Bathing (Cave In Challenge on ds-flashfiction)
Pairing: Vecchio/Turnbull (Fraser/Kowalski also mentioned)
Rating: R-ish, I think
Size: about 2250 words
Warning: This is an “after Stella Vecchio dies” fic.
Note: Post CotW
Bathing
I don’t know why you stayed after the others had left. I have no idea why you came here in the first place. Benny told you what had happened, I assume, but why did you decide to come to Florida? You and I weren’t exactly friends, and as far as I know you never even met Stella.
When I asked you if you could afford to stay, you said you had many sick days left. It reminded me of your accident-Benny had told me about it-and in the midst of all other emotions, your remarkable recovery amazed me. The bus didn’t seem to have harmed you at all.
I was glad you were there. Your presence and Michael’s kept me from falling apart. I’m not sure if I could have played the brave, bereaved widower without the two of you providing distraction to Benny and Stanley, and to Frannie.
I like Michael. He is good to Frannie. It’s truly amazing how thorough my sister can be if she decides to redirect her attention.
Michael is nothing like Benny. If he’d be anyone’s brother, he’d be Stanley’s. And he’s very easy going. Plus, he loves Frannie. I think she’s a very lucky girl.
She was worrying about me-as a sister should, of course-but she was also in love, and I don’t think she noticed something strange about my grief the days before the funeral.
I believe-I hope-that neither did Benny. He was more worried about Stanley than about me. As he should have been. One should look after one’s spouse, especially when said spouse loses an ex-wife. I felt for Stanley, but I mainly envied him. His grief over Stella was real, and so was the comfort Benny gave him.
I don’t know how much you worried about me. Nobody else required your special care, but you didn’t fuss over me. You were just there (much the same as you are now), quietly taking responsibility for a household of six. Did you have a personal reason to do that? Do you have a personal reason to be still here? I have no idea.
All I know is that when I looked up from my huddled position-with 90 degrees outside and 70 degrees inside I felt frozen to the bone, and witnessing the warmth between Frannie and Michael on the one side, and Benny and Stanley on the other only made me feel colder-your eyes were the ones mine would most likely meet.
I would try a faint smile, which you wouldn’t return. The look in your eyes was always very solemn, as though you were telling me, “It is all right, Ray. It is all right to feel the way you do.”
I knew you were wrong. Sometimes I wanted to scream, “Do you even know what I did? I killed her!”
I controlled the impulse. It wouldn’t be wise to say it, and strictly speaking, it wasn’t true. And I couldn’t shake the feeling you already knew anyway.
I’m told that mourning always comes with guilt. Everybody feels guilty at the loss of a loved one. But here’s the catch: I didn’t love Stella. Watching Frannie and Michael and especially Benny and Stanley made me painfully aware of that. I was glad they were distracted by each other. I was glad they didn’t see me shortly before Stella died, so they were likely to think that my depression was caused by the loss of her and to see me as a perfectly normal grieving widower instead of a fraud. But witnessing their love added to my guilt.
I shouldn’t have married Stella. The marriage has caused her death, and it made the last year of her life a miserable one.
She tried to make it work. Maybe she even truly loved me. That would be the most logic explanation for her decision to marry me. And the most tragic one.
Stella shrugged off her last name and her profession with an ease that was completely baffling, and she ran the bowling alley as if it was her calling.
She had great charm. The customers loved her. I don’t think anybody ever noticed there was anything wrong.
Behind the scenes, I watched her growing bitter and I knew it was my fault. I knew I was pulling her down in my pool of depression caused by the regret of retiring from the police force, of marrying her, of moving to Florida.
Recovering from an extensive undercover assignment takes time; I should have known that. But I had been so lonely, I longed so much for company, for the closeness of another person that my system took the first opportunity to fall in love. I would have done anything to get rid of Armando Languistini, even make the wrong decisions.
Infatuation isn’t love. It doesn’t last. I knew that on my wedding day.
Benny and Stanley attended. I already knew they were a couple, Benny told me on the phone, but even if I hadn’t before I would have known then. Stanley was beaming, Benny was glowing. I was jealous. I should have felt like that on my wedding day.
They never lost body contact and they smiled a lot-at each other mostly. They didn’t hide anything. The sight of Benny, non-hiding because of Stanley made my gut clench. He looked so happy. They looked so happy.
When Stanley complimented Stella on her dress, he was genuine. Form the sound of it he could have been her proud brother. It didn’t even seem to chafe that she belonged to somebody else now.
Benny said, “Congratulations. I hope you’ll be very happy, Ray.”
He smiled the small smile that usually accompanies his courtesies, but I felt that the look his eyes was saying, “For god’s sakes, Ray, what have you done?”
I knew the answer, even then. I had rushed into a marriage that would bring neither me or my wife any happiness. But it was too late. I’d already said ‘I do’.
I didn’t like Florida. I didn’t like the bowling alley. I didn’t even like Stella.
At first, she thought I just needed to get used to being retired. She tried patience, love, physical intimacy. She even defended my foul mood to our customers.
When I had drained her emotional resources, she grew bitter. We started to have fights. It was after one of those fights that her body was found in the swimming pool. The doctor said she didn’t drown. Well, technically, she drowned, but the cause was a stroke.
A stroke. At thirty-seven.
I instantly ordered to have the swimming pool emptied and to leave it like that. I knew I would never use it again, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it just sitting there, pretending that nothing had happened.
I didn’t expect that it would remind me so such of a giant grave, but it did. And it still does, even now, a month after Stella’s funeral, three weeks after everybody went back to Chicago, except you.
I still feel guilty. I still spend most of my daytime curled up in a chair, unable to get warm. You are still here.
You have started to run the bowling alley. You talk to the visitors and to the staff while I huddle myself in the office. When I come out to show my face, I feel I’m greeted with pity and concern. I hate it. I don’t deserve it.
You are doing great. Your presence has already brought on three new regulars. Two school girls who clearly have a crush on you, and a woman whose interest is also more in you than in bowling. She seems really sweet, but you don’t seem to notice. You are nice to her, as you are to all customers. You keep people posted about my mourning. “Mr. Vecchio needs time,” you say, and, “Thank you for asking.”
We don’t talk much. In the morning, you let me sleep in late. In the afternoon and evening, you are busy with the bowling alley. You step into the office on a regular basis to ask if I need anything but I always tell you that I don’t. At meal times, you encourage me to eat. You cook me dinner. Every night at about eleven, you say, “It’s getting rather late. You should try and get some sleep, Ray.”
I try. Usually it is to no avail until about four in the morning.
But I depend on you. You are like a spouse to me, and the things you do get to me more than Stella’s care ever did.
I don’t know why. I’m in no state to trust my feelings, but sometimes I think that I’m clutching myself in order not to touch you. I am so cold, I yearn for warmth, but I don’t know what your intentions are, you haven’t touched me once, and I don’t think of myself as gay. So I resist the urge. I huddle myself tighter. And I try not to freeze.
One night when you come home after closing up the bowling alley, you say, “Ray, I think it would be a good idea if you took a bath.”
You’re not referring to my personal hygiene. Or to the relaxing effect of bathing. You know that taking a bath would do anything but relax me. Since Stella’s death, I’m afraid of water. Not when it’s running, I have no problem taking showers, but I can’t stand the sight of a pool of water, even if it is a small one like in a bathtub.
It reminds me too much of the time I drowned my sisters’ Barbie dolls when I was a kid. I was fascinated by the view of their faces under the surface of the water. I imagined dead faces must look like that.
I was right. Stella’s face looked like that when I turned her over.
I know you think that taking a bath would have a therapeutic effect on me, but I don’t want to take one.
“I’ll come with you,” you say as though it is an argument in favor of your point, and strangely enough, it is. I take a towel from the bathroom closet and go undress in my bedroom while you run the bath.
When I join you, I instantly notice that you didn’t add bubble bath to the water. There will be no opportunity for me to hide.
I know you left out the foam to enhance the therapeutic effect of the bath and not because you want to have a better look, but I’m not sure I won’t embarrass myself by becoming hard when I drop the towel. Not with the way I’ve been feeling lately, so much aware of you presence in the other room or in the same room a few yards away, and wishing you were closer.
“The bath is ready, Ray,” you say quietly.
There isn’t a hint of want in your eyes, and I’m not exactly sure how comforting I find that, but it helps me muster the courage to drop the towel and get in the tub.
At first, my skin registers that the water is hot, but it seems to block this information quickly and it certainly forgets to pass it on to my muscles and bones.
I feel my teeth starting to clatter.
You didn’t add bubble bath but you put some oil in the water. It’s a sweet smell and it reminds me of Stella.
I feel tears in my eyes, hot tears, and I can’t hold them back.
I can’t hold it in anymore.
Oh, god, Stella, I’m so sorry! I’m sorry that I failed you. I’m sorry that I didn’t love you. Oh, god, why didn’t I love you? You didn’t deserve this. You didn’t deserve this, Stella. Stella, I’m sorry. I am so sorry, Stella.
Hot waves of emotion are washing over me. I’m crying like I haven’t cried in a decade. I can’t seem to stop.
“Ray.” Your hand is on my shoulder. Your eyes are searching mine.
Your look is patient. Concerned. Maybe loving.
I cave in. I can’t surrender to the guilt and the sorrow and not to the rest. I clutch your hand.
“Renfield,” I say. “Renfield, please.”
You understand. Thank god, you understand.
You pull me up, you step into the tub-your heavy boots cause quite some turmoil in the bath, I register vaguely-and you pull me in your arms.
I’m naked and wet, the air temperature is at least 20 degrees lower than that of the water, but I feel the cold seeping out of me. You hold me tight and you kiss me. Your lips move over my mouth and face, and you kiss away the tears before they cool on my cheeks.
You’re making hushing sounds. You tell me it will be all right, you tell me that you love me.
I’m praying. Hold me, Renfield. Hold me, please. Never let me go. Without you, I will freeze to death.
“I’m here,” you say. “I won’t let you go, Ray, not ever. I will personally see to it that you don’t die of hypothermia.”
Your hands cup my face. I look into your eyes and I see that it’s a promise.
Then your lips start warming me again.
END
Rating: R-ish, I think
Size: about 2250 words
Warning: This is an “after Stella Vecchio dies” fic.
Note: Post CotW
Bathing
I don’t know why you stayed after the others had left. I have no idea why you came here in the first place. Benny told you what had happened, I assume, but why did you decide to come to Florida? You and I weren’t exactly friends, and as far as I know you never even met Stella.
When I asked you if you could afford to stay, you said you had many sick days left. It reminded me of your accident-Benny had told me about it-and in the midst of all other emotions, your remarkable recovery amazed me. The bus didn’t seem to have harmed you at all.
I was glad you were there. Your presence and Michael’s kept me from falling apart. I’m not sure if I could have played the brave, bereaved widower without the two of you providing distraction to Benny and Stanley, and to Frannie.
I like Michael. He is good to Frannie. It’s truly amazing how thorough my sister can be if she decides to redirect her attention.
Michael is nothing like Benny. If he’d be anyone’s brother, he’d be Stanley’s. And he’s very easy going. Plus, he loves Frannie. I think she’s a very lucky girl.
She was worrying about me-as a sister should, of course-but she was also in love, and I don’t think she noticed something strange about my grief the days before the funeral.
I believe-I hope-that neither did Benny. He was more worried about Stanley than about me. As he should have been. One should look after one’s spouse, especially when said spouse loses an ex-wife. I felt for Stanley, but I mainly envied him. His grief over Stella was real, and so was the comfort Benny gave him.
I don’t know how much you worried about me. Nobody else required your special care, but you didn’t fuss over me. You were just there (much the same as you are now), quietly taking responsibility for a household of six. Did you have a personal reason to do that? Do you have a personal reason to be still here? I have no idea.
All I know is that when I looked up from my huddled position-with 90 degrees outside and 70 degrees inside I felt frozen to the bone, and witnessing the warmth between Frannie and Michael on the one side, and Benny and Stanley on the other only made me feel colder-your eyes were the ones mine would most likely meet.
I would try a faint smile, which you wouldn’t return. The look in your eyes was always very solemn, as though you were telling me, “It is all right, Ray. It is all right to feel the way you do.”
I knew you were wrong. Sometimes I wanted to scream, “Do you even know what I did? I killed her!”
I controlled the impulse. It wouldn’t be wise to say it, and strictly speaking, it wasn’t true. And I couldn’t shake the feeling you already knew anyway.
I’m told that mourning always comes with guilt. Everybody feels guilty at the loss of a loved one. But here’s the catch: I didn’t love Stella. Watching Frannie and Michael and especially Benny and Stanley made me painfully aware of that. I was glad they were distracted by each other. I was glad they didn’t see me shortly before Stella died, so they were likely to think that my depression was caused by the loss of her and to see me as a perfectly normal grieving widower instead of a fraud. But witnessing their love added to my guilt.
I shouldn’t have married Stella. The marriage has caused her death, and it made the last year of her life a miserable one.
She tried to make it work. Maybe she even truly loved me. That would be the most logic explanation for her decision to marry me. And the most tragic one.
Stella shrugged off her last name and her profession with an ease that was completely baffling, and she ran the bowling alley as if it was her calling.
She had great charm. The customers loved her. I don’t think anybody ever noticed there was anything wrong.
Behind the scenes, I watched her growing bitter and I knew it was my fault. I knew I was pulling her down in my pool of depression caused by the regret of retiring from the police force, of marrying her, of moving to Florida.
Recovering from an extensive undercover assignment takes time; I should have known that. But I had been so lonely, I longed so much for company, for the closeness of another person that my system took the first opportunity to fall in love. I would have done anything to get rid of Armando Languistini, even make the wrong decisions.
Infatuation isn’t love. It doesn’t last. I knew that on my wedding day.
Benny and Stanley attended. I already knew they were a couple, Benny told me on the phone, but even if I hadn’t before I would have known then. Stanley was beaming, Benny was glowing. I was jealous. I should have felt like that on my wedding day.
They never lost body contact and they smiled a lot-at each other mostly. They didn’t hide anything. The sight of Benny, non-hiding because of Stanley made my gut clench. He looked so happy. They looked so happy.
When Stanley complimented Stella on her dress, he was genuine. Form the sound of it he could have been her proud brother. It didn’t even seem to chafe that she belonged to somebody else now.
Benny said, “Congratulations. I hope you’ll be very happy, Ray.”
He smiled the small smile that usually accompanies his courtesies, but I felt that the look his eyes was saying, “For god’s sakes, Ray, what have you done?”
I knew the answer, even then. I had rushed into a marriage that would bring neither me or my wife any happiness. But it was too late. I’d already said ‘I do’.
I didn’t like Florida. I didn’t like the bowling alley. I didn’t even like Stella.
At first, she thought I just needed to get used to being retired. She tried patience, love, physical intimacy. She even defended my foul mood to our customers.
When I had drained her emotional resources, she grew bitter. We started to have fights. It was after one of those fights that her body was found in the swimming pool. The doctor said she didn’t drown. Well, technically, she drowned, but the cause was a stroke.
A stroke. At thirty-seven.
I instantly ordered to have the swimming pool emptied and to leave it like that. I knew I would never use it again, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it just sitting there, pretending that nothing had happened.
I didn’t expect that it would remind me so such of a giant grave, but it did. And it still does, even now, a month after Stella’s funeral, three weeks after everybody went back to Chicago, except you.
I still feel guilty. I still spend most of my daytime curled up in a chair, unable to get warm. You are still here.
You have started to run the bowling alley. You talk to the visitors and to the staff while I huddle myself in the office. When I come out to show my face, I feel I’m greeted with pity and concern. I hate it. I don’t deserve it.
You are doing great. Your presence has already brought on three new regulars. Two school girls who clearly have a crush on you, and a woman whose interest is also more in you than in bowling. She seems really sweet, but you don’t seem to notice. You are nice to her, as you are to all customers. You keep people posted about my mourning. “Mr. Vecchio needs time,” you say, and, “Thank you for asking.”
We don’t talk much. In the morning, you let me sleep in late. In the afternoon and evening, you are busy with the bowling alley. You step into the office on a regular basis to ask if I need anything but I always tell you that I don’t. At meal times, you encourage me to eat. You cook me dinner. Every night at about eleven, you say, “It’s getting rather late. You should try and get some sleep, Ray.”
I try. Usually it is to no avail until about four in the morning.
But I depend on you. You are like a spouse to me, and the things you do get to me more than Stella’s care ever did.
I don’t know why. I’m in no state to trust my feelings, but sometimes I think that I’m clutching myself in order not to touch you. I am so cold, I yearn for warmth, but I don’t know what your intentions are, you haven’t touched me once, and I don’t think of myself as gay. So I resist the urge. I huddle myself tighter. And I try not to freeze.
One night when you come home after closing up the bowling alley, you say, “Ray, I think it would be a good idea if you took a bath.”
You’re not referring to my personal hygiene. Or to the relaxing effect of bathing. You know that taking a bath would do anything but relax me. Since Stella’s death, I’m afraid of water. Not when it’s running, I have no problem taking showers, but I can’t stand the sight of a pool of water, even if it is a small one like in a bathtub.
It reminds me too much of the time I drowned my sisters’ Barbie dolls when I was a kid. I was fascinated by the view of their faces under the surface of the water. I imagined dead faces must look like that.
I was right. Stella’s face looked like that when I turned her over.
I know you think that taking a bath would have a therapeutic effect on me, but I don’t want to take one.
“I’ll come with you,” you say as though it is an argument in favor of your point, and strangely enough, it is. I take a towel from the bathroom closet and go undress in my bedroom while you run the bath.
When I join you, I instantly notice that you didn’t add bubble bath to the water. There will be no opportunity for me to hide.
I know you left out the foam to enhance the therapeutic effect of the bath and not because you want to have a better look, but I’m not sure I won’t embarrass myself by becoming hard when I drop the towel. Not with the way I’ve been feeling lately, so much aware of you presence in the other room or in the same room a few yards away, and wishing you were closer.
“The bath is ready, Ray,” you say quietly.
There isn’t a hint of want in your eyes, and I’m not exactly sure how comforting I find that, but it helps me muster the courage to drop the towel and get in the tub.
At first, my skin registers that the water is hot, but it seems to block this information quickly and it certainly forgets to pass it on to my muscles and bones.
I feel my teeth starting to clatter.
You didn’t add bubble bath but you put some oil in the water. It’s a sweet smell and it reminds me of Stella.
I feel tears in my eyes, hot tears, and I can’t hold them back.
I can’t hold it in anymore.
Oh, god, Stella, I’m so sorry! I’m sorry that I failed you. I’m sorry that I didn’t love you. Oh, god, why didn’t I love you? You didn’t deserve this. You didn’t deserve this, Stella. Stella, I’m sorry. I am so sorry, Stella.
Hot waves of emotion are washing over me. I’m crying like I haven’t cried in a decade. I can’t seem to stop.
“Ray.” Your hand is on my shoulder. Your eyes are searching mine.
Your look is patient. Concerned. Maybe loving.
I cave in. I can’t surrender to the guilt and the sorrow and not to the rest. I clutch your hand.
“Renfield,” I say. “Renfield, please.”
You understand. Thank god, you understand.
You pull me up, you step into the tub-your heavy boots cause quite some turmoil in the bath, I register vaguely-and you pull me in your arms.
I’m naked and wet, the air temperature is at least 20 degrees lower than that of the water, but I feel the cold seeping out of me. You hold me tight and you kiss me. Your lips move over my mouth and face, and you kiss away the tears before they cool on my cheeks.
You’re making hushing sounds. You tell me it will be all right, you tell me that you love me.
I’m praying. Hold me, Renfield. Hold me, please. Never let me go. Without you, I will freeze to death.
“I’m here,” you say. “I won’t let you go, Ray, not ever. I will personally see to it that you don’t die of hypothermia.”
Your hands cup my face. I look into your eyes and I see that it’s a promise.
Then your lips start warming me again.
END