disclaimer: not mine

disclaimer: not mine. the title is from Audioslave's song "Like a Stone".

rating: t

summary: There was no pattern to his visits, no mathematical equation he followed.

pairing: mac/stella angst

note: a short one because i have a horrible case of runaway muse. send love.

In Your House, I Long to Be
author: Jo C.

Daylight was knee-deep in impenetrably thick blood, and in this ever-sinking city of lies, lies, lies, all they had, to keep one step ahead of their demons, were these stolen moments before dawn when there existed only rasped breaths and awkward silences.

At sometime between nightfall and twilight, he slipped into her bed. She felt the familiar dip of the mattress, the familiar touch of his hands as he roused her from sleep, but still, she had to make sure: "Mac?" He gave the same answer every time, his lips soft against her throat, "Were you expecting someone else?" The question had first been light, casual, but it became progressively strained, desperate, as if he knew she were already toying with the idea of ending this thing – whatever it was – that was never going to work.

There was no pattern to his visits, no mathematical equation he followed, and when she tried to predict the next time, she was discouraged, discovering that she was always wrong.

She vowed to put a stop to this odd routine of theirs, but then, he would be there: deft hands, burning eyes and all, and logic would elude her because it wasn't logic at work but his tongue and teeth, and while logic made good, fair points, his mouth made better ones – always. He touched her, and she felt cheap and used; she closed her eyes as he whispered promises upon promises upon promises, which she accepted because it was easy to surrender to him in the darkness.

They came together, and they forgot – forgot about dragging the East River for bodies, forgot about purple lips and slit throats, forgot about the burden of knowing the coming of the apocalypse. He forgot Claire, and she forgot herself (for awhile), but then, after the moment abandoned them, he looked guilt-stricken (he always looked guilt-stricken) and she turned over and slept (or at least pretended to).

Hours later, he woke up. He always woke up before her. He put on his clothes in the pale moonlight, then he climbed back into bed, hovered over her, studied her closed eyelids briefly. He pulled the bedsheets down her body, slowly, and she lay there, bare from her thighs up. He bent over her and pressed the softest kiss on her belly, right above the navel. He covered her back up before leaving.

In the morning, she reached for him and found he was already gone: she wasn't surprised anymore.

The following night, it happened again.

"Mac?"

His answer: "Were you expecting someone else?" then his kiss, tasting like sadness, and his eyes, searching for redemption in all the wrong places, and this thing, this ultimately catastrophic thing, had to end now. She pushed him away: she suddenly felt sick with unvoiced bitterness and she blamed him for that, blamed him for her weaknesses, blamed him for her growing dependence on him, and she doesn't want it to be like this anymore, drowning, sinking in his despair.

He brushed her hair from her face, and she wanted to laugh because the word awkward was created to describe this man, this man who was trying so desperately to be the person he thought she wanted him to be. She didn't laugh; she jerked away instead – "Don't." – because it was less complicated to curse than to plead, less painful to be angry than to be heartbroken.

He called her name, wanting her to look up, but his voice was dull compared to the sharpness of the silence.

"Mac, I can't fucking do this anymore." She wrestled back the urge to cry. "I just – I don't want it to be like this. I'm tired of waking up alone and only feeling loved when you want me."

He sighed: maybe he was tired, too, of having something and not having something, being with someone and not being with someone – perpetually balancing on the fine line between genuine passion and suffocating need. She was afraid of falling, but he was afraid of falling over on the wrong side. She avoided the matter altogether.

"I think you should go now."

It should have surprised her when he didn't protest, it should have hurt her when he didn't argue, but she didn't realize any of this until she heard the front door slam shut.

She lay back in bed; she never was the kind of person to chase after something she had already lost, or never even had. She couldn't sleep though; she lay there for a long time, staring up at the ceiling, thinking nothing and feeling nothing, and it occurred to her for the first time that she was no longer what she used to be before this, before Mac with his pretty eyes and his too-shy laughter.

She reached for her phone, and dangling there in the midst of her need overpowering even her desire, she cradled it in her hands, his number already sparking a resurrection on her fingertips. She didn't remember ever being this weak-willed, and despite her better judgment, she called him.

"Hello?" He answered groggily, and she wanted to yell at him: he had already been asleep.

She said nothing and hung up, quickly, although she was sure he knew it was her. She dumped her phone into a drawer in her dresser, and pulled the bedsheets over her head, not fighting the tears anymore: Hail Mary, full of grace...

She opened her eyes the next morning and wondered when she closed them. The daylight was flooding into the apartment, and it was beautiful and simple and sad, and she never felt so lonely than at that moment when the sun was exposing all the flawed and broken clichés of life and love, pain and emptiness, beginnings and endings.

She found the spare key he left, and maybe she was expecting (hoping for) a note from him, but there wasn't one. It was just the key, and it laid there on the kitchen table as the only evidence that what happened last night was not her imagination, that her heartache was real.

And now: she arrives late to work, clumsy and shattered, and he is so completely together and calm with professionalism as he asks her, "Is everything all right? You're usually here early." She tries to find the strength to hate him, but she just answers plainly that her neighbor was particularly talkative today and starts to walk away without waiting for his reply.

"Stella."

He places a hand on her arm, and she holds her breath because she never did get used to the way he looks at her: eyes blazing with disarray, and searching, always searching. He doesn't say anything, and the silence between them crackles with the imperfect understanding that they are forsaking the possibility of discovering that unattainable redemption for which they have been praying.

the end.
May 2005