Day 45: Open journal
Has anyone seen a fucking older guy, white hair, wears a fucking suit and a panama hat? His name is Frank fucking Lundy.
It's kinda god damn important.
[Private to Derek.]
You. Me. Talking. Now.
It's kinda god damn important.
[Private to Derek.]
You. Me. Talking. Now.
Deb wanted to run, but she'd spent the last two days alternately running and waiting, attempting to find some sort of peace of mind for what the fuck was happening. Lundy alive. Visions of Lundy in the parking lot promising her he wouldn't leave intermingled with that look of him seeing that far off thing in the distance and then the blank stare when she said that he had died.
And now she just physically couldn't run anymore. She didn't bother to knock on his door, she just walked into it and shut it behind her. Deb was wearing boy's pjs that were ridiculously short, but otherwise fit her, and she looked more than a little lost. When she spoke, her voice was soft but hard.
"I wasn't fucking running away from you." The hardness was a false hard, all bravado and hurt forced into a load baring wall around her in an effort to protect herself from this.
Reply
Morgan loved Reid but was in no shape to take the onslaught of questions that the genius would no doubt have. Neither was he in any shape to deal with the dividing of a room or any discussion that was absolutely necessary.
From what little Deb had said on paper, it appeared very necessary to provide the Miami Detective an audience. Her words were a cause of concern although he wasn't exactly sure what he was worried about. Derek had closed his journal after a moment that no writing came from Deb.
His head throbbed with a crushing force much like his hands doled out in the past forty-eight hours but his gaze still darted toward her the second she entered the room. Derek was a scruffy mess who had not trimmed, much less shaved his face in any form that day. His lower extremities were hidden under the bed sheet that bunched up at his shirtless waist.
He rolled onto his back which moved him to one side of the single bed. "Never said you were." The words uttered were raspy and just above a whisper. He wasn't sure what Deb wanted. The ring off her fucking finger. It ached to see her. Derek wasn't sure if it was the sudden hangover nearly everyone was experiencing or...Don't EVEN go there.
He swallowed thickly and ran his right palm over the top of his head, starting from his forehead then leaving his wrist laying above his skull on the pillow his head rested on. His left hand lightly tapped the empty space on the mattress as an invitation to sit. It would say a lot whether or not she accepted.
Reply
"I stole it when I was fucking out looking for some fucking sign of something other than this fucking place being god damn retarded." The bottle was extended towards him with a hand that would have been far more steady had she been holding a gun on him rather than that innocuous little bottle of pills. Her words were punctuated by the shaking sound of pills meeting the old glass bottle.
A deep breath and a moment of sighs, and she swallowed thickly before she some strands of hair were shoved back behind her ears in an effort to appear normal, like this giant fucking thing wasn't between them. Faux joking tone. "Maybe I should get ya some fucking water to wash those babies down."
Ghost of a smile, thin and bleak but an effort made nonetheless. A little pause before she did sit on the edge of the bed, perching on it with a bit of a wince; her body fucking hurt and the god damn stress of this bitch wasn't helping her in any fucking productive way.
"Some shit happened," she started quickly. "That is really fucking hard to explain. Like super-mega-fucking-Houdini-Ghost-what-the-fuck bullshit."
Reply
The skill often failed him in his personal life but Derek felt he had a good read on Deb. "I can swallow 'em dry," he waved off her words about getting him water for the aspirin. He could have told her that he had obtained pills of his own but he didn't want to diminish her efforts. It wasn't expected, and it was thoughtful.
"Start at the beginning. It's always the easiest. And we have all the time in the world," he offered. His voice was gentle with a tired quality from the raging headache he was suffering. Derek kept still and watched Deb. He had an idea what was coming but waited to hear it from her.
Reply
Right now, she was making the effort to keep still, because she didn't want to hurt him further. She could hear the pain that percolated along his tone, and it made her frown. By the same token, what Deb really wanted was to get up and pace along the floor. Vague hope lingered that if she forced the motion, the pain would send her thoughts into the proper places, like block falling into lines.
Start at the beginning he had said, and it was a god damn fucking good place to start. At least she made it through the first sentence. "Did I ever tell you who the fuck Frank Lundy was? Is. Was. Fuck!" She had tried to sit still, but she needed to get up and to move. "He's an FBI agent. A profiler like you."
Reply
The movement had been an unconscious reaction to finding out that of all things, the 'dead boyfriend' Deb had written to Kirk about was a FBI profiler. Then again, from the description she had given in her journal entry, that was all he seemed to have in common with the man.
Derek understood how it might have made Deb feel safe. He also understood she was more of a type A personality that didn't fare well having to remain calm in crazy situations. He didn't mind following her around the room with his eyes when she started to pace.
While she had disappeared for the past couple of days, Deb had been a constant since early in his arrival to this godforsaken place. It had worried Derek to lose contact with her. Particularly with what had happened in the days they had been lost together.
Were it not for Debra Morgan, Derek might have done something he would not be able to live with. The look in Martha's eyes still cut him when his mind recalled the moment. Everything had been okay with Deb, even when they had arrived back in town. Yet he needed the reassurance of seeing her.
Well here she was. And it didn't seem like her absence was due to him. He worried about what she was possibly going through. While Derek would have given anything to see his father again, he wasn't sure how he would handle such a thing. Deb was obviously going through hell...in hell.
He tried to make it easier on her. "This the dead boyfriend you wrote to Kirk about?" Before she snapped and thought Jim may have betrayed her trust, Derek quickly added. "I think the rings might've let me see what you wrote. I've never seen anything private before. And I didn't write anything to you in case you needed space."
Derek slowly rolled to his side, cheek on the pillow but able to follow Deb with his eyes a little easier.
Reply
Yeah, still not fucking thinking about that one.
She paced a bit, trying to find the proper place to start with Lundy. Starting with the Bay Harbor Butcher felt like it was too far in the god damn story, and that it didn't really explain the circumstances and how truly fucked up she'd been at the time. It didn't mention the darkness in her head and the way she hadn't been able to find her any peace until Frank had showed her how with classical music and a sandwich.
Mourning burst from that scabbed wound in her chest now that she was reminded of it. Fresh and raw it squeezed over and felt like burning. The pacing continued, her walk sharp and harsh for a moment until Derek's comment made her stop her momentum so suddenly that she nearly tumbled over. She just stared at him when he mentioned the dead boyfriend.
"Yeah. The dead boyfriend. Died right in fucking front of me."
Reply
It didn't appear to faze her in the slightest that he knew what Jim had written in private. Her sudden stop looked more of a wake up call. Derek wasn't quite sure. He didn't know what was the emotional trauma and what extended to the sudden hangover nearly everyone was feeling.
He knew something about watching someone close die in front of his eyes. Deb hadn't made clear the circumstances of her boyfriend's death. Regardless, there was no mistaking that this was some heavy shit for her. He couldn't imagine it being anything less.
Derek swallowed before moving his legs off the side of the bed and slowly sitting up at the mattress edge. It didn't feel right to lay there on his back while she opened up. He kept the bed sheet over his boxers, feeling it was the respectable thing to do given the topic of conversation.
"So you've been with him the last two days?" he carefully asked. His furrowed brow held something between question and a wince. Derek sat with each hand resting off the edge of the bed. He had a tendency of folding his arms over his chest yet he didn't close himself off that way there with Deb.
Reply
She took a deep breath again, and shoved hair behind her ears when he asked if she'd been with him for two days. Fuck, fuck he had to ask that. Fuck, he would ask that, wouldn't he? Deb was against her fucking better judgment, rather fond of him. If it had been anyone else that night (with the exception of Jim Fucking Kirk, but that was beside the point and it wouldn't have been as good) Deb would have tweaked.
"He fucking disappeared. It was like he was here and then he fucking wasn't." Deb shook her head quickly. She didn't like saying the words again, because it felt like saying them rather than writing them down seemed like it made it far more real. Maybe it was far more real now, because Deb looked at her hands and then she looked at his.
"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing," she admitted quickly and sharply, her heart resting proudly on her fucking sleeve at the moment. "I don't even know what the fuck to say. I've been looking for him to see if I've just been going fucking nuts. Maybe I am just fucking nuts."
Maybe he was a manifest of guilt, of enjoying what had happened too much when so much fucked up shit had happened. Maybe it was something else, but fuck, Lundy had been here and he had kissed her and now he was fucking gone.
Reply
Watching Deb slowly became more agonizing than the pain in his head. Since day one, she had been confident and brazen. Now he saw her broken. His shoulders slumped, a sign of his heart growing heavy with hers. Derek peered up with the sadness on his face as she admitted her turmoil.
His head wasn't any better but there was no way he would just sit there and watch her suffer. Derek stood up, closing his eyes when he did but quickly opening them when he walked the distance to her. "I think you'd be nuts if you weren't a little crazy after that happening."
Well aware that Deb being Deb, might push him away, Derek walked up and wrapped his arms around her nonetheless. It was a risk worth taking. The affectionate gesture conveyed his acceptance and allowed her to hide from his eyes for a moment. And if she thought for one moment that he was being condescending, the Fed immediately continued speaking.
"It ain't like normal shit happens here. I'd like to find West and deliver his ass to you. But we'll save that until after we make sure that he was really fucking with your head or not."
He pulled back far enough to kiss her forehead then rested his temple against hers, shutting his eyes tight at the pain the quick movement inflicted on his head. Derek fought through the pain and took the opportunity to share where his sympathy derived from before Deb cut him off.
"I don't know how I'd take seeing my dad again. It's been more than twenty-five years that I saw him take his last breath. Can't help but think that it'd be nice to have something other than that image as the last time I saw him."
Reply
Tears threatened to come for a moment, and they hovered at the corners of her deep brown eyes before she willed them away, threatening them back so that they didn't slip over her cheeks. Debra didn't want to cry in front of any guy whom she fucking liked; it set a bad example. After all, Debra Morgan was pretty much one of the fucking guys save for the time she actually fucked their brains out and guys don't have little whiny fits over suddenly-not-dead boyfriends appearing and then disappearing.
When he said that he thought she might be a little nuts (which is what she heard) Debra was prepared to suddenly tell him to fuck off; to turn on her fucking heel and leave or to punch him in the fucking throat. And then he wrapped his arms around her.
Most guys, Deb knew, would have told her to fuck off for coming here after fucking them for a whole day, then for crying (not crying, she wasn't going to fucking god damn cry) over a dead boyfriend, but Derek held onto her and after that initial pause, Deb quickly wrapped her arms around him, ignoring the pain that the gesture caused in every muscle against her spine.
Wanting to deliver West to her meant more than anyone giving fucking flowers or anything for. When he kissed her forehead, she just closed her eyes for a moment, and then she spoke softly, and her voice was far more thick than Deb would have liked it to be.
"He didn't fucking know he was fucking dead, Derek. He just remembered being shot... he didn't fucking remember dying." There was a hitch at the end of her sentence, and then she held him more tightly.
Reply
Instinctively, he rubbed her back gently--light enough to come across as a caress rather than be mistaken for an act of pity--when she tightened her hold around him. Derek slipped the opposite hand up the back of her neck, collecting her hair in an unkempt mass while cradling her head. There was a selfish satisfaction derived from being allowed to hold her.
Derek had been completely vulnerable thanks to the deranged spell that resulted in the sex fest they had. Deb had taken care of him. She deserved the same. Even if he would have done as much whether or not she had been there for him. Furthermore, even if it was to help her back in the arms of another man.
The man was someone who obviously meant enough to Deb that she fought tears. Derek was sure the detective had seen her fair share of deaths. There was more to her feelings than witnessing a death. All the shit they had experienced in Peaksville and it was only now that she showed any signs of breaking down.
Her words were chilling. He couldn't help but wonder if it was truly the man from her past or a fucked up trick from West. The whole situation was fucked up. Derek didn't know what to say so he said nothing and simply held her for a moment. "I don't think he would, Sweetheart. Whether or not this is a trick. It would be cruel if he did."
His voice was gentle. Hardly above a whisper. He lowered his chin and pressed a kiss into her hair then asked the hard questions. "Did he just appear and disappear? 'Cuz if he did, my guess is that it was a trick. Wouldn't he look for you if he was real?" Like you looked for her?
Derek swallowed as he shoved the thought out of his mind and waited her response.
Reply
When he rubbed her back, Deb tensed for a moment, but then relaxed into the touch, the little caress of it. It made her take a breath and attempt to relax, despite the tension that lingered in her muscles.
When he didn't speak for a moment, Deb had a moment of wondering if this was going to be the instant when he told her that he'd had enough of the fucking batshit crazy drama queen fuckery and to get the hell out. She was waiting for the rug to be jerked from below her and it was a familiar sensation in the hallow of her stomach. It wasn't fair to Derek, Deb knew, it wasn't fair and he didn't fucking deserve that, but she couldn't stop the sensation.
"No, it was like he fucking seemed to remember recovering and shit, like the world went on after there was all the fucking blood and bullets and the lights going out in his eyes in the parking lot." Now, she allowed herself to cry as she placed her face in the hallow of his neck, gripping him far too tightly.
"He was just fucking gone." She said again. "Just gone. Two days and I couldn't fucking find hide nor motherfucking hair of him, it was like he was fucking swallowed into the god damn ether."
Reply
There wasn't enough human kindness in the world. That was almost his mantra -fight the cruelty in the world. However, he wasn't thinking of the world in the moment. Derek silently listened to Deb without prejudice. His steady caress was the only support he gave.
When she finished speaking, he wasn't sure if they were any better off than before she had let everything out. "I'm sorry." The words were hardly audible. He didn't allow them to hang in the air regardless.
"I wanna say that it sounds like West trying to screw with you, but it's scarier to think that he'd know something like this about you. Though that might be better than thinking of the dead coming back to life."
The ramble was an obvious attempt to get Deb to continue thinking of the present rather than the painful memory of the past. An obviously bad attempt. Derek didn't mean to ramble. He didn't know how else to help.
It was then that he remembered Prentiss schooling him about shutting up and just listening to a woman when she was telling him feelings about a man. Derek reacted quickly on the recollection. "Hell, I don't know. I'll shut up now."
Reply
She probably had lost her fucking mind, but she went slightly stiff in his arms when he mentioned the dead coming back to life. His words sent a chill over her spine, and it rambled over her skin, forcing the tan flesh to rise into fucking goosebumps. Jesus fucking Christ, what was wrong with her? Lundy hadn't tried to fucking nom down on her brains or anything (just her face; he'd definitely spent a fair fucking time on her face.)
Debra wanted to scream, to cry and to kick shit, but mostly she wanted to know that his body wasn't dug up from wherever the fuck Lundy's daughter had him buried. She hadn't gone to the fucking funeral because she didn't want t embarrass him and have people think...
She didn't want to think, she didn't want to fucking think at all.
"Fuck me fucking sideways with a god damn fucking Christmas tree I fucking hate it here. The only thing that makes it even the smallest, tiniest, god fucking damn bit bearable is the fact you're here."
Reply
"The feeling's mutual," he uttered and carefully nudged her face back with his scruffy cheek. His head still pounded with whatever pseudo hangover he was plagued with but he chanced kissing Deb nonetheless.
Derek couldn't read her mind. He may have spent enough time with her to find an understanding. West's little trick of whisking them away somewhere hidden may have been something Deb needed as much as he had.
It felt as if everything that was unraveling had only been held together for a while. Derek arrived to Peaksville from a nightmare and just maybe the same could have been said about Deb. Neither wanted to divulge anything of the kind yet it was happening.
Kissing her seemed like the only way to find an escape. Maybe it was a shitty thing to do under the circumstances. She told him about someone she lost and here he was putting her in a lip lock. Something nagged at him to make Deb forget. If only for a little while.
Reply
Leave a comment