of whiskey. It doesn't work, it goes down too smoothly. She needs the sharper edge the cheap ones she buys leave on her throat. “That was the worst thing. One of the officers was distracted and the little sister ran off to see her mother. It took four of us to get her off the body.

“You never said anything,”

“I couldn't. I couldn't get those girls off my head. It really did a fucking number on me,” she could still feel the little girl's nails scratching her arms to try to go back to her dead mother. There had been an underlying uncomfortableness that lurked for a while, probably had been lurking underneath her skin all her life, but that had decided to blow up on her face at that moment. It was everything, her mother, her loneliness, that fucking case, how everything decays without good reason. Somehow she had found a thread to pull and pull and pull and all this shit came out. "My daddy once told me I was too weak for this job and I had to go and prove him wrong. Now he is six feet under and the motherfucker is still right,”

"They will all tell you that as a cop, you are supposed to know better. Swallow it down and move on," he mutters softly, circling the glass of whiskey in its place. Now that she is looking up at him, tears brimming in her eyes, the sadness they hold seems something inexplicable for him. Something he has seen too, that has knocked him down on the dust too. Rust can't leave her to figure out for herself. He unscrews the cap and takes another drink straight from the bottle. "They are all fucking liars. I find you more honest than any of the guys back at the CID. That has to account for something,"

"I always thought you would find me disgusting because I quit trying,”

“I would never think that of you, Parker,” he takes a few, firm steps forward to cross the space that separates them. The small bottle he just drank hangs from his fingers as he offers it to her. Parker's heart thumps at the echoes of his words, and she searches his eyes for a crack of a lie, but there's nothing like that there. So she takes him on it.

“Can I ask you something?” she asks, after digesting her own question. She looks up again and finds him listening carefully, waiting. If there's anything they know how to do, is ask each other questions. “When did you start doing that thing? The fingers on your pulse?”

“Um. When I was undercover. I saw some of the junkies do it. They wanted to see how much they could take without their hearts blowing up,” he explains. They are closer now, he blocks the light so they are both hidden inside a special darkness. “I found out it brought me down. Made me feel back here,”

“Mmh,”

The whole day had been attested with quiet anxiety, the images of bodies piling up on her desk waiting to be classified and tagged and digitalized were already difficult to swallow, making the walls of the file room feel like they were closing on her like a trap. She felt personally responsible for everything she saw.

Why am I seeing this? This is not for me to see.

Dread had begun to spread from her toes, slowly crawling up and up and up until it was too much to bear, until the nausea became a state of mind.

Night had already covered the city when Marty crashed her workspace, but it felt as if it was even hotter than it was during the day. He insisted on taking a trip to his bar before heading home. He and Rust would sometimes invite her to their little bar outings, which had become not a habit, but something close to it. They had both chosen the good life, so it wasn't an everyday thing, mostly it happened on the last Friday of the month or a special ocasion.

She could still hear Marty words. what a waste, Parker. you are such a good detective, as she took her things upstairs after the so-called transfer, which was more a favor than anything else, a way out of a psychiatrist's leave, to the file room hidden on the third floor, the last room on the east side. She wasn't like Rust, who worked on top of everything. She wasn't like Marty, who turned his anger into action. She had simply started to lose it, falling asleep in the most random of places, being scared shitless every time a new case was assigned to her. At least the new job got her to avoid talking to people, uncooperative witnesses, mothers weeping about their lost children, she couldn't handle those anymore without being completely dissociated. But she was now trapped with the ghosts of the dead and ghosts of her own.

She figured maybe a drink would push down the feeling, lull it until it became just another day, but the smell of weed and the dim yellow lights made it seem like nothing was real, like she was half asleep in a dangerous place. She couldn't even hear the noise of the men talking loudly and the country music playing, her heart too desperate, bombing her ears. She felt that if she didn't get out of there, she was going to die.

A guy sits down beside her in the bar as she spirals out of control, his forearm is clammy and he is saying stuff she really can’t comprehend, puts a beer in front of her like she is some kind of animal lured by it.

“Do you think this is enough?” she finds herself asking, her voice a mix of amusement and disgust despite the hell she is going through inside her head. “That I'll fuck you because you bought me this,”

“It usually works just fine,” he brags.

“Oh yeah. Juggling a drink in front of a woman's face works just fine for you,” i t usually takes a bit of foreplay before she throws her drink in a guy's face, but this one has got all the lucky numbers. So she just does it. So quick he doesn't see it coming. Unfortunately, she doesn't get to smash the glass on his forehead because her chest constricts and her eyes blur again and she is back to drowning. She drags the stool loudly to get out, misses the fucking bitch coming out of the asshole's mouth as she rushes off.

Outside, the air isn’t of much help either. The heaving of her chest gets worse and there's nothing else she wants right now than to be home, to hide this from Marty, from Rust. The idea of having to explain is embarrassing enough. She doesn't even acknowledge the walk to the car, far on the edge of the parking lot where the green grass twists into traps, she only knows she is there because her keys fall to the ground as she tries to open it. She presses her forehead to the glass window, her nose too. The glass is warm, reminds her of the photocopy machine back at the office, the pictures of the files illuminated by the clinical light of it. She turns around then, her teary eyes fumbling across the stars in the dark sky above, asking for an end to this desperate feeling, to this life of nothing, of death.

It takes her a moment to understand what he is saying, her head is spinning wildly but she notices his heart is nothing like hers, uncontrolled and erratic and almost leaping out, yet it still holds a certain restlessness to it. “That’s good. Keep it going, kid,” he coos. His eyes never leave her, and he breathes slowly so she can follow his lead. She does as he tells her, in and out, in and out. His fingers land on her neck then, pressing hard against her carotid, taking on her pulse.

“See? It's all coming down,”

“I find myself doing it sometimes,” she confesses. Her fingers clutch to the flask he has given her, she thinks that if she applies more pressure, she will have a broken bottle in her hands. "Like you did that night,"

“Does it work?”

“Sometimes,” The alcohol in her blood makes her heart thump loudly but she still takes another sip to smooth the edges before saying the next thing. “Most of the time I realize I'm doing it because it reminds me of you. I like the memory of your fingers on my skin,”

“Why?”

“I don't know how to answer that,” He stays silent. His eyes study her. He is close enough for the tip of his shoes to touch hers. Her mind goes rampant and wild against her. Rust moves a strand of hair that falls on her shoulder to her back, and places his index and pointer fingers on her neck.

“Your heart is racing,” he tells her, a fact. He has his fingers on her pulse, he knows. It's a simple touch. Pressing hard against her carotid, feeling, waiting for the other pump, quick and thick, expectant. Parker swallows hard as she looks up. This time it's him. She watches how his face is hard, worried, yet the longer he keeps his fingers on her neck, the quicker the mask slips. She lifts her hand and puts it on his chest, on his heart, pressing until she can feel the heat he radiates. This heat she doesn't mind.

“Yours is worse than mine,” she notices and he looks down. Rust has lived most of his life down in the South, but he is a man born in the cold after all. He possesses a nice warmth that only people born in it can give off, soft and vicious. One you can drown in.

“Yeah,” the sigh he breathes is long and exhausted. Like being here is draining everything he has.

“Would you like to stay?”

“Yes,” restraint is evident on his face.

“Will you?”

“No, I don't think I will,” Parker gives him an understanding nod. She watches her hand on his chest, committing to memory how soft his gray shirt feels.

“Even if you leave, Rust. You are not so easy to forget. You leave a mark, not in a bad way, but a mark still. A bite that lingers, that you can still feel the strength of the teeth sinking into the skin.”

“You sound like I do,”

“Yeah. It kinda catches,”

“Exactly, kid. It catches, that's why I should leave,”

“What if I want you to stay?”

“That’d be a stupid ass decision,”

It's a simple touch really. A kiss that makes her think she will have a heart attack right there and die before this thing even begins. He is not far from her fate either.

Rust sneaks his arms behind her back and plants his hands flat between her shoulder blades, pressing her against his chest. His torso reverberates her heart rate and the vibration of it makes her sick. Back at that parking lot, Rust's heart seemed rapid but somewhat steady. Like he had trained himself to enjoy the rush but never overrun its edges. Right now, it's as loose as hers. Wild and untamed. How desperate and needy they both are, how she slithers outside her mind upon each touch and he drowns in the heat of her desperation. For him, each kiss holds a tentative wavering he doesn't show, almost unsure of his own drive. Why does she make him feel like this? Enough he has with the case. He shouldn't be thinking about her half the time, imagining her skin underneath his palms, he shouldn't be here with his finger digging harshly on her sides.

“Is this real?” Parker mumbles against his mouth, her thumbs tracing lines from his collarbones up his neck. She needs to ask, she needs to make sure. Her mind has tricked her enough times. Rust breaks the kiss with a hiss. He looks up at her, and from this angle, she almost looks pleading. His thumb drags slowly over her bottom lip as he thinks about her question, tethering between the decision to keep this going or not.

Parker roams his face too, taking him in; licks the taste of smoke and whiskey his tongue left on hers and misses it instantly. Her right hand cups his cheek, fingertip lingering around the eyebags he has been wearing for a while now, before moving to find the spot behind his neck, tugging his short hair lightly. Rust leans back against her touch, eyes closed, breathing hard through his nose, stopping himself from making any sort of sound. He grabs her wrist and drags it away from his face, stopping for a torturous moment where she thinks it will all fumble, before delving again into her lips with even more force.

Is that enough of an answer? It has to be. Things make little sense anymore, and they are both too desperate to snap out of it. It is too much time being two different poles of a magnet, drifting apart only by the force of their own appetite, too hungry for their own sake.

She has a hard time anchoring herself into reality because the blinding image before her feels like she has finally gone insane for good. Rust kneels in front of her placidly, taking his time as he moves closer. She closes her eyes for a moment, committing to memory the feeling of how his long fingers coil around her leg, digging against the back of her thighs hard enough that it seems like he has been craving this moment for a long time too. His hand lifts her shirt and he presses a few firm, wet kisses right on her navel, then drags them down to place his lips on her mound through her jeans. Parker leans back unconsciously, it almost feels like an electric discharge. She wants to touch him again, but she clutches to the table to avoid falling apart. He knows what he wants, tugs her jeans down with force, and looks up at her with a scary seriousness as he makes her step out of them. Not that she expected something else, but he is rougher than she had imagined. It gets her heart going a little faster if that's even possible.

“Mmh. This all me?" his words reach her ears slowly, time stretches weirdly around them, although his voice holds no tease on it but rather some kind of reverence. Parker squeezes her legs somewhat self-conscious, her slick noticeable. Rust easily grabs and turns her around. The table’s edge is a jab to the stomach. His coarse fingers press deep into the muscle above the back of her knees like she will fade away and the pain of it settles nicely on the low of her belly. “Lie down,”

Parker does as she is told, she is good with things like that, places both her hands and elbows on the cold surface, and waits. She realizes she has no control over her body as the anticipation of his touch haunts her. So much time feeling nothing, now it all comes together like a stroke. He gives little warning before he digs into her cunt like a man starved, nose digging deep and at such a good angle that she slams her forehead against the table so hard her nostrils tingle with the smell of the wood polish she uses to make it look shiny. It's been years since she had a man eat her out, and never like this, this filthy good.

She can hear the sound of his belt unfastening, his hand fumbling inside his pants, working himself as he eats her out. She opens her mouth but no sounds come out, stuck to the back of her throat. Rust seems to notice this because he lets out an encouraging hum against her core, the vibration of it has her pushing back against him to get more friction.

“Let me watch,” she pleads.

“I was wondering why you were so quiet,” this time he does tease. Parker rolls her eyes, thankful he can't see her face. She also wants to turn around and watch him, but he doesn't let her, he has her legs pinned, hard, making it difficult to move.

“Stay like that,” his accent is thicker as he warns. “If you turn around I won't touch you no more,”

“Will you leave?”

At his lack of answer, Parker turns around, his warning has to be pure bluff. They both know he won't. They can't stop, not when it feels this good. The image that greets her is heavenly. He looks pissed as he leans back on his calves, jeans open, belt hanging and hitting the floor, his cock red and swollen as he keeps stroking himself despite the interruption. She wants to reach out but she knows he won't let her.

“I said I wouldn't touch you anymore,” as if he was reading her mind. “You do you and I do me, then,”

“But you have already touched me,” it's not fair, she wants to say, but words slip through her fingers as blood pumps in her ears.

“The rules were set,”

“I didn't sign any rules. You can get your nose deep in my pussy but I can't touch you?”

“I liked it better when you were quiet,” he lies. Parker sits carefully on the table so when she spreads her legs he can see her properly. Two can play. Rust lowers his eyes to her glistening cunt and then goes back to her face. He does have a thing for touching her but not allowing her to touch him, it was something she spent some time thinking about. If he wants to keep the distance so their relationship still holds some kind of decency to it, he is wrong. And now it's way too late.

So they follow his rules.

It's difficult to control oneself when things get so blurry. She thinks she can still feel the vibration and the pressure of his mouth despite the distance between them, but strangely she'd rather have this. Him all spread out, his stomach tense, lean fingers working the tip of his cock, wet and inviting, struggling to work on the confines where he allows himself to move, but failing miserably with a simple touch to her carotid. There's so much he wants to express that he contains himself still. Maybe too many dreams, maybe the habit, have wrecked her brain or something, but she thinks she can cum on this alone.

“Don’t close your eyes. You wanted to look, now look,” he scolds as she gets lost in pleasure for a quick second, the pace of her fingers had started to become imprecise, so quick it almost hurt. It turns out he gets even meaner at sex. He grabs her ankle and then, a tug, his way to bring her down to him. “Come here,”

Parker, for her part, is no stranger to the practice of fucking on the cold floor. And Rust doesn't seem to even think too much about it. This has gone too far and holds too much pent-up energy to even care at all. So she kneels and straddles him, the skin of her knees digging into the tile joints. Tomorrow she will have bruises all over, but what does it matter? Nothing matters much when he feels that good, when he talks to her like that, so mean and sweet.

“Did you think of me when you fucked Chase?” Parker lets out a loud cackle. Guess he liked the question game.

“Nice dirty talk,”

“Do you ever answer a question when you are asked one? Come on, kid,”

“Yes,” she answers, taking him in her hand. Rust’s eyes flutter heavily as she continues what he was doing. Why lie, it was probably the only way to achieve something. Rust takes off her shirt, and it leaves her naked in contrast to his fully clothed body.

“Did he notice?”

“Why do you think he hit me?" she goes for his mouth. She is glad he brought it up, it makes her feel less lonely about her crazy jelousy with Laurie. "I would have liked to see you do it,”

“It was nasty. He got what he deserved,”

“Exactly,” The little light there is allows him to contemplate how she lowers herself on his cock, sinking as deep as she can, relishing how full he makes her feel, trying to keep her head steady at the fact that this is Rust underneath, his skin, his heat. They both stay still for a long moment. Rust has to– needs to close his eyes, trying to remain composed, but she can feel his slip out of control as his fingers dig harshly on either side of her stomach, muttering a few curses, lost in the feeling of her swollen flesh.

“Let me look at you,” he drags, a hot breath against her lips. Her hair is all over her face as she presses her forehead to his, thick and sweaty. His hands put it back gently, so he can admire her better. The sudden rock of her hips makes him hiss and his hands move to help her thrusts softly, watching every movement of her face. He grabs her hand and makes her place her fingers on his pulse, keeping her steady. “That’s it, pretty girl. Do you feel that?”

“Yea- Yes, I do,” She keeps fucking herself on him, now faster and deeper and he closes his eyes, leans his forehead against her collarbones.

“Then this is real, Parker. This is real,”

────────────────────────────────────────────

The image of the stillness in front of her holds a desperation she hasn’t felt in years, like a pinch of the ulnar nerve, that feeling that tells you there’s nothing you can do while the pain that feeds on it The trepidation of watching everything unfold towards a darker path makes her feel out of herself but she wants to appear composed now. What if he sees the desperation on her skin and it makes it all worse? She sits in her car and stares deep at Rust's house like she can magically transport herself there and make this all go quicker.

Parker reaches the edge of his lawn just as Rust opens the door, bags in hand. The hits on his face were still bloody and raw. She had watched both of them in Slater's office after the fight, Marty barely able to look at Rust through the rage-filled frenzy. She couldn't possibly tell what had happened between the two, and as Rust walked out, crossing eyes with her briefly, she knew better to wait to go see him. Marty appeared then, his eyebrows impossibly twisted on a hard, livid arch. Your loverboy just fucking quit.

“How the fuck are you going to catch him if you leave?” Parker crosses her arms on her chest, purposely digging her car keys in her palm. It's an unfair question, it digs right into the wound, but she can't come up with anything else as she watches him move back and forth from his truck to the house.

“I’m not,” he says simply, his hands all overwrought, inflexible as they toss the little stuff he has on the back of his Ford.

“What are you gonna do?” she wonders out loud as he disappears inside again. The spot where she stands feels suffocatingly murky. There are a few somber rays of dusk light still illuminating his driveway, and the soft lights of other houses don’t reach this part.

“I'm gonna drive, get the hell out of this place,” he sits on the tailgate of his truck and lights up a cigarette. He has yet to look at her.

Parker takes a few timid steps and sits next to him, careful not to touch him, afraid he will run off like a wild animal. Something inside her, the naive part, wishes they could run away together like a Springsteen song. They sit in his truck like they sat in that dock that summer. There's no one waiting back home now, they are the only thing that might hold some meaning in the quiet life they have created for themselves, and yet they will screw it all up again. Soon, they won't even have each other.

“Can’t you stay a few more days?” she hates how her voice comes out so pleading, so pathetic, but she can't let him go just like that. “Think this through?”

“There’s nothing to think through anymore,”

“At least let me take care of that,” she motions the cuts from the fight but Rust shakes his head. This is supposed to be his punishment, he can't have her hands on him. He needs to get out.

“Nah, you just want to keep me here,” The taillight, the one that isn't broken, casts a soft reddish light on his injuries, making him seem more hurt than he is. Parker bites down on the inside of her cheek as her heart sinks.

“Yeah. I do,” she answers selfishly and Rust turns his face away as he takes a long drag of his cigarette. As painful as it is, he will have to cut this from the root, because there's no way she will give him the satisfaction of letting him go that easily, not after getting a taste of what their skin-to-skin feels like. So he doesn't say her name, he doesn't look at her, he tells her what he did.

“I fucked Maggie,” Rust turns to look at her for the first time since she is here, it takes a lot from him not to stagger.

“What?” Marty’s fists to his face immediately click .

“Yeah. I did. After I fucked you, I fucked her too,” he doesn't say she made me, I let her do it, and Parker has no choice but to drown in an image that isn’t quite what it really was. He doesn't tell her I thought of you the whole time. Though that won't make it right, it won't ease him from the guilt and it won't spare her from the hurt of a knife to the back.

Parker blinks confusedly. Why is the first word that comes to her mind, why would he do that? To dwell on motive, comparisons, and past signs right now is dangerous, it will be a thing for later, something she will submit herself to while she sits on her kitchen table in the dark of her house.

“I don't understand,”

“The problem with you, Parker, is that you are a sad girl,” he drags the s and the r drag meanly across the thick air. She stares at him and feels his words numbing her toes and fingers, just like when she drinks too much. She doesn't say anything back, soaks every twitch and pull of his movements to see if she can crack through this wall of broken bones he has built, sharp and dwarfed. Honestly, this is worse than being told he fucked another woman, that at least she can take. “A sad girl who lets a stupid fucker put his hands on her, who can't even talk about her feelings. People talk, kid. Marty runs his mouth when he is drunk, you should know that by now,”

“Stop it. You don't mean that,”

“Yeah. I do. You let him hit you because it's what you've known your whole life, Parker. Your father hit your mother and you are stuck there. It's a comfortable place for you. You think I can save you? You can't even save yourself if you wanted,” Parker knows this is the only way he can push her away, and he definitely knows how to twist the knife. Rust had a hard time looking at the bruises on her face then, but he thinks this is worse, how she swallows thickly the blood his words provoke so she doesn't make a mess. It drives him crazy. “What are you still doing here? Come on, put on some fucking fight or get the fuck out,”

Parker nods. She gets up, and turns away from him, doesn't see how he hangs his head low when he is out of sight, exhausted. She keeps walking back to her car, blinking away the tears that have accumulated on the brim of her eyes, fat and hot. Her window is down, so she only needs to digs around her broken glove compartment to find what she is looking for. There's nothing she can say to make him stay, either she accepts it or she is done for. How can you love someone so unconditionally and endure the absence of them? With this.

When she returns, she sits once again by his side and shoves two of her favorite cassettes to his chest. She takes him by surprise but he catches them, looks at the boxes, and recognizes the one she had been listening to that night at the lake. The Ghost of Tom Joad.

“You can only drive so far, Rust,”If there's any wisdom she can minister, anything she can draw from her little life, then it’s this.

To leave is as easy for her as it is for him, but Parker knows that you can only escape so far until you come back to the same place you started. She kisses him on the cheek then, on his good side, barely pressing. A goodbye kiss he leans right into with a long, ragged sigh. She can almost see his pained expression, eyes shut tight. His hand goes to her knee, presses his thumb hard and heavily on the inside of her thigh, his body working on its own, betraying everything he said a mere few minutes ago. He won't say sorry, because he still has to pretend, but at least he doesn't move away, he clings to her cassettes and her leg one last time. That's enough for her.

It was over before it even began.

Rust doesn't come back, and she doesn't let anyone fix her glasses anymore.

#the only thing i need #putting my life on pause just for this #rust cohle x reader

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