Fic: sometimes in the morning (i am petrified &can't move)

[evewithanapple.livejournal.com]

Title: sometimes in the morning (i am petrified &can't move)

Fandom: The Killing

Summary: Some days are easier than others.
Warnings: Depiction/discussion of depression

Rating: T

“Yo, Linden!”

There’s no answer. Not that he expects there to be; there never was before. But he had to give it a shot just to say he tried, you know? He rattles the door handle, not quite twisting it- yet- to make sure she can’t possibly not know he’s there. Unless she’s sleeping through all this, but he can’t imagine that Sarah Linden, who leaps into action at the slightest provocation, sleeps any heavier than an alley cat. She kind of looks like an alley cat, come to think. All sharp angles and scowls and a don’t-come-near-me attitude you can feel a mile off.

Well, too fucking bad, because she hasn’t shown up for work in three days and he knows if he doesn’t kick the damn door down, no one else will.

He doesn’t actually have to kick the door down- not that he would anyway, because then the motel would charge her for it and neither of them have the money for that. So instead, he jimmies the lock. He picked up the skill back in his tweaking days, and he’s not proud of it, but it comes in handy at times like this when he needs to get in somewhere and can’t go to anyone else for help.

When he pushes the door open, she’s curled up in bed, a tiny lump under the comforter with a few wisps of red hair peeking out over the pillow. The first time he found her like this, he freaked the fuck out because he thought she might have passed out or fucking died in her sleep. But now he’s been around this merry-go-round a few times, and he knows she’s breathing in there. The room smells like shit, though- or more accurately, like stale takeout that hasn’t been thrown out in a few days. Everything looks like it’s been trashed, then abandoned- there are clothes dropped on the floor like she took them off and then couldn’t get up the energy to fold them, and So he flops down on the bed and gives her a poke. “Yo, Linden.”

She gives the slightest twitch- just enough to let him know that she’s actually awake and trying hard to ignore him. He jabs her in the shoulder again. “Rise and shine, sleeping beauty.”

She turns over in the bed, still hiding her face against the pillow. “Go away, Holder.”

“Can’t do that.” He grabs the covers and gives them a yank- not enough to pull them off, but enough to rouse her enough to raise her head from the pillow and glare at him. Her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen. “Fuck off, Holder.”

“Nuh-uh,” he says. “Partner privileges. It’s my job to get you up in the morning. Up and at ‘em, Linden.”

She clutches the covers to her chest. All of her actions are slow, like she’s moving in water. “What did I just say?”

“What did I just say?” He gives the covers another tug. “Come on, girl, you gotta have a shower or something. Pretty soon you’re gonna start smelling, and then they’re gonna come in a shovel you out ‘cause they’ll think you’re dead. Up.”

She draws her knees up under her chin. She’s wearing a ratty grey t-shirt instead of her usual sweater, and it makes her look even tinier than usual. “I will call the front desk and have them throw you out, Holder.”

“Pfft, like those guys are gonna care if you get shanked. They probably won’t even be pissed if you get blood on the carpet.” He jabs her in the side again. If nothing else, his persistence has a shot at paying off. “How ‘bout you take a shower if I promise to feed you after?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Not hungry. Not getting up. Not showering. They’ve been down this road enough for him to know that when she’s this down, his best shot at getting her going again is to keep pestering until she finally agrees to move. Probably not what an actual doctor would say, but since when could they afford fucking doctors? Beggars can’t be choosers.  “Yo, Linden, you gotta eat anyway. You’re gonna shrivel up and die if you don’t.”  He really, really hopes she doesn’t respond with something like “so what?” He is not ready to deal with that one. His expertise here ends with making sure she gets out of bed and eats something. Showering would be a bonus. Smiling is probably too much to hope for, but he’ll give it a shot anyway.

She hasn’t responded, so he pokes her again. “I ain’t moving until you do.”

She sighs, a heavy, long-suffering sound, then sits up and throws the covers off in one motion. He wasn’t expecting that. It makes him jump. “Fine.” She swings her legs over the side of the bed. They’re pale as usual, but with red marks where the sheets got tangled. “I’ll have a fucking shower.”

He’d say “good girl” or something like it, but it’s probably better not to push his luck. “Don’t go running that thing without getting in!” he calls after her instead. “I’ll notice, Linden!”

She disappears into the bathroom in a huff, shutting the door behind her. He looks around the room. He’d say the place looked trashed, but trashed implies that someone actually went through throwing shit around, which isn’t the case here. It just looks like she tossed stuff down when she came in and couldn’t bring herself to clean it up afterwards. There’s old, moldering takeout boxes on the table, and the clothes she was wearing the last time he saw her at work (or at least, he thinks it’s those clothes; she wears so many sweaters, it’s hard to tell) are crumpled on the floor. He doesn’t even want to contemplate what the inside of the minifridge probably looks like. Instead, he sweeps the takeout boxes off the table into the garbage can- which is actually lined with a plastic bag, a miracle in a fleabag like this- ties the bag up, and tosses it out the front door where motel management can deal with it. Then he scoops the clothes up off the floor- maybe she’ll yell at him for messing with her dirty laundry, but he doubts it- and dumps it on the armchair. It’s not a whole lot better, but at least it’s not collecting motel germs off the floor. Then, as he can still hear the water running (he was kidding about going in to check) he heads out to his car to grab the supplies he brought.

She’s just emerging from the bathroom when he comes back in, wet tendrils of hair curling around her face. Her hair gets redder when it’s wet, he notices. Her eyes are still red, but not as much, and he thinks- okay, hopes- that the lines around her mouth have softened a little.

“She lives!” He thrusts the bag of food from the car at her. “But does she eat? Tune in to find out.”

She takes the bag, sniffs it. “What’s this?”

“Breakfast of champions, Linden. Muffins and hash browns from Mickey D’s. I would’ve got something healthier, but I figured it might give you food poisoning.”

She doesn’t take the bat, but she does draw a muffin out of the bag and nibbles on it cautiously. She holds it out to him. “You want one?”

“Nuh-uh.” He shakes his head. “You’re not pushing that off on me. Eat.”

She scowls and complies, sitting down on the bed and leaning against the headboard. Her hair is falling in her face, and he wants to push it back, but he doesn’t. Not yet. Not now.

“Have you ever gone walking in really deep snow?” she asks suddenly

He has no idea where this is going, but he shakes his head. “I’m not a Yeti, Linden.”

“I have.” She’s staring off into the distance, unfocused. “All the way up to my knees.” She scoops another muffin out of the bag. “There’s two ways to get through it- either you pick up your legs to step over it, which gets exhausting after five minutes, or you keep ploughing forward and your legs get soaked and you get tired and sore from trying to push through the snow.” She swallows the muffin. “That’s what it feels like sometimes. Like I’m walking through snow.”

Holder doesn’t say anything. He thinks sometimes that they’re coming from opposite poles- Linden, she goes slow and steady and just keeps going until she’s so worn out that she can’t get out of bed in the morning. He’s the opposite. He gets cranked up, like he’s one of those kids’ wind-up toys and someone’s turned a key in his back, and he’s off to the races for days until the key winds down and he crashes and realizes that he’s left a trail of burning destruction in his wake. Linden would probably tell him that she’s wrecked plenty of shit too, but it’s not really the same. Linden wrecks her own shit. He wrecks everyone else’s. And they both end up like this.

“That’s why people invented snowshoes, Linden,” he says. “You gotta walk on top of that shit.” He spreads his hands out wide. “Or you buy a dogsled and a bunch of huskies.”

She looks at him, and for a second he thinks there might be a hint of a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “Is that what you are, Holder? My snowshoes?”

He shrugs, ducking his head. “If you want.” She pulls a hashbrown from the bag and tosses it to him. He takes it.

They’ll be here again, he knows. They pick each other up and dust each other off, and they start walking again until the next fall, the next patch of heavy snow, and then they do it all over again. If there’s a way to break out, neither of them knows it. The best he can do by her, and her by him, is just hang on tight to the promise that someone’s going to keep picking them up when they fall and trust that they’ll never fall too hard.