Famous Blue Raincoat (Mark/Addison)
Title: Famous Blue Raincoat
Rating: PG-13, though with a warning for overwhelming unapologetic angst.
Pairing: Maddison.
Summary: He never came to Seattle; she went back to New York.
Title = Leonard Cohen.
It was a black and snowing night in SoHo and she stood under an awning; a deep green awning doing everything in its power to keep away the cold New York weather, advertising the number 1971 in some shade of gray someone, sometime, thought was artistic. She stood in front of a door; a glass door she had stood in front of uncountable times before but her sabbatical from standing in front of it was what made her nervous. She didn’t have keys anymore and if she had, she wouldn’t have used them. She did have a set of keys to keep her out of the cold, but to a different door; a frosted glass door that she never had to stand in front of save once.
She swallowed back memories and pushed the button next to the number six, suddenly hoping that he wasn’t home. She wishes for phone calls to go directly to voice mail, returns calls when she knows the receiver will be too busy, stops by when no one is there or no one will answer, simply so she can say she tried but the silence isn’t her fault. She thought she should have thought of that before she came.
Beginning to turn to walk down the steps to the dark sidewalk to the cab she would call to take her to the hotel because she refused to approach that frosted glass door right then, right then in the dark and snow, a hazy voice crackled through the speaker. The lit clock tower down the street reminded her that it was four in the morning and her internal time was inappropriate for anyone in New York, at least anyone she would want to see.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
A pause and she bit her lip, certain she knew the expressions crossing his face, certain he knew it was her, certain that he would forgive the time if he forgave her but uncertain if he would forgive her. Uncertain if he wanted to know her.
Opening the door was harder than pushing the button that allowed it to open. Walking through it was even harder and then the stairs. There was an elevator, but she always took the stairs when she was alone because the two floors up cleared her mind. She never came here alone in the dark and in the snow when she was okay, never when she was happy or content, and the stairs were methodical, numerical, put her out of her emotions so she could understand them.
The forty-nine steps were retrospectively easy once she saw the corner she needed to turn. The corner was easy once she faced the few strides to the end of the hall, to the door he had opened for her, the door he was propping open with his body, were impossibly permanent, painfully repetitive.
If she didn’t turn back now, she never would. It mattered then that she didn’t turn back; there was another person, another life that she abandoned by walking forward. But now it didn’t matter; there was no one else and the other life was too painful to call her own. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, just like she did then, and walked towards his door.
He pushed it open and let her pass him into his apartment. He wasn’t wearing a shirt but her shy look down after a half-smile of thank you was of sudden realization that she didn’t know why she was there, not girlish embarrassment. She knew the first time she came, and the second and the third until it became habit, but not why she came back to him now. When deconstructed to the simplest level, this was all his fault; she should hate him.
They had always joked about the shoe collection next to the door when they had lived together, but tonight it was small, her dark pumps landed between his running shoes and two pairs of black work shoes. Her black peacoat hung next to his blue raincoat, small tear in the left shoulder still there, and black trenchcoat.
One light served to illuminate the room and she immediately felt guilty for waking him up; she should go. He leaned his back against the door with his arms crossed, not saying anything, not looking anything. She turned, now barefoot and coatless and feeling vulnerable without the extra two inches; not speechless, simply not knowing what to say. He had to know, medical gossip lines were transcontinental.
He cut her off before she had a chance to think to open her mouth to speak. “Addison. I am not going to be That Guy. I will not be That Guy.” He thought he knew why she was there, but he was wrong; wrong in the sense that he picked an incorrect choice out of many.
She let her shoulders drop and her head followed. Their relationship had always been a tennis match of sentences and ideas and as defeated as she felt and as bad as she was at real tennis, she was determined to say something, do anything, because then it would be his turn again and she couldn’t be accused of not trying.
She settled for looking at him and destroying the walls between her face and her mind she had spent so much time constructing.
A raised eyebrow would’ve shattered her already-broken heart if his face hadn’t changed with it; if the genuine concern he was struggling to hide weren’t there to contradict and overpower his unspoken bitter question, she would have left and walked until the blasted snow stopped. At least it wasn’t rain, she thought, but it was vicious snow, the kind you didn’t want to walk in. Christmas trees turned upside down in parking lot dumpsters, department store displays changed to shades of red in shapes of hearts; the between holidays depressive snow, lost and angry because it was there without a purpose.
“I don’t want you to be That Guy, Mark. I don’t need you to be That Guy. What I need right now,” she breathed deeply, shaky, and met his eyes, eyes that were staring slightly uncomfortably through her, “is a hug.”
A quick flash of sadness flew over his face before he pushed himself off of the door and padded silently over the carpet to envelop her with his arms. She spent a few moments relearning what it felt like, what it felt like to be cared about even if upon request; relearning the feel of his hands against her back, how his fingers still moved in slow comforting circles, that his arms hadn’t lost their healing strength since she’d been gone. Turning her head so her cheek rested against his chest that hadn’t lost its power, she circled her arms around him, loosely at first and then she held tight; held tight to the one thing, the one person, the one idea, the one part of her life that never let her down even when he disappointed her the most.
She sniffled, unsure whether it was the cold or her emotions but she successfully held back tears when he tightened his hold on her. This was why she was there; all the king’s horses and all the king’s men would eventually show up in his arms, they always did, even when neither of them knew she needed them. He kissed the top of her head briefly before gently letting her go, letting her go away just far enough that he could look at her, his arms still looped around her back.
It was surprising that her lip hadn’t split and decided to bleed yet, for all the biting of it she had done in the last day. She simply shook her head, her eyes leaving his face to stare at the floor, the tears dropping straight down, avoiding her eyeliner. They had always done things first and spoken later, leading to the ultimate dissolution of everything in their lives, but she wanted nothing more than to slip into their pattern again and curl up against him and just be. Be them, be her, be miserable, be comforted, be away from and out of the world. And deal with it in the morning.
“Addison,” he whispered softly, leaning his forehead against hers. “What do you need?” Caring and honest, not accusatory like she had half-expected, he always had been willing to do most anything for her, from the first time they met; she didn’t know why she expected that to change.
There was a picture in her wallet, somewhere in her purse, that she wanted to burn and physical memories that she wanted to break. Need versus want had spawned the mess that landed her at his door once years ago; it had taken her months after she left to figure out the difference. She needed a place to sleep, she wanted it to be next to him. She wanted her (ex)husband to be decent, she needed to let him go.
Music filtered faintly through his open bedroom window, always open, even in the midst of New York winter; he pleaded fresh air, she just curled under the blankets. The neighbors never had a sense of auditory propriety, but at least they were good, and she gave them a few points for playing something respectfully sad.
She shook her head again, a few more tears splashing invisibly on his carpet. “I don’t know.” She wasn’t sure how he heard her, the quiet of her voice sounded strange and disconnected, and maybe he didn’t, maybe the question was a formality and the answer was obvious, but she found herself swept up in his arms and carefully carried the short walk to his bedroom.
Many nights had ended with him carrying her to his bedroom, but only one other while she was crying. It was the same night she had been shut out of the other door, the one whose keys had sunk to the bottom of her purse but never left. Softly, his hands removed her power clothing and replaced it with comfort, a shirt she always stole and the pair of boxer shorts he had hid in the back and never worn after she left because they were her favorites to walk around in.
An argument started in the apartment under them and she stiffened, feelings too raw even to hear the problems of strangers. He sat behind her and slid his arm around her waist, guiding her to lie down next to him, pulling the covers up and over them and she dug closer to him, turning into his chest.
“Go to sleep, Addison,” he brushed her hair out of her face, “we’ll take care of you in the morning.”
The shouting match escalated, something broke, he tightened his hold on her. Hearing hate but feeling love she gradually fell asleep, confused.
He picked up his phone and slipped out of bed, making sure she stayed asleep, just like he had every night he had to leave before she was awake. Quietly closing the bedroom door, he dialed the number he had stolen from her phone while she had been in the bathroom. He looked out the window at the rising sun and his coffeemaker clicked on like it did every morning at seven. The snow had stopped and on the second ring he suddenly hoped it would go straight to voicemail. It did.
“She was never yours.”
Rating: PG-13, though with a warning for overwhelming unapologetic angst.
Pairing: Maddison.
Summary: He never came to Seattle; she went back to New York.
Title = Leonard Cohen.
It was a black and snowing night in SoHo and she stood under an awning; a deep green awning doing everything in its power to keep away the cold New York weather, advertising the number 1971 in some shade of gray someone, sometime, thought was artistic. She stood in front of a door; a glass door she had stood in front of uncountable times before but her sabbatical from standing in front of it was what made her nervous. She didn’t have keys anymore and if she had, she wouldn’t have used them. She did have a set of keys to keep her out of the cold, but to a different door; a frosted glass door that she never had to stand in front of save once.
She swallowed back memories and pushed the button next to the number six, suddenly hoping that he wasn’t home. She wishes for phone calls to go directly to voice mail, returns calls when she knows the receiver will be too busy, stops by when no one is there or no one will answer, simply so she can say she tried but the silence isn’t her fault. She thought she should have thought of that before she came.
Beginning to turn to walk down the steps to the dark sidewalk to the cab she would call to take her to the hotel because she refused to approach that frosted glass door right then, right then in the dark and snow, a hazy voice crackled through the speaker. The lit clock tower down the street reminded her that it was four in the morning and her internal time was inappropriate for anyone in New York, at least anyone she would want to see.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
A pause and she bit her lip, certain she knew the expressions crossing his face, certain he knew it was her, certain that he would forgive the time if he forgave her but uncertain if he would forgive her. Uncertain if he wanted to know her.
Opening the door was harder than pushing the button that allowed it to open. Walking through it was even harder and then the stairs. There was an elevator, but she always took the stairs when she was alone because the two floors up cleared her mind. She never came here alone in the dark and in the snow when she was okay, never when she was happy or content, and the stairs were methodical, numerical, put her out of her emotions so she could understand them.
The forty-nine steps were retrospectively easy once she saw the corner she needed to turn. The corner was easy once she faced the few strides to the end of the hall, to the door he had opened for her, the door he was propping open with his body, were impossibly permanent, painfully repetitive.
If she didn’t turn back now, she never would. It mattered then that she didn’t turn back; there was another person, another life that she abandoned by walking forward. But now it didn’t matter; there was no one else and the other life was too painful to call her own. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, just like she did then, and walked towards his door.
He pushed it open and let her pass him into his apartment. He wasn’t wearing a shirt but her shy look down after a half-smile of thank you was of sudden realization that she didn’t know why she was there, not girlish embarrassment. She knew the first time she came, and the second and the third until it became habit, but not why she came back to him now. When deconstructed to the simplest level, this was all his fault; she should hate him.
They had always joked about the shoe collection next to the door when they had lived together, but tonight it was small, her dark pumps landed between his running shoes and two pairs of black work shoes. Her black peacoat hung next to his blue raincoat, small tear in the left shoulder still there, and black trenchcoat.
One light served to illuminate the room and she immediately felt guilty for waking him up; she should go. He leaned his back against the door with his arms crossed, not saying anything, not looking anything. She turned, now barefoot and coatless and feeling vulnerable without the extra two inches; not speechless, simply not knowing what to say. He had to know, medical gossip lines were transcontinental.
He cut her off before she had a chance to think to open her mouth to speak. “Addison. I am not going to be That Guy. I will not be That Guy.” He thought he knew why she was there, but he was wrong; wrong in the sense that he picked an incorrect choice out of many.
She let her shoulders drop and her head followed. Their relationship had always been a tennis match of sentences and ideas and as defeated as she felt and as bad as she was at real tennis, she was determined to say something, do anything, because then it would be his turn again and she couldn’t be accused of not trying.
She settled for looking at him and destroying the walls between her face and her mind she had spent so much time constructing.
A raised eyebrow would’ve shattered her already-broken heart if his face hadn’t changed with it; if the genuine concern he was struggling to hide weren’t there to contradict and overpower his unspoken bitter question, she would have left and walked until the blasted snow stopped. At least it wasn’t rain, she thought, but it was vicious snow, the kind you didn’t want to walk in. Christmas trees turned upside down in parking lot dumpsters, department store displays changed to shades of red in shapes of hearts; the between holidays depressive snow, lost and angry because it was there without a purpose.
“I don’t want you to be That Guy, Mark. I don’t need you to be That Guy. What I need right now,” she breathed deeply, shaky, and met his eyes, eyes that were staring slightly uncomfortably through her, “is a hug.”
A quick flash of sadness flew over his face before he pushed himself off of the door and padded silently over the carpet to envelop her with his arms. She spent a few moments relearning what it felt like, what it felt like to be cared about even if upon request; relearning the feel of his hands against her back, how his fingers still moved in slow comforting circles, that his arms hadn’t lost their healing strength since she’d been gone. Turning her head so her cheek rested against his chest that hadn’t lost its power, she circled her arms around him, loosely at first and then she held tight; held tight to the one thing, the one person, the one idea, the one part of her life that never let her down even when he disappointed her the most.
She sniffled, unsure whether it was the cold or her emotions but she successfully held back tears when he tightened his hold on her. This was why she was there; all the king’s horses and all the king’s men would eventually show up in his arms, they always did, even when neither of them knew she needed them. He kissed the top of her head briefly before gently letting her go, letting her go away just far enough that he could look at her, his arms still looped around her back.
It was surprising that her lip hadn’t split and decided to bleed yet, for all the biting of it she had done in the last day. She simply shook her head, her eyes leaving his face to stare at the floor, the tears dropping straight down, avoiding her eyeliner. They had always done things first and spoken later, leading to the ultimate dissolution of everything in their lives, but she wanted nothing more than to slip into their pattern again and curl up against him and just be. Be them, be her, be miserable, be comforted, be away from and out of the world. And deal with it in the morning.
“Addison,” he whispered softly, leaning his forehead against hers. “What do you need?” Caring and honest, not accusatory like she had half-expected, he always had been willing to do most anything for her, from the first time they met; she didn’t know why she expected that to change.
There was a picture in her wallet, somewhere in her purse, that she wanted to burn and physical memories that she wanted to break. Need versus want had spawned the mess that landed her at his door once years ago; it had taken her months after she left to figure out the difference. She needed a place to sleep, she wanted it to be next to him. She wanted her (ex)husband to be decent, she needed to let him go.
Music filtered faintly through his open bedroom window, always open, even in the midst of New York winter; he pleaded fresh air, she just curled under the blankets. The neighbors never had a sense of auditory propriety, but at least they were good, and she gave them a few points for playing something respectfully sad.
She shook her head again, a few more tears splashing invisibly on his carpet. “I don’t know.” She wasn’t sure how he heard her, the quiet of her voice sounded strange and disconnected, and maybe he didn’t, maybe the question was a formality and the answer was obvious, but she found herself swept up in his arms and carefully carried the short walk to his bedroom.
Many nights had ended with him carrying her to his bedroom, but only one other while she was crying. It was the same night she had been shut out of the other door, the one whose keys had sunk to the bottom of her purse but never left. Softly, his hands removed her power clothing and replaced it with comfort, a shirt she always stole and the pair of boxer shorts he had hid in the back and never worn after she left because they were her favorites to walk around in.
An argument started in the apartment under them and she stiffened, feelings too raw even to hear the problems of strangers. He sat behind her and slid his arm around her waist, guiding her to lie down next to him, pulling the covers up and over them and she dug closer to him, turning into his chest.
“Go to sleep, Addison,” he brushed her hair out of her face, “we’ll take care of you in the morning.”
The shouting match escalated, something broke, he tightened his hold on her. Hearing hate but feeling love she gradually fell asleep, confused.
He picked up his phone and slipped out of bed, making sure she stayed asleep, just like he had every night he had to leave before she was awake. Quietly closing the bedroom door, he dialed the number he had stolen from her phone while she had been in the bathroom. He looked out the window at the rising sun and his coffeemaker clicked on like it did every morning at seven. The snow had stopped and on the second ring he suddenly hoped it would go straight to voicemail. It did.
“She was never yours.”