Fic: forget your perfect offering
fandom: 24
title: forget your perfect offering
word count: 1141
warnings: Spoilers for the series, language, AU like woah
a/n: This is for paladin24, who prompted with, "in my dreams I was drowning my sorrows / but my sorrows, they learned to swim." HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I hope it's a great one. The complete list of prompts is here.
Title and cut text are from Leonard Cohen's insanely beautiful "Anthem."
************
He knew it wouldn’t be easy, this attempted voyage to the mythical land of ‘normal.’
Certain things are predictable as sunrise:
His need to call Kim every morning. The soft clicking sound her cell makes when she answers calms him better than any anti-anxiety medication on the market.
Renee’s long, out-of-nowhere silences that arrive without warning and leave without logic. He’ll watch her eyes and realize (sick drop in his stomach and sweat that prickles out on his neck) that although she might appear to be looking at the TV, or the door, or the-red-and green-with-snowflakes Starbucks Christmas mug he left on the counter that morning, she’s not even here.
Hell-soaked nightmares he can’t shake even after the third cup of hot chocolate (or the third straight-from-the-bottle mouthful of bourbon, if the dream was really bad. If it involved Kim).
Holding Renee’s hot, trembling body against his, whispering, It’s okay, you’re okay. When his hand can feel her heart slam and she’s gasping just to breathe, he desperately wants to lie, to tell her it will stop.
But it won’t, and he doesn’t.
************
Other trips and stumbles catch him by surprise, like walking down a sidewalk you’ve traveled every day of your life, only to find someone’s moved all the back-of-your-hand familiar cracks.
So he falls, often and hard.
************
Renee goes back to work.
FBI L.A.
It’s a demotion, but she’s still field ops.
In the morning, he brews her coffee and helps her find her jacket when she’s late.
He watches her take her gun out of the safe they had installed, check the clip, holster it on her hip.
When he kisses her goodbye, he has to force himself to let go.
His brain screws with him, replays the last words she said before she shut the door and vanished.
When the sound in his mind starts to distort, he invents reasons to call her.
Did you need me to pick up the dry cleaning?
I forgot if you said you wanted curry or hamburgers tonight.
Kim’s throwing some party for work. Can you grab some vodka on the way home?
After a couple days, Renee cuts him off mid-sentence.
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t need a reason to call me. Just call. Whenever you want. I get it. Okay?”
He clears his throat, because it hurts now. “Okay.”
After that, when he calls, he just says, “Hey,” and waits for the muscle relaxant that is her voice.
************
He watches Teri in the afternoons.
The tiny bus from her preschool arrives anywhere between 1 and 1:15.
It’s the longest fifteen minutes of his day.
He'd begged Kim to let him drive to the school, pick Teri up.
Daddy, the bus route goes right by your condo. She sits with her best friend. I can’t take her off just because-
He’d nodded and said, Okay, so he wouldn’t have to hear how Kim might decide to end that sentence.
At exactly 12:55, he cuts organic cheddar cheese into perfect squares and lines them up next to round wheat crackers. He pours milk into a small glass and sets it all out on the table.
And if the bus is thirty seconds late, he walks back and forth in front of the sunlit doorway, counting each breath.
In. Out. In. Out.
One, two, three, four.
If he’s lucky, the repetitive numbers give him enough focus to wait out the panic until he sees the flash of yellow, hears the familiar screech of brakes.
************
One Tuesday evening a few days before Christmas, Renee pushes through the door with her keys in her mouth and both arms full of groceries.
“Hey,” he says, striding to grab one before she drops it. “Let me help.”
“Thanks,” she exhales. “I should have made two trips.”
He sticks the bag on the counter and reaches for her, kissing her smile. This part of the routine never loses its punch -- the teasing touch of her tongue that tastes like that weird tropical gum she chews, the vibrating enthusiasm of her body pressed hot into his.
She’s all or nothing, and he gets the all.
When she pulls back, rubbing her thumb over his lower lip, he remembers the groceries. “Why’d you go to the store? I told you I had dinner covered.”
“It’s almost Christmas. We need to make cookies!” she announces, like he clearly should have thought of this.
Like clearly, this is what normal people do.
She pulls out a plastic bag full of cookie cutters and grins.
************
A couple hours later, the condo smells like warm butter and sugar; the kitchen is covered with Christmas trees, snowmen, holly leaves, and stars.
Renee has powdered sugar on her cheek and green frosting in her hair. She licks dough off her finger. “Can Teri have some of these for her snack tomorrow or will Kim be mad?”
“She won’t be mad.”
He picks up a star and takes a bite. It’s delicious, melty-sweet and still warm from the oven.
“Are they good?” Renee asks, forehead scrunched a little.
“Amazing,” he replies, muffled.
“We should cut some of these out with a glass and decorate them like tree ornaments!” she exclaims, reaching into the cupboard.
The Carpenters are playing on Pandora, and with the candle flame dancing and cookies scattered everywhere, it looks like a scene from a black-and-white Christmas movie.
He knows it isn’t.
He knows that later, he’ll wake up to a tangle of covers and socks where Renee’s supposed to be sleeping. He’ll walk into this same kitchen to find her at the table, clutching a cup of tea, white and shaking.
She’ll look up at him with exhausted red eyes that read him stories all by themselves, no words required.
He’ll sit down beside her, tuck her ankle between his, and wait quietly while her breathing settles and her leg stops bouncing.
Because the thing is that sometimes, this is what they share. Weight of the knowledge that there are choices you can’t unmake, decisions that turn you down a one-way road, point of no return. And the best you can do once you’ve arrived is try to live gracefully in the aftermath.
“Hey. Will you taste this and tell me if it needs more lemon?”
He blinks.
Renee’s standing with a spoonful of red frosting in her hand, her eyes alive with that glint they get when she’s about to do something to him that will pulse out through his nerve endings for days, his body humming with the memory.
And normal (whatever the fuck that is anyway) doesn’t seem quite so far away as it did, once.
************
A question I'm asking myself today is: How the hell did I not know about the existence of this book? I freakin' adore Alice Hoffman. I am beyond stoked to read this over the holiday work break. What are you guys reading? Also, if anybody would like to point me in the direction of kid-friendly (translation: really easy) cookie recipes, that would be rad.
title: forget your perfect offering
word count: 1141
warnings: Spoilers for the series, language, AU like woah
a/n: This is for paladin24, who prompted with, "in my dreams I was drowning my sorrows / but my sorrows, they learned to swim." HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I hope it's a great one. The complete list of prompts is here.
Title and cut text are from Leonard Cohen's insanely beautiful "Anthem."
************
He knew it wouldn’t be easy, this attempted voyage to the mythical land of ‘normal.’
Certain things are predictable as sunrise:
His need to call Kim every morning. The soft clicking sound her cell makes when she answers calms him better than any anti-anxiety medication on the market.
Renee’s long, out-of-nowhere silences that arrive without warning and leave without logic. He’ll watch her eyes and realize (sick drop in his stomach and sweat that prickles out on his neck) that although she might appear to be looking at the TV, or the door, or the-red-and green-with-snowflakes Starbucks Christmas mug he left on the counter that morning, she’s not even here.
Hell-soaked nightmares he can’t shake even after the third cup of hot chocolate (or the third straight-from-the-bottle mouthful of bourbon, if the dream was really bad. If it involved Kim).
Holding Renee’s hot, trembling body against his, whispering, It’s okay, you’re okay. When his hand can feel her heart slam and she’s gasping just to breathe, he desperately wants to lie, to tell her it will stop.
But it won’t, and he doesn’t.
************
Other trips and stumbles catch him by surprise, like walking down a sidewalk you’ve traveled every day of your life, only to find someone’s moved all the back-of-your-hand familiar cracks.
So he falls, often and hard.
************
Renee goes back to work.
FBI L.A.
It’s a demotion, but she’s still field ops.
In the morning, he brews her coffee and helps her find her jacket when she’s late.
He watches her take her gun out of the safe they had installed, check the clip, holster it on her hip.
When he kisses her goodbye, he has to force himself to let go.
His brain screws with him, replays the last words she said before she shut the door and vanished.
When the sound in his mind starts to distort, he invents reasons to call her.
Did you need me to pick up the dry cleaning?
I forgot if you said you wanted curry or hamburgers tonight.
Kim’s throwing some party for work. Can you grab some vodka on the way home?
After a couple days, Renee cuts him off mid-sentence.
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t need a reason to call me. Just call. Whenever you want. I get it. Okay?”
He clears his throat, because it hurts now. “Okay.”
After that, when he calls, he just says, “Hey,” and waits for the muscle relaxant that is her voice.
************
He watches Teri in the afternoons.
The tiny bus from her preschool arrives anywhere between 1 and 1:15.
It’s the longest fifteen minutes of his day.
He'd begged Kim to let him drive to the school, pick Teri up.
Daddy, the bus route goes right by your condo. She sits with her best friend. I can’t take her off just because-
He’d nodded and said, Okay, so he wouldn’t have to hear how Kim might decide to end that sentence.
At exactly 12:55, he cuts organic cheddar cheese into perfect squares and lines them up next to round wheat crackers. He pours milk into a small glass and sets it all out on the table.
And if the bus is thirty seconds late, he walks back and forth in front of the sunlit doorway, counting each breath.
In. Out. In. Out.
One, two, three, four.
If he’s lucky, the repetitive numbers give him enough focus to wait out the panic until he sees the flash of yellow, hears the familiar screech of brakes.
************
One Tuesday evening a few days before Christmas, Renee pushes through the door with her keys in her mouth and both arms full of groceries.
“Hey,” he says, striding to grab one before she drops it. “Let me help.”
“Thanks,” she exhales. “I should have made two trips.”
He sticks the bag on the counter and reaches for her, kissing her smile. This part of the routine never loses its punch -- the teasing touch of her tongue that tastes like that weird tropical gum she chews, the vibrating enthusiasm of her body pressed hot into his.
She’s all or nothing, and he gets the all.
When she pulls back, rubbing her thumb over his lower lip, he remembers the groceries. “Why’d you go to the store? I told you I had dinner covered.”
“It’s almost Christmas. We need to make cookies!” she announces, like he clearly should have thought of this.
Like clearly, this is what normal people do.
She pulls out a plastic bag full of cookie cutters and grins.
************
A couple hours later, the condo smells like warm butter and sugar; the kitchen is covered with Christmas trees, snowmen, holly leaves, and stars.
Renee has powdered sugar on her cheek and green frosting in her hair. She licks dough off her finger. “Can Teri have some of these for her snack tomorrow or will Kim be mad?”
“She won’t be mad.”
He picks up a star and takes a bite. It’s delicious, melty-sweet and still warm from the oven.
“Are they good?” Renee asks, forehead scrunched a little.
“Amazing,” he replies, muffled.
“We should cut some of these out with a glass and decorate them like tree ornaments!” she exclaims, reaching into the cupboard.
The Carpenters are playing on Pandora, and with the candle flame dancing and cookies scattered everywhere, it looks like a scene from a black-and-white Christmas movie.
He knows it isn’t.
He knows that later, he’ll wake up to a tangle of covers and socks where Renee’s supposed to be sleeping. He’ll walk into this same kitchen to find her at the table, clutching a cup of tea, white and shaking.
She’ll look up at him with exhausted red eyes that read him stories all by themselves, no words required.
He’ll sit down beside her, tuck her ankle between his, and wait quietly while her breathing settles and her leg stops bouncing.
Because the thing is that sometimes, this is what they share. Weight of the knowledge that there are choices you can’t unmake, decisions that turn you down a one-way road, point of no return. And the best you can do once you’ve arrived is try to live gracefully in the aftermath.
“Hey. Will you taste this and tell me if it needs more lemon?”
He blinks.
Renee’s standing with a spoonful of red frosting in her hand, her eyes alive with that glint they get when she’s about to do something to him that will pulse out through his nerve endings for days, his body humming with the memory.
And normal (whatever the fuck that is anyway) doesn’t seem quite so far away as it did, once.
************
A question I'm asking myself today is: How the hell did I not know about the existence of this book? I freakin' adore Alice Hoffman. I am beyond stoked to read this over the holiday work break. What are you guys reading? Also, if anybody would like to point me in the direction of kid-friendly (translation: really easy) cookie recipes, that would be rad.