[Fic: one of these days (you'll take one look at me and run), durham county, mike/audrey, ma]
Title: one of these days (you'll take one look at me and run)
Author: Sionnain
Fandom: Durham County
Spoilers: Set between 2X01 and 2X02, so all of Season 1 and the premiere of Season 2.
Pairing: Mike Sweeney/Audrey Sweeney
Rating: MA
Warnings: Angry!sex, angst
Summary: There are a lot of ways to say goodbye.
AN: Lyrics are from the Drive By Truckers song "One of These Days", which inlovewithnight sent to me and said, "This sounds like Mike Sweeney to me." Oh, does it ever. Thanks to waltzforanight for the beta!
one of these days (you'll take one look at me and run)
Three nights after Audrey tells him she wants a divorce, Sadie takes Maddie to the movies. Mike's not sure if Audrey asked her to, or if Sadie is trying to make nice with her sister, or if both his kids are just sick and tired of the tension in the house and want a few hours of escape. He can't blame them if so--as much as he hates the idea of losing his family, living with Audrey is pushing the limits of his already-thin temper. He and Audrey have been walking the fine edge of anger for weeks now; all that rage smoldering between them, the ashes and embers of what remains of their marriage.
Every now and then it flares to life, white-hot licks of flame that singe whoever is unlucky enough to be near them. Of course that's the kids, more often than not, and Mike can't blame them for wanting to get the hell out of the house. As much as he wants to keep his family together, fuck, he doesn't want to be there. He leaves for work early, goes to the gym, comes home in time for dinner and to spend some time with the kids. He's working on borrowed time, here, and they all know it.
Mike does the dishes in the kitchen after the girls leave, listening to the silence and wondering why this house doesn't feel a goddamned thing like home.
Audrey picked it out with help from the real estate agent, entirely without asking for his input. Mike just nodded and signed the papers without even seeing the place; he couldn't imagine she'd want something awful, and she didn't seem like him seeing it before they moved in was a priority. As he puts the dishes away in the cabinets, he realizes she never really wanted him to live here. This wasn't their house. This was her house.
Now you know how she felt, a voice in his head tells him, vicious and angry. Mike stands with his hands pressed into the counter, feeling the bite from the edge of the granite against his palms, increasing the pressure until the pain clears his head enough for him to walk away and turn off the light.
He's been sleeping on the couch since Audrey said she wanted a divorce, but he goes upstairs to the bedroom to change out of his work clothes. Audrey's there, and they look at each other warily. Mike is very aware of her, eyes wide and darting to the door like he's fucking trapping her in there, Jesus.
"Just going to change clothes," he tells her, voice even and his hands raised, like he's talking to an assault victim instead of his wife--
Maybe she thinks she is one, that voice says, just as vicious as before. Sometimes it sounds like Ray Prager's voice, and it makes Mike want to hit something, hard.
"Mike--"
He ignores her and pulls off his tie, tosses it onto his dresser. The tension in the room is stretched so tight his fingers are shaking as he undoes the buttons on his dress shirt; he can feel his chest rising and falling, too fast. He wants to get the fuck out of there, he wants to shout at her, he wants to ask her why she's fucking giving up on him so goddamned easily. He turns around to throw his shirt towards the hamper, and she's just--standing there, staring at him. "What?" he snaps, voice gone low and rough, violence etched in every syllable, curled in the tight and tense muscles of his shoulders, his jaw.
Audrey opens her mouth, like she's going to say something--something he doesn't want to hear, that's all she's been fucking saying to him for months--but she shakes her head and doesn't say a word, just keeps staring at him with her arms crossed over her chest. The tension sharpens and Mike is suddenly aware she's standing by the bed, and that almost makes him laugh because he can't even remember the last time they touched each other in any way that wasn't completely perfunctory, some kind of show for the kids.
Mike had tried, in those first few weeks after Prager's arrest, to explain his reticence to touch her after they'd moved to Durham. How he'd mentally prepared himself for her to die, that he couldn't wrap his brain around the fact she was still alive, how he'd been lost in some sick mire of guilt and fear. But he'd never been good with words, not really, and they'd come out clumsy and hastily spoken. His explanation had killed whatever spark that cancer and Ray Prager had left intact, and they'd shared a bed without really sharing it--facing away from each other, lying awake in the silence that stretched wide like the sea.
Except that she's looking at him and maybe he's fucking delusional, because he knows that look, it's the angry one that says I hate you, you fucking bastard but there's something else, something he has vague memories of from before--before cancer, before Caleb, before Durham, always before. Whatever it is, it's making him hard, making his skin feel tight as a rush of heat settles warm and low in his stomach.
She's so beautiful, Audrey, even now. Her eyes flashing angry at him, her body still too thin but so lovely to him because she's alive. He remembers when he first met her, feeling stupid when he'd tried to talk to her, because she was so pretty and normal. No darkness in her soul, nothing angry or vengeful or mean. She wasn't anything like the girls back home in Durham, who were nothing but extensions of the boys. She was nothing like him.
But that darkness, that anger--it's there, now. And it's all Mike's fault, of course. His love for her has dragged her into that violent storm that has always been his life, from which he's never really escaped. And he'd stood by while it had taken her, claimed her, doing nothing because he wanted so badly for her to love him, to need him, to be the man she'd thought he was when she fell in love with him.
That's what he'd meant, that awful day in Durham when he'd said that he wished she'd died. I wish you'd died when you still thought I was worthy of you. Mike's disgusted that he thinks that, but he can't help it. One more thing he can he hate himself for, one more black mark on the list.
They're standing there, staring, and he's maybe crazy but it's not just him. He knows what Audrey looks like when she's turned on, and that's how she's looking at him, all predatory and bright-eyed and flushed with it. And sure, they'd ended more fights in bed than he could remember, but this--this isn't a fight. This is the end of things, and it's not the same at all.
It happens before Mike can work out why. He doesn't know which of them makes the first move, doesn't know if he steps towards her or she steps towards him, but suddenly she's pressed up against him and they're kissing. It's hot and rough and there's so much anger beneath it; his hands are too tight on her shoulders, her nails are too sharp on his back even through the cotton of his undershirt.
"Fuck you, Mike," she mutters against his mouth, and she rakes his back with her nails again and he groans, kissing her and then shoving her away hard.
"Fuck you," Mike snarls at her, panting, and fuck, he needs to get out of here, now.
She laughs, the sound wild, and she's kneeling on the bed, panting and running her tongue over her bottom lip, swollen from his teeth. "Do you think you could? I don't. I think you forgot how."
She's baiting him, he knows it, but it doesn't matter. He falls for it anyway, too far gone to the anger and the sudden drenching lust, Jesus, what the hell is this? Mike puts one knee on the bed and then the other, goes down on all fours and crawls towards where she's kneeling. He's doing it slow, deliberate. To give her time to get away, to react, to do whatever she's going to do. "You want to fucking find out?"
It's a threat, which makes him feel like an ass--she's his wife--but Mike's default emotion is always rage, and even though he wants her so much he can barely breathe with it, beneath it all he's still so fucking angry.
Audrey shakes her head, grabs at his undershirt and pulls him towards her. She can't move him, he outweighs her by a lot, but she makes her point. "Yeah, Mike. I do." He barely recognizes her voice, low and breathy and fuck, he's so hard for her, wants her so fucking much. She grabs him around the neck, nails digging in tight, and the pain makes him groan.
Things are a blur after that; Audrey's hands on his belt, both of them taking off his shirt, the sound of their harsh breathing loud in the quiet room. Mike knows everything she likes, every spot that makes her gasp and pant and twist beneath him. But there's a desperate edge to all of it--her hand on his cock, his mouth between her legs, the way she shoves him down on his back and rides him, sweaty and hot and digging her nails into his chest, his pants pushed down around his thighs.
She's loud when she comes, he can feel her thigh muscles shaking as she sits astride him.
Mike raises up and kisses her, then puts her beneath him, drives hard into her again and again. He buries his face in her neck and thinks I love you, I love you, I love you when he comes, tasting the sweat on her skin, salty like tears.
They lie there for a long time after it's over, entwined, limbs tangled up on the bed and still a million miles away from each other. Eventually Mike pulls gently away, looks down at her, unsure what this means, what he's supposed to think. She's flushed and sweaty, and he reaches up and pushes her hair out of her face, the gesture automatic and familiar from countless other nights; those times he could say I love you, I'm sorry, and she'd touch his face, smile at him, say I know, Mike. I know.
She opens her eyes and smiles at him, a sad smile, like she's lost something. When he sees it, Mike knows it's over.
He kisses her, soft and gentle, lets himself feel her hands on his back and her body pliant beneath his. Eventually he gets up, goes into the bathroom and takes a shower. The hot water stings the scratches on his back and his chest. When he's finished, he puts on jeans and a t-shirt, packs his bathroom things in a small travel case. Back in the bedroom, he drags a suitcase out of the closet, packs sweats, some jeans, a couple of suits for work. Audrey is dressed when he meets her in the entranceway by the door, her hair pulled back, face composed. They look at each other like war buddies leaving the combat zone, solemn and tired, broken in all the worst ways.
She hugs him goodbye, a long hug, her face pressed against his shoulder. She still smells like him. Mike kisses the top of her head, swallows hard, pretends he doesn't feel how she's shaking in his arms. He wants to tell her he's not giving up, that he loves her, that he's sorry for every single thing he's done. He doesn't say any of it. It's too late for words, and they always come out wrong when he tries; they're tangled up with all the things that brought them here, the dark things that are hidden, and the ones that are laid bare and gaping and raw.
He doesn't look back when he drives away, the house fading into the distance, one more light among many.
He finds a hotel with a small kitchen and an extra bedroom, so the kids will have some privacy when they come stay. Sadie will be mad at him for leaving when she's not there; Mike turns his phone on, because he's expecting she's going to come home from the movie and demand that he come pick her up immediately. Mike will tell her that he and Audrey decided it was easier this way. Mike's not sure if that is really true or not, but at this point, it doesn't really matter. All the lies are knotted up together, web-sticky, easily broken but impossible to erase.
Mike's fully dressed, lying on top of his uncomfortable bed, waiting for the sound of his phone to break the silence. He tells himself that it might be okay, that he can try and convince Audrey that he's still the man she married, the good man she always thought he was. He tells himself this as the unfamiliar light spills in through the window, tells himself and knows that it's just one more lie.
Author: Sionnain
Fandom: Durham County
Spoilers: Set between 2X01 and 2X02, so all of Season 1 and the premiere of Season 2.
Pairing: Mike Sweeney/Audrey Sweeney
Rating: MA
Warnings: Angry!sex, angst
Summary: There are a lot of ways to say goodbye.
AN: Lyrics are from the Drive By Truckers song "One of These Days", which inlovewithnight sent to me and said, "This sounds like Mike Sweeney to me." Oh, does it ever. Thanks to waltzforanight for the beta!
one of these days (you'll take one look at me and run)
Three nights after Audrey tells him she wants a divorce, Sadie takes Maddie to the movies. Mike's not sure if Audrey asked her to, or if Sadie is trying to make nice with her sister, or if both his kids are just sick and tired of the tension in the house and want a few hours of escape. He can't blame them if so--as much as he hates the idea of losing his family, living with Audrey is pushing the limits of his already-thin temper. He and Audrey have been walking the fine edge of anger for weeks now; all that rage smoldering between them, the ashes and embers of what remains of their marriage.
Every now and then it flares to life, white-hot licks of flame that singe whoever is unlucky enough to be near them. Of course that's the kids, more often than not, and Mike can't blame them for wanting to get the hell out of the house. As much as he wants to keep his family together, fuck, he doesn't want to be there. He leaves for work early, goes to the gym, comes home in time for dinner and to spend some time with the kids. He's working on borrowed time, here, and they all know it.
Mike does the dishes in the kitchen after the girls leave, listening to the silence and wondering why this house doesn't feel a goddamned thing like home.
Audrey picked it out with help from the real estate agent, entirely without asking for his input. Mike just nodded and signed the papers without even seeing the place; he couldn't imagine she'd want something awful, and she didn't seem like him seeing it before they moved in was a priority. As he puts the dishes away in the cabinets, he realizes she never really wanted him to live here. This wasn't their house. This was her house.
Now you know how she felt, a voice in his head tells him, vicious and angry. Mike stands with his hands pressed into the counter, feeling the bite from the edge of the granite against his palms, increasing the pressure until the pain clears his head enough for him to walk away and turn off the light.
He's been sleeping on the couch since Audrey said she wanted a divorce, but he goes upstairs to the bedroom to change out of his work clothes. Audrey's there, and they look at each other warily. Mike is very aware of her, eyes wide and darting to the door like he's fucking trapping her in there, Jesus.
"Just going to change clothes," he tells her, voice even and his hands raised, like he's talking to an assault victim instead of his wife--
Maybe she thinks she is one, that voice says, just as vicious as before. Sometimes it sounds like Ray Prager's voice, and it makes Mike want to hit something, hard.
"Mike--"
He ignores her and pulls off his tie, tosses it onto his dresser. The tension in the room is stretched so tight his fingers are shaking as he undoes the buttons on his dress shirt; he can feel his chest rising and falling, too fast. He wants to get the fuck out of there, he wants to shout at her, he wants to ask her why she's fucking giving up on him so goddamned easily. He turns around to throw his shirt towards the hamper, and she's just--standing there, staring at him. "What?" he snaps, voice gone low and rough, violence etched in every syllable, curled in the tight and tense muscles of his shoulders, his jaw.
Audrey opens her mouth, like she's going to say something--something he doesn't want to hear, that's all she's been fucking saying to him for months--but she shakes her head and doesn't say a word, just keeps staring at him with her arms crossed over her chest. The tension sharpens and Mike is suddenly aware she's standing by the bed, and that almost makes him laugh because he can't even remember the last time they touched each other in any way that wasn't completely perfunctory, some kind of show for the kids.
Mike had tried, in those first few weeks after Prager's arrest, to explain his reticence to touch her after they'd moved to Durham. How he'd mentally prepared himself for her to die, that he couldn't wrap his brain around the fact she was still alive, how he'd been lost in some sick mire of guilt and fear. But he'd never been good with words, not really, and they'd come out clumsy and hastily spoken. His explanation had killed whatever spark that cancer and Ray Prager had left intact, and they'd shared a bed without really sharing it--facing away from each other, lying awake in the silence that stretched wide like the sea.
Except that she's looking at him and maybe he's fucking delusional, because he knows that look, it's the angry one that says I hate you, you fucking bastard but there's something else, something he has vague memories of from before--before cancer, before Caleb, before Durham, always before. Whatever it is, it's making him hard, making his skin feel tight as a rush of heat settles warm and low in his stomach.
She's so beautiful, Audrey, even now. Her eyes flashing angry at him, her body still too thin but so lovely to him because she's alive. He remembers when he first met her, feeling stupid when he'd tried to talk to her, because she was so pretty and normal. No darkness in her soul, nothing angry or vengeful or mean. She wasn't anything like the girls back home in Durham, who were nothing but extensions of the boys. She was nothing like him.
But that darkness, that anger--it's there, now. And it's all Mike's fault, of course. His love for her has dragged her into that violent storm that has always been his life, from which he's never really escaped. And he'd stood by while it had taken her, claimed her, doing nothing because he wanted so badly for her to love him, to need him, to be the man she'd thought he was when she fell in love with him.
That's what he'd meant, that awful day in Durham when he'd said that he wished she'd died. I wish you'd died when you still thought I was worthy of you. Mike's disgusted that he thinks that, but he can't help it. One more thing he can he hate himself for, one more black mark on the list.
They're standing there, staring, and he's maybe crazy but it's not just him. He knows what Audrey looks like when she's turned on, and that's how she's looking at him, all predatory and bright-eyed and flushed with it. And sure, they'd ended more fights in bed than he could remember, but this--this isn't a fight. This is the end of things, and it's not the same at all.
It happens before Mike can work out why. He doesn't know which of them makes the first move, doesn't know if he steps towards her or she steps towards him, but suddenly she's pressed up against him and they're kissing. It's hot and rough and there's so much anger beneath it; his hands are too tight on her shoulders, her nails are too sharp on his back even through the cotton of his undershirt.
"Fuck you, Mike," she mutters against his mouth, and she rakes his back with her nails again and he groans, kissing her and then shoving her away hard.
"Fuck you," Mike snarls at her, panting, and fuck, he needs to get out of here, now.
She laughs, the sound wild, and she's kneeling on the bed, panting and running her tongue over her bottom lip, swollen from his teeth. "Do you think you could? I don't. I think you forgot how."
She's baiting him, he knows it, but it doesn't matter. He falls for it anyway, too far gone to the anger and the sudden drenching lust, Jesus, what the hell is this? Mike puts one knee on the bed and then the other, goes down on all fours and crawls towards where she's kneeling. He's doing it slow, deliberate. To give her time to get away, to react, to do whatever she's going to do. "You want to fucking find out?"
It's a threat, which makes him feel like an ass--she's his wife--but Mike's default emotion is always rage, and even though he wants her so much he can barely breathe with it, beneath it all he's still so fucking angry.
Audrey shakes her head, grabs at his undershirt and pulls him towards her. She can't move him, he outweighs her by a lot, but she makes her point. "Yeah, Mike. I do." He barely recognizes her voice, low and breathy and fuck, he's so hard for her, wants her so fucking much. She grabs him around the neck, nails digging in tight, and the pain makes him groan.
Things are a blur after that; Audrey's hands on his belt, both of them taking off his shirt, the sound of their harsh breathing loud in the quiet room. Mike knows everything she likes, every spot that makes her gasp and pant and twist beneath him. But there's a desperate edge to all of it--her hand on his cock, his mouth between her legs, the way she shoves him down on his back and rides him, sweaty and hot and digging her nails into his chest, his pants pushed down around his thighs.
She's loud when she comes, he can feel her thigh muscles shaking as she sits astride him.
Mike raises up and kisses her, then puts her beneath him, drives hard into her again and again. He buries his face in her neck and thinks I love you, I love you, I love you when he comes, tasting the sweat on her skin, salty like tears.
They lie there for a long time after it's over, entwined, limbs tangled up on the bed and still a million miles away from each other. Eventually Mike pulls gently away, looks down at her, unsure what this means, what he's supposed to think. She's flushed and sweaty, and he reaches up and pushes her hair out of her face, the gesture automatic and familiar from countless other nights; those times he could say I love you, I'm sorry, and she'd touch his face, smile at him, say I know, Mike. I know.
She opens her eyes and smiles at him, a sad smile, like she's lost something. When he sees it, Mike knows it's over.
He kisses her, soft and gentle, lets himself feel her hands on his back and her body pliant beneath his. Eventually he gets up, goes into the bathroom and takes a shower. The hot water stings the scratches on his back and his chest. When he's finished, he puts on jeans and a t-shirt, packs his bathroom things in a small travel case. Back in the bedroom, he drags a suitcase out of the closet, packs sweats, some jeans, a couple of suits for work. Audrey is dressed when he meets her in the entranceway by the door, her hair pulled back, face composed. They look at each other like war buddies leaving the combat zone, solemn and tired, broken in all the worst ways.
She hugs him goodbye, a long hug, her face pressed against his shoulder. She still smells like him. Mike kisses the top of her head, swallows hard, pretends he doesn't feel how she's shaking in his arms. He wants to tell her he's not giving up, that he loves her, that he's sorry for every single thing he's done. He doesn't say any of it. It's too late for words, and they always come out wrong when he tries; they're tangled up with all the things that brought them here, the dark things that are hidden, and the ones that are laid bare and gaping and raw.
He doesn't look back when he drives away, the house fading into the distance, one more light among many.
He finds a hotel with a small kitchen and an extra bedroom, so the kids will have some privacy when they come stay. Sadie will be mad at him for leaving when she's not there; Mike turns his phone on, because he's expecting she's going to come home from the movie and demand that he come pick her up immediately. Mike will tell her that he and Audrey decided it was easier this way. Mike's not sure if that is really true or not, but at this point, it doesn't really matter. All the lies are knotted up together, web-sticky, easily broken but impossible to erase.
Mike's fully dressed, lying on top of his uncomfortable bed, waiting for the sound of his phone to break the silence. He tells himself that it might be okay, that he can try and convince Audrey that he's still the man she married, the good man she always thought he was. He tells himself this as the unfamiliar light spills in through the window, tells himself and knows that it's just one more lie.