Dreamcatcher
---
Log from Rossi at X-Men MUCK
Old Brownstone Apts #210 - Rossi
An ancient, faded elegance sketches the boundaries of this apartment, hinted at in crown molding and worn, faded floors. High walls span to high ceilings, pale yellow with the barest of white trim; at one end, three high windows gape to let in day's light or night's dark with equal indifference. A small kitchen pocks a hollow in one wall, a doorless entry that offers glimpses of an metal-framed refrigerator and a cabinet-hung microwave. On the other side of the small living room, a short hallway offers entrances to bathroom and bedroom, both doors battered with the wear and tear of age.
In the living room are the basic accoutrements of comfort: sofas, chairs, table, television. Spartan accessories, betraying little of the owner; that task is left for the walls, hung with pictures of family and friends. Through them all runs the thread of blue, NYPD's uniform tailored to pride and vigor.
[Exits : [O]ut ]
[Players : Sabitha ]
By rights he should be in a bar with his coworkers, raising a glass in honor of the dead. There should be bitter stories, and funny ones, a wake by proxy, held to remember their own fragile mortality. Instead, Chris Rossi is home on Saturday night, half-naked in his living room with a ravaged box of bandages: plastic, fabric, Johnson-and-Johnson appeasement for the stitches and stripes that paint his torso red (brown, /black/) against the dark skin. The television, mute, offers the solace of some distant game. Baritone curses make the commentary.
Sabitha, on the other hand, has spent the day collecting stories. Bittersweet, primarily, tales of hopes and dreams cut short - many with an undercurrent of unease about politics and Purity. She hefts her satchel, filled with stories and photos, onto her shoulder as she exits the last house for the day and starts for the curb. Half a moment's hesitation, and she palms her cell and flips it open to dial as she walks.
The phone is, as ever, within easy reach and yet utterly unreachable, in that mysterious way of handheld devices; its ring pitches Chris forward and sends him scrambling, groping under sofa cushions and his own sweats-clad hip to recover it on the third ring. "/Rossi/," he greets on the press of button, flapping a peevish hand. (The bandaid, unimpressed, clings determinedly to his fingernail.)
Sabitha ought to be used to Chris's exasperated greetings by now. Still, she pauses for half a second as she reaches the sidewalk, meeting the cab called earlier with a hand held to forestall. "Chris? Hey, it's Sabby." A short pause and she adds, "What're you up to tonight?"
"Hello Kitty," Chris answers inconsequentially, peering with bemusement at a new bandaid. The cartoon cat stares back with tranquil, boddhisatva serenity. "Nothing much. Watching some TV. Painting my toenails. You know, masculine shit."
"You're up to Hello Kitty?" Sabby questions in a moment's confusion. "Good grief, Chris." Another half a moment's pause, with her hand on the cab's door, and she offers, "I'm in your neck of the woods. Had a meeting I just got out of, and I have the most amazing urge for a beer with someone who won't bemoan the boring nature of my conversation if I'm a little off." A beat, as she tugs open the door and slides in, palm still held up to the cabdriver. "And I haven't seen you in a bit. Feel like some company?"
A swift pause houses a swifter glance, cast across the disarray of discarded wrappers and emptied boxes. "Sure," Rossi says easily enough, slapping Hello Kitty -- indignity or not -- across a neat array of Beast-born stitches. "Apartment's a mess, but ... how far away are you? I've got plenty to drink."
"Fifteen, maybe," Sabby answers, and pauses to lean forward and murmurs Rossi's address to the cabbie. "Don't worry about the apartment. Give me a place to sit, something to drink, and your sparkling wit and charm, and I'm happy. More than happy." The cab takes off, and Sabitha offers, "I'll see you in a few, then?"
"Fifteen," Chris echoes, obliging. "See you then." The thumb's press cuts them off. It takes a few minutes longer to finish the job of patching, and a few minutes longer to conceal the evidence. Fifteen minutes are barely passed when he reemerges from the bedroom again, fingers working their way up the buttons of a white, long-sleeved shirt.
And fifteen it is, give or take a few, before Sabitha shows up at Chris's door to rap impatient knuckles against it. She's still dressed in a professional pantsuit, although the long (long, long) day has etched tiredness into her expression and posture. For now, though, she's done. For tonight.
The door opens on one hand's upswing, the other still busied with the last, ascending buttons. "Melcross," Chris greets, baritone lazy across the greeting. No signs of work for him, save the creep of a scratch that snakes over a brow and into the line of hair, and the matching scrapes that spider across hands. "Beer's in the fridge. C'mon in and let your hair down."
"Have I mentioned lately that I love you?" Sabitha greets in relief as she steps inside the door and drops her satchel to the ground. She braces a hand against the wall for balance as she tugs at a low-heeled shoe, and her eyes drift closed in bliss while she wiggles toes to freedom. A moment's pause as she works off the other, and then she remarks, "You weren't kidding about the apartment."
The door slips closed behind Sabitha, nudged by a passing elbow. Chris sweeps his glance across the living room, vague chagrin tugging his mouth askew. "I haven't had time to clean lately," he notes, defensive; a toe nudges his own discarded shoes into parallel order by the television, and he finishes the last buttonhole concession to modesty before stretching his long-legged limp towards the kitchen. "Want a glass? You had to work today? Or were you just feeling pretty?"
Sabitha's gaze follows Chris - and his limp - as she slides her jacket off. Slacks and the silky cream shell underneath are not precisely /comfortable/, but they're better than the full ensemble. "Bottle's fine," she answers, and trails after him. Her jacket drops atop piled satchel and shoes from an extended hand, wrinkles unheeded. "Yeah, work. Today. Tomorrow. Monday. Tuesday. Just keeps going." She takes up position against a counter and peers at Chris, studious. "You look a little banged up."
"It's been a weird few days," Chris says over his shoulder, what is visible of his mouth hiked in a crooked almost-grin. The refrigerator hums lovingly to his yank, bottles clinking in the door; arbitrary with his choices, he offers Sabitha a dew-fogged Canadian brew before selecting the same for himself. "Should've realized. Williams is on that whole memorial thing, right? Saw it in the newspaper."
Sabitha takes the beer and downs a long, long swallow before she lowers it to nod. "Well. /She/ isn't. Won't be in until Monday night. But the rest of us? No escaping it." She runs a hand, fast and hard, through her hair and studies him. "You were there?"
The fridge hisses shut, swallowing its spill of light, and Chris turns to settle his back against it, gaze a smiling, drowsing thing under the cautious fan of lashes. "Missed it," he admits, guilt hooded deep under the quiet baritone. "Something came up. I was supposed to be there, though. Guess I lucked out."
Sabitha's eyes darken sympathetic over a quietly (but fiercely) murmured, "Fuck." Another drink, and her beer's half gone already. "Probably bad to say it," she notes. "But I'm glad something came up. Have you watched the footage?"
Chris turns away, drifting aimlessly towards the other end of the kitchen -- glasses, up there, and ah. Pretzels. "Yeah," he says, taking down a bowl, expression still and secret. "It was ... something else. Caught everyone by surprise."
"No one expected it at all?" Her eyes trail after Chris across the kitchen.
The broad back turned to Sabitha, the angled shoulders: both stiffen. "The guys at the rally didn't get a warning," Chris tells the rattle of plastic packaging. "If they did, they would've shut the thing down."
Sabitha watches the muscles stiffen and falls silent. Her bottle tips back for another long drink. "They have me talking to the families," she reveals after a moment. Half a subject change. "Eight of them, today. One woman just handed me a yearbook and a stack of pictures and apologized for not being able to talk to me."
Pretzels rumble into the bowl, and are offered on Rossi's turn back to Sabitha, sympathy scribed on a grimace's slant. "I'm sorry," he offers simply over his bottle's mouth. "That's the part I hate most about the job. Breaking the news to the families-- you okay?"
Sabitha lifts a single shoulder in half a shrug. "I'm drinking beer," she answers. "I should probably warn you, I think I'm drinking to get drunk." She lifts her bottle in mock toast, and swallows again. "Someone has to do it."
"I have stronger," Chris advises, and extends a leg to nudge a lower cabinet open. Bottles range there in the silent dark, promising eventual oblivion: vodka, whisky, scotch, rum. Rossi regards his collection with mild-eyed dispassion. "You want fast? Or painless?"
Sabitha laughs shortly and drops her bottle to her side in one hand's loose-fingered grasp. "I knew there was a reason I loved you," she declares as she takes in the varied collection. "You willing to put up with me? I can have a couple beers and then go home and crash for the evening just as well."
Chris lifts his shoulders in a shrug, folding his arms in a loose knot with his beer entrenched in an elbow's sling. "I can handle it," he announces, long-suffering, noble knight that he is. "I'm a /man/. --Don't worry about it. Everyone needs some off time, now and then. Wouldn't mind the company, myself."
"Load me up then, Chris Rossi, testosterone-filled manly man. Hey--" Sabby's reminded, bottle lifted in midair toward another drink, "How'd your thing with Ashleigh go? Matt said you guys raised seventy-five grand, all said and done."
"Scotch," Rossi decides with a critical eye for Sabitha. He crouches with care, an arm braced against the counter for support; bottles clink, sorted and rejected before he straightens with two. "Then vodka. --Yeah, it went pretty well. FDNY kicked our asses, but it's all good. Haven't had the date with Ashleigh yet," he admits, vague embarrassment creeping tip-toe into his voice.
"Good man," Sabby cheers, and finishes her beer with one last, swift swallow before she moves forward and braces herself sideways against the sink. "Need any help?" Embarrassment is noted, with low interest. "I don't think you had any hope, after Matt. Why haven't you taken her out yet?"
The bottles glimmer stuporous, liquid invitation on the counter, and Rossi delays response long enough to take down glasses. One. After hesitation, two. "Got a little distracted," he admits. "We went and grabbed some pizza and ice cream after the auction thing, but -- we were supposed to go out tonight," he informs. Explanation enough.
Relief slides along the line of Sabitha's shoulders as one becomes two, although concern reappears, quiet as she allows an understanding, "Oh."
Indeed. Chris scythes a glance back at Sabitha, and busies himself with drinks. In silence he wrestles the scotch open; in silence he pours; in silence he offers. And in silence, still, he raises his own glass in a toast. To ... something.
Sabitha steps forward to sweep up her own, and it's a wry smile that meets Chris's in toast. Silence echoes silence, and scotch disappears in a single swift swallow.
The same treatment empties Chris's glass -- alas for appreciation! -- and he gestures with the bottle towards Sabitha again, quizzing with a brow. "Refill?"
Sabitha considers her glass and then nods. "I'm going to regret this in the morning," she informs, extending her glass.
"Water and aspirin," advises Rossi, splashing a liberal portion into the waiting glass before serving his own with less generosity. "Don't worry about it. Live today. Tomorrow can take care of itself."
"Fuck, yes," Sabitha declares with a vegeance, and lifts her glass in another mock toast. This one is sipped at carefully, but quickly, and Sabby leans back against the kitchen counter to regard Chris. "You think I'm interesting, right?" she asks in abrupt nonsequitar.
Pale eyes blink. Chris replaces his glass carefully on the counter and meets it with a hand, braced back against its support. "Interesting. Sure. You going to ask me if I think you're pretty?"
Sabitha laughs shortly. "No, I'll settle for interesting tonight," she answers. "I'm not drunk enough to beg for pretty."
Chris nods, accepting without surprise the vagarities of females. "Why do you ask?"
"Because," Sabitha declares, shoving her glass back to the counter. "I was told otherwise today and tonight, I'm not above a little shameless begging for ego boosting."
The ghost of a smile lurks behind Rossi's grave expression, hinted at behind the fine line of mouth and shadowed, deep-set eyes. "You are /quite/ interesting," Chris says, somber. "I could listen to you for hours. And I don't listen to a lot of women. Canto, Julia, sometimes my mother -- you're part of a pretty select group, Melcross. Congrats."
Sabitha grins, fast and fierce, at Rossi. "You even sound sincere. You do a girl good, Chris." Her eyes drift back to her glass and she questions, "Another? I'm tired of your kitchen."
This time the smile is visible, a wisp of warmth that colors the dragging voice. "After you. Grab the pretzels and the vodka, will you?" The scotch and the remainder are for Chris's capable arms.
Sabitha snakes her arms out to claim alcohol and munchies and then wanders with steps still-firm toward the living room. "I didn't like him anyway," she declares as she settles her load on the coffee table.
"Who?" wonders Rossi, trailing after like a loaded doberman: dangerous, but domesticated. "Can't figure Kessler for telling you you weren't interesting. Guy's FD, but he's not an /asshole/."
Sabitha laughs, edging toward excess as she collapses into the couch. "Nooo. Matt was /great/. I think Matt thinks I'm interesting. I think." She leans forward to snatch a handful of pretzels. "Guy named Bahir. I went out for coffee with his brother on Monday. Who is not interesting, but he's also not an asshole."
"Two guys, not assholes," Rossi congratulates, unloading himself on the coffee table before filling Sabitha's glass again. He hitches himself towards the armchair, easing into it with casual caution, distracting over the descent: "Why's it matter if his brother thinks you're not interesting?"
"I, on the other hand, was a complete bitch to him," Sabby admits, and scoops up her glass without hesitation. She slumps back as she sips. A brief sulk flickers over her features. "Doesn't, I guess. I dunno."
Chris sinks back in the chair, faint amusement veiled behind heavy eyelids. "Everyone has their off days," he says mildly. "Or -- I suppose you could say -- their on days. You want him to like you?"
Sabitha peers across the arm of the couch at Chris and hesitates in hazy confusion before she asks, "Which one?"
"The brother. The one who thinks you're not interesting."
Sabitha empties her glass and leans forward to slide it onto the table. Pretzels are popped without care. "He's interesting," she answers.
Eyes gleam. "Because he doesn't seem to think you are?"
Sabitha bubbles into contradicting laughter. "He was interesting before that. Asshole, though." Crunch.
"You just like assholes," Chris suggests, cradling his drink in the basket of his fingers. "Me, Lazzaro...."
"Percy," Sabby adds without hesitation. "Yeah, probably. Makes me feel better about when I'm a bitch."
Chris tucks a little shadow in the corner of his mouth, and shapes it belatedly into a smile's hook. "You figure you got free license? Yeah, I can see that. Kessler, this other guy, his brother -- you're jumping back into the dating scene pretty hard, sounds like."
Sabitha waves her hand dismissively. "I'm not dating Adel or Bahir. I only went for coffee because he asked me before Matt." There's no shame in Sabitha's voice, and a pair of pretzels disappear. Her eyes slant toward Chris. "You think I'm making a mistake?"
"Mistake?" Chris blinks and slouches further, experimenting -- ow. Eyes tighten. "No. It's what single people do. Meet new people, hang out, have a good time -- or not," he supposes, bare feet encroaching on the territory beneath the table. "Big city. Go for it. You're only young once, right?"
Sabitha's eyes narrow at his expression and then glaze over with alcholic unconcern. "Sure as hell," she agrees, belatedly cheerful. "Huh," she ponders after a moment. "There's Sean, too. He's not an asshole. I don't think." She slumps backwards, considering.
An eyebrow arches, curious. Then: "Sean?"
Sabitha nods sideways. "I'm not really dating him, either," she reveals. "But he's fun to dance with, and to fuck, and I think it works out ok for both of us. Haven't seen him in over a week, though. Maybe I'll just leave it and it'll fade out. That happens sometimes."
"Sometimes it does," Rossi agrees, snaking forward with deliberate, meticulous attention to refill Sabitha's drink again. "Pretty shallow, but they're good for scratching an itch. You looking for long-term, though?"
"Dunno," Sabby answers in swift dismissal. "See how it goes." Her smile is bright on Chris as he refills her glass, and she swirls it once to admire the color. "I'd miss Sean, though. He's got this /accent/. Nothing hotter than an accent in bed, I think. You ever slept with a girl who speaks another language?"
Humor bites sharp across Chris's face as he straightens, self-mockery alight with its scars. "Melcross, I'm not really interested in a girl's /language/ skills when I end up in her bed," he observes, dry. "Usually I'm looking for other qualities."
Sabitha subsides backwards into giggles. "Oh come /on/," she protests. "You don't like an accent? Sean's is Irish, and /damn/. I mean... and languages... that doesn't turn you /on/? Even a little bit?"
"I'm a guy," Rossi reminds, slipping back down to shape his shoulders and his spine to the armchair's support. "I find three things attractive. Looks, availability, and -- two things attractive," he amends, hooking the table's edge with his toes. "If I'm drunk enough, it goes down to one."
Sabitha's giggles bubble up, and she drags in a deep breath to control them so she can sip. "Yeah, yeah," she answers. "No standards."
Chris pares two fingers free and ticks them off, patiently. "I /do/ have standards. Looks, availability -- it's not like I'm looking for the one true love either," he points out, an unconsciously wistful note gentling the Brooklyn accent. "You're a woman. You're all ... aural and mental. Guys don't need that to turn themselves on."
"Oh, I don't /need/ it," Sabby protests, hard and fast. "It's just a nice bonus. So what? You don't work them up at all? Just get 'er drunk and get 'er naked?"
"Don't sleep with drunk girls," Rossi says, steepling his temple with his fingers. He grins.
Sabitha meets Chris's eyes. She stares at him. And then she bursts into laughter again, lost to some private amusement.
Both brows arch for that, curious. Chris tilts his head back to rest in the chair's soft warmth, patience biding a gap in the merriment. "What's so funny?"
Sabitha presses a hand to her lips and shakes her head slowly, helpless with mirth. Her other balances her half-empty glass carefully, and she drags in a series of deep, controlled breaths before she answers, on an explosive grin, "I have no idea."
"You're drunk," Chris announces with an air of epiphany. Lips crimp as he studies her with entertainment, sobriety notwithstanding. "Don't think I've ever seen you like this before. Except that dinner party, I suppose."
"Really?" Sabby questions with curious delight. "I don't think I've ever seen /you/ drunk." A sip empties her glass, which is moved to balance against her knee, and she leans back to throw an arm over her eyes and moan, "Hell. Do not talk to me about that dinner party." Her arm moves slightly, revealing one eye. "I told Percy about that dinner party the other day."
Chris lifts the scotch in his lap -- his second glass, still -- and rolls it thoughtfully in the gyroscope of his hand. "Don't get drunk very often," he admits. "Too many alcoholics in the force. --Did he think it was funny? Christ, it was ... what, three months ago? Seems like a lifetime."
"Man," Sabby declares, and drags her arm away from her face. "That sucks." She leans forward, carefully, to slide her glass (her fourth? fifth?) onto the table. "Funny... no. I wasn't going for funny. Four months. It's been four months since I broke up with Travis."
Who's counting? "Four months," Chris echoes, obligingly adjusting his concept of time. His other foot lifts to join the first, braced against the table's edge; it rocks a little under the weight, shivering ripples through his abandoned beer. "You regret it?"
"Hanging out with you?" Sabby questions in quick tease. She stretches herself out, sliding to lounge on the couch full-length.
Chris shows a flash of teeth, and the press of tongue tucked behind. "Travis."
Sabitha settles into a sigh. Her eyes find the ceiling, musing. "Did for awhile," she admits. "Not so much lately."
"Now you have /Seans/," supposes Chris, wisely. "And Kessler. And ... the interesting asshole's brother."
"And all of them are at least a little bit interested in me," Sabby allows over a dry smile. "I'm only sleeping with Sean, though. Of course, I wasn't sleeping with Travis, so maybe that doesn't mean anything. I haven't spoken to him in months. We were friends, y'know. Before we started dating. Haven't spoken to him in months, though."
The man's gaze disengages and roams, idle, across the apartment -- not /so/ messy, after all. "Most women don't date their friends, do they? Who was it who was telling me ... 'friended,' or something."
Sabitha wiggles her fingers at Chris and then pulls her knees up. "Yeah, well. Now you know why. I mean, who wants it to turn into /that/?"
"Doesn't always. Got a friend who ended up marrying his best friend. They're going strong."
Sabitha snakes her head sideways to peer down the couch at Chris in bafflement. "Really?"
"Really." Chris refocuses on Sabitha, the touch of a smile briefly warming his gaze. "It happens sometimes. There's some chick flick about it, isn't there? --Harry, Sally, something."
Sabitha waves her hand over a snort. "That's the movies. Not the same." Curiousity lights her eyes as she watches him. "How'd they know? I mean, why'd they decide to risk it?"
Chris admits, apologetic, "Can't remember." A hand rifles through the hair at the back of his head, fingers threading between bruised black and the chair's upholstery. "Think it was -- they dated for a while, then they decided they were better off friends, stayed that way for a few years, then just ... ended up together again."
Sabitha tucks her head against the arm of the couch. "It'd scare me to death," she admits at him. "Glad it worked for them, though."
"Three kids now." Chris untangles his hand from behind his head and regards it absent-mindedly: its scars, its calluses, the weave of muscles and bone beneath the skin. "House in Brooklyn, white picket fence, and a dog."
Sabitha's eyes disappear beneath the drape of her arm. "Hell," she breathes, wistful. And then, more firmly, "I don't think I'm cut out for white picket, anyway."
Baritone threads beneath that concealing arm, mellow and wry. "Black picket, maybe. With leather." A pause for thought. "And handcuffs."
"Isn't it a little weird for you to be a cop with a bondage fetish?" Sabby questions without moving her arm. Her toes wiggle at him.
"For you," baritone says solemnly, "it'd be a pleasure." A leg stirs and sweeps, poking at Sabby's feet with its own. "You have to be the one wearing the handcuffs, though."
Sabitha's arm moves, up half an inch so that she can direct the jab of her own foot toward his in response. "You don't sleep with drunk girls," she points out.
"--And you're drunk." There's spurious regret in the assessment, and Rossi cants his head at Sabitha in speculative interest. "I could just handcuff you to the bed until you're sober, I guess. Then again, if you puked, I'd have to change the sheets. Better not."
Sabitha's gaze beneath her arm is sullen. "I'm not going to puke. I'm not /that/ drunk. I'm just... relaxed." Her arm slides away entirely, and she levers it against the couch to push herself up and stare down at him curiously. "Dry spell, Chris?"
He does not pretend to misunderstand. Then again -- "No. At least," he corrects, closing his hand to drop it back across his glass, "not in particular. If I want sex, I can get it. There've just been more important things." Chris sweeps his lashes thick across his cheeks, and grins. "Rallies, and shit."
Sabitha's smile slants toward Chris, and a bit of wiggling readjustment has her curling at the opposite end of the couch, near his chair again. She folds her arms atop the couch arm and plants her chin there. "Chris Rossi," she declares. "Sexiest man in the NYPD. /And/ he has his own handcuffs." She considers him for a moment, silent contemplation.
"I am informed that I am emotionally unavailable," Chris advises with helpful intent. "And I have plastic zip ties for when I run out of handcuffs."
"I think you've told me that before," Sabby muses, and blinks at him. Contemplative. "You're not emotionally unavailable. You just... compartmentalize. You're sure as hell putting up with me tonight, aren't you?"
A lazy, lazy grin ambles across Chris's face, touching mischief behind the green eyes. "I'm not /dating/ you," he points out.
Sabitha's smile flickers to match his grin. "No," she agrees. "You're not. So what, you just clam up with the women you date?"
"No idea." Hands lift, opened to show empty palms: a disavowal of understanding. "Go figure what women want. Don't think I treat them any different once we're dating, but...."
"'ve you ever been friends with someone before you started dating?" Sabby asks, gaze heavy with curiosity.
Chris considers. "Don't think so. Why?"
"So maybe that's the problem, huh?" Sabby suggests. She straightens from her hunched position to tuck back against the couch cusions.
"Maybe. Then again--" Shoulders lift in a lopsided shrug; Rossi slouches to one side, molding himself to the corner of the great chair. "Most of my female friends are cops. Wouldn't work. I'm just not the relationship kind of guy."
Sabitha shakes her head swiftly, and then leans it back against a couch cushion as she quickly regrets that movement. "No... I mean, that you don't treat them different after you start dating. Even girls who don't want a white picket fence don't want to be the same as any other girl you talk to. "
"Maybe," Chris says again, agreeably, as the earlier warmth steals back to nibble at his baritone. "If I ever end up dating someone again, I'll remember that. What about you? What goes wrong with your relationships?"
Sabitha lifts her hand to display a pair of fingers. "Two. I've had two." She turns her head sideways to stare at Chris musingly. "Unless we want to count Sebastian, but I really don't. So." One finger bends down in indication. "Jake. I was sixteen when we started going out, seventeen when we slept together for the first time, and eighteen when he dumped me long distance because he wasn't willing to deal with the total basketcase I was after Mom died." The other finger lowers to join the first. "And then there was Travis."
"Not a large sample to draw conclusions from."
Sabitha laughs briefly. "Really not. I dunno. I was pretty unhappy for that second half of my freshman year, and the fall after. Had a good sophomore year, went out a few times, but nothing... you know. More than a couple of weeks. And then... and then the thing with Sabella, y'know. Kinda put a crimp in my dating style." A twist of her lips makes it a joke.
"Yeah," says Chris, nudging again at her foot with his before retreating to the safety of his own boundaries, Rossi country. "Probably not a great thing to juggle through a relationship." The scotch, utterly forgotten save as a prop, is recalled just long enough to be placed on the table before the man removes himself once more into the sanctuary of his chair.
"You ever date anyone, serious?" Sabby asks from her curious corner of the couch.
"Lots of people." Chris fists his head, and draws a thin smile at her from that canted perspective. "Or do you mean relationships?"
Sabitha wrinkles her nose at him. "You know I do."
Chris gestures, disclaiming revelation or, for that matter, psychic powers. "Just thought I'd check," he says, deceptively meek. "Yeah. I've had a few. Never seem to go for more than a few months, though. Had a couple of good years with Beth, just out of the Academy."
"You regret any of them?" Sabby asks, shamelessly prying.
Rossi considers. "Beth," he decides. "The sex was fantastic. She was good people."
"What happened?"
"Left me."
"Why?"
"Guess."
"You ate crackers in bed?" Sabby postulates.
"Big ones," Chris says somberly. "Size of a goddamn hubcap."
"Damn. Right in one. I was gonna guess that you were an inconsiderate lover, next."
This earns a quiet chuckle, a tippety-tappety across the rough-edged baritone. "Never been accused of /that/, even back in the day. --She left me because of the job, actually."
"You ever regret the job?" Sabby asks, fading into quiet.
"Every day." A smile wings across them, sober and white-winged. "Whatchya gonna do?"
"Marry a millionaire and move to Conneticut."
An eyebrow arches; Chris's look speaks volumes, many of them four-lettered.
Sabitha grins, fast and wide. "What?"
"I'd make a crappy boy toy," Chris advises, painstakingly excavating himself out of the chair's recesses, limb by scored and battered limb. "Can you just see me with a collar around my throat and some rich bitch holding my leash?"
Sabitha regards Chris with weighing interest as he stands. Green eyes rake brazenly over his form. "Mm. Is it a leather collar?" she questions around her grin.
If he is aware of that assessing regard, he makes no acknowledgment of it, bent instead to an arm's jutted support of his first few seconds erect. "Studded. Or spiked, maybe. A man's got to maintain his reputation somehow."
"Yeah," Sabby allows, and her expression shifts to dim concern for half a moment before it's lost again in alcohol's haze. "I can see it." Her head lolls back against the couch cushion, and she smothers a yawn with a lift of her arm.
Green peers over a bowed shoulder at the sound of that yawn, and looses a twinkle in haphazard amusement. "Falling asleep? How're you feeling?"
"Like my head is probably going to explode in the morning," Sabby admits, and stretches her legs out faaaar under the coffee table. Slump.
Wordless, Chris gathers himself and disappears down the hallway to the bathroom -- the sound of water spits and hisses through the open door -- and returns a few seconds later with aspirin in one hand, a glass in the other. "Here." His shadow crouches at his feet, hanging off the outstretched hand to tickle at the woman's hair. "Take these. It'll help."
Sabitha raises a hand to bat idly at his before she flattens it, palm out to take the aspirin while she wiggles round for the glass. "You," she declares. "Are a good man, Chris Rossi." Aspirin is popped into her mouth and chased with a long swallow of water. "How do you feel about letting me borrow your couch?"
"Take it," Chris says with Italian hospitality, sweeping up the bottles and glasses to bear them, clinking, toward the kitchen. "Let me grab you a pillow and some blankets--" And more water, surfed across the other sink and borne back in a taller glass by dark Ganymede: black and comely. "Need a toothbrush?"
"You have a toothbrush," Sabby answers on a wistful sigh. "I think I'm in love with you. Can you spare something I can sleep in, maybe?"
Already headed back towards the bathroom, Chris pauses to lean back against the wall, twisting back far enough to wonder: "One of my shirts work for you?"
"Yeah," Sabby answers, and drains half her glass before she braces a hand carefully against the couch to stand. She resists the urge to giggle. And she begins toward the bathroom.
The light flares in the bedroom, briefly silhouetting Rossi's paused figure as he stands in the doorway, head bowed in some errant thought. Then he is gone, bustling about in the quiet -- and back, bearing a fresh-cased pillow, folded blankets, a Chris-scented T-shirt and new toothbrush atop the neat stack.
Sabitha plucks T-shirt and toothbrush from the pile with a broad smile and then disappears into the bathroom. She reappears several minutes later, with minty-fresh teeth and the comfort of an over-sized T-shirt that hangs nearly, but not quite, to her knees. Her clothes are draped over one arm, and she wanders across the room to drop them atop her jacket and shoes.
By then the makeshift bed is made, with a care that suggests a mother's touch -- though Rossi is anything but, the last of his attentions spent on the cleanup of pretzel bowl and unfinished (finished!) drinks. "Have everything you nee--" His voice breaks off with a twitch towards laughter, muzzled behind crimped lips. Green eyes shine. "I think my shirt might be a little big for you."
Sabitha shoots a half-hearted glare at him. "Better than too small," she retorts, and pads, barefoot, back to the couch. She tugs self-consciously at the hang of the shirt. "I'm just sleeping in it, anyway."
"I would undress you with my eyes," Chris announces with ludicrous aplomb, limping across the floor, "but I'm too tired and you're too drunk to appreciate it. --Grab some more water," he recommends, pausing behind the sofa to fold his arms on its back, leaned over them to cut a crooked, boyish grin at Sabitha. "I'll make you some coffee in the morning, sort you all out."
Sabitha scoops up her glass, although not without a bit of a wobble, and straightens to stick her tongue out at him. "Ass," she declares fondly, and disappears into the kitchen to refill. "Although I'll probably kiss you and call you Saint Chris in the morning."
"Patron saint of the lost," says Chris, suddenly, unexpectedly sorrowful. He straightens then into a fair assumption of his normal manner, his normal stance, and adds, wry, "Jude's overworked, lately. --I'll leave you to it. If you need anything--" A hand tips, gesturing down the hall to the bedroom.
Sabitha waves a hand in silence as she returns from the kitchen, drinking. She drops the cup to the edge of the coffee table as she settles back down on the couch. "Night, Chris."
A backhanded wave bats back, and Chris disappears, swallowed by the half-closed barrier of his bedroom door and the sullen, golden light beyond.
[Time passes...]
It's some hours later before the stillness of Rossi's apartment is broken again. Sabitha, stretched out on the couch, has slept off most of the lingering effects of alcohol. As the chemically-encouraged sleep fades into something more natural, dreams creep in. Silent at first, and then with increasing force that stirs Sabby into dream-spoken protestations against flickering forms, dark and threatening in her minds-eye.
Down the hallway, the door whispers, opening on a silent step. The light has lingered long into the night, spilled under Chris's door like liquor across the hardwood floor. He keeps late hours, pushing his own dreams at bay; summoned by another's, he prowls down the corridor hunting nightmares to their homes, and finds himself brought up against the sofa with night-wise eyes. Trouble pauses him there, arms splayed against the couch's arm, head bowed in a penitent's watch over the stirring woman.
Sabitha is held captive by recurring horror. A sense of rising panic threatens to overwhelm as footsteps pace into her dreams, echoing Chris's wakeful prowling, and Sabby remains locked in helpless audience with breaths that are deep and ragged. A wordless cry escapes; sweaty palms dig deep into her blanket.
The human shadow guarding her stirs at that sound, roused to skirt the barrier of sofa to lower itself with chary deliberation onto the edge of the coffee table. Glass whispers, moved aside for that balanced seat. Chris rests his elbows on his knees, shaping strong hands in a mask for his lower face; over and around the steeple of fingers, green eyes -- stripped of color by the dark -- watch: patient, pitying, wearily compassionate.
It takes several minutes for Sabitha's fears to play out. A taunting voice hisses in her ear; a flash of light threatens with hard steel. Whimpers grow silent and Sabitha grows still, unmoving save for shallow, silent breaths that rake in and out in harsh defiance of dream-given orders. A door slams and Sabitha starts into sudden wakefulness with wide, unfocused eyes that blink into the darkness of an unfamiliar room. An unfamiliar presence. Chris's shadow startles and alarms. A strangled "/No/" escapes with force, and then Sabitha melts down into the couch with choked sobs that she can't supress.
He is there on the instant, dropped off the edge of the table onto a knee -- pain stabs its dagger in a catalogue of hurts, twists, and pulls -- arms warm and wrapping, (strong, /there/) around the shaking shoulders and tight, tortured body. "Sabby." Baritone breathes across terror's sounds, a rope tossed to the drowning. "/Sabby/. You're in my apartment. It's okay."
It takes a second, two, before familiar arms and familiar voice speak through familiar terror. Sabby stiffens in Chris's arms, arches back away, and then recognizes... reality. Her fist rises free to punch at his shoulder, hard anger in a rising swell of uncontrolled emotion. "/Fuck/, Chris." The sound scrapes harsh across a dry, tortured throat, and her hand shoves at his shoulder again. "/Fuck/. Don't... don't /do/ that."
The shoulder rocks under the shove, and arms loosen; too dark in the night-swaddled room for dark face to betray the jag of sharp agony. Chris sinks back on his heel-propped hip, breath stilled in his throat for a hand's count of heartbeats. Another. "You were dreaming," he says at last, baritone grasping after normalcy: blessed, mundane inconsequence. "I didn't mean to startle you."
Sabitha is too self-contained to notice hurt even if there were light to reveal it. The same hand reaches out again, seeking to pull Chris back. Comfort. "Sorry," she answers quietly. "Sorry. I didn't mean... sorry."
Awkward, the slow shift of body, testing the dulling throb of stitches under the stretch of fabric. "Don't apologize to me," Chris says quietly, diverting Sabitha's hand with his own, away from pain to the brush of lips across its back. Eyes glitter, catching light from some vagrant source to attend on the woman. "Are you okay?"
Sabitha's breathing is pulled slowly under control, although her hands still shake and sweat-soaked skin serves as a reminder. She swallows once and nods, firm silence.
Answering silence paces hers, while Chris carefully, slowly pushes himself up off the floor to settle on the table's edge again. Again the spine bows, curling to the press of elbows to knees; the water glass, recovered, extends in mute invitation under Rossi's gaze. Drink?
Sabitha reaches out in silent acceptance. A moment's quiet sipping, and then Sabby lifts her eyes to smile weakly at Chris in the darkness of the early morning hours. "Thanks," she states softly. "I'll be ok. You didn't have to come out."
"I wasn't asleep," Chris says into the mask of his hands, feeding the baritone, hollow, through the ranks of fingers. Somber, so somber, that wandering voice: framed by the confessional and privacy of darkness. "I remember you told me that you dreamt, but--"
Sabitha's eyes sweep to Chris in surprise, and then across the room in silent search of the time. Her fingers curl in comfort around the cup in her hands as she answers in a quiet whisper that's as much homage to the darkened room as to her shaken mood. "It's not all the time. It's just been a bad week."
"The rally," he says. Asks.
Sabitha hesitates. Answers a soft, "Yes." Does not elaborate or qualify.
He does not ask for them. Asks, instead: "Is it always the same?"
"No."
"About her?"
"Yes." A hesitation, and Sabby adds, "Mostly."
"Do you want to talk about it?" The hands drop, opened and empty between the splay of knees; the black head drops, likewise, a mortal crown against the pale glimmer of shirt.
Sabitha frees a hand from its death-grip around the cup to rub, hard and fast, against her eyes, across her forehead. "I don't know."
Silence swallows the echoes of her voice, padded and patient, peaceful: without expectation, without demand. What sights Chris sees pooled on that cold floor is anyone's guess. "Okay," he says gently. "Let me get you some more water."
Sabitha shakes her head in a short, sharp movement. "I'm ok," she answers. A long silence draws out into the darkness before she speaks again. "I thought you were her. At first. When I woke up."
"I should've thought." There is apology threaded through the pause and the reply that follows it. Chris lifts his head, hooking a faint grimace to snag shadow. "I'm sorry."
Sabitha's laugh is hollow and short. "Not your fault. It just takes me a minute. I'm not used to people being there." She pauses again, a deep and considering frown. "I don't usually dream if there's someone else there."
Fingers twine, finding each other somewhere in the dark. "You're lucky."
Sabitha's eyes seek Chris's shadowy form. "You do?"
Shoulders hitch. "These days," he admits. "I wasn't here. If that was--"
"Was?"
"You said you don't dream when there's someone else there. I wasn't here."
Sabitha blinks solemnly at Chris. "There's not usually someone there," she answers. "I'm used to it."
Chris blinks solemnly back. "Yeah," he says. "I know."
Sabitha ghosts a smile. "I might dream when someone else is there," she allows, searching for lightness of tone. "It's hard to say. Not enough days to know."
"Have to find you more Seans," Chris suggests, through the fall of hair tumbled by the evening's rigors. "Maybe a Paddy, or a Pat."
Sabitha's smile returns in full. "Too many and I'll lose track."
The man's dry baritone stretches, mordant in humor. "Who needs to keep track?" No, not humor after all. An arm disengages itself, stretching to brush the backs of fingers, a knuckle's ridge, across the woman's pale brow and cheek. "I'm sorry you dream."
Sabitha's hand slips up in search of his. "I'm sorry you dream," she echoes.
"What can you do?" asks Chris with wry and aching whimsy. His fingers twine with hers, tangling in the dark, the one with the other. "That's life."
Sabitha's fingers squeeze hard and fast around his. "Seems to be," she agrees dryly.
The warm hand closes, responding to that pressure, and another fleeting kiss lowers Chris's head before he drags himself up, inch by bloody inch. "Let me get you some more water," he says, opening his other hand for the glass. "And I can get you some new blankets. There're still a few hours before morning."
Sabitha's eyes mark Chris's slow progress upward, even as she stretches out her glass in obedient acceptance. No alcohol haze, now. "Are you ok?"
"I'm old," Chris advises with sorrow, accepting the glass before ambling towards the kitchen. His voice trails him, pedantic, ambling across the crests and valleys of the Brooklyn accent. "I woke up yesterday and my boobs were down to my hips, my ass was down to my knees--" Water hisses through pipes, gurgling into the sink.
Sabitha twists around to watch Chris's progress. "I'm serious, Chris," she states quietly. "Did something happen?"
Metal creaks as the water cuts off. "Had a stupid thing," Chris says laconically, drifting back out with the glass borne between (good boy!) both hands. "Here. It'll help with your hangover tomorrow, too. Do you want a new blanket?"
Sabitha shakes her head shortly. "No, it's ok. Thanks." Her eyes trace Chris's outline over a frown. Hesitation, and then she remains in decisive silence as she stretches out a hand for the cup.
It is handed across in sibling silence, if not of the decisive sort: meditative, perhaps. Distracted. "Accident," Chris relents, answering that quiet, that passive dark. "In the park. It's why I didn't make it to the rally in time. Got a few stitches. Nothing serious."
Worry spreads, fast and thick. "Chris." Sabitha's hands curl around her cup again, steadying comfort. "What happened?"
"You know the guard rails in the Park?" Rhetorical question.
"Yeah." She answers anyway.
Says Chris, simply, "They're scary."
Sabitha stares across at him and struggles to make that make sense.
"Drink your water," Chris says, abruptly gentle. "Do you want me to stick around while you go back to sleep?"
Sabitha stares at him a moment longer, and then shakes her head. "I'm ok." An obedient sip of water, and then she offers dryly. "Just... if I dream again, maybe wait until I'm past the stage where I might hit you."
A smile touches the man's face, redistributing shadow and the limning of light stolen from the windows and the distant bedroom. "I'll do you one better and wake you up," he suggests. "I would have, if I'd realized--" Well. The hand lifts, brushing a fleeting benediction across her head. "You okay?"
Sabitha's hand lifts, sharp and firm in its movements as she grasps his, removes it with a tight squeeze. "Chris," she states firmly. "I'm ok. They suck. But I've been dreaming for two years, and they haven't killed me yet. I'm ok."
"Tough as nails. Should've remembered," Chris says gravely, and squeezes back before turning his ungainly, off-kilter amble back towards the hallway and the bedroom beyond. "G'night, Horatio."
Laughter, quiet and short, rises from Sabitha as she watches Chris leave. "Night," she answers, and turns back to finishing her water before she slides under the covers again. Try this again.
At the end of the hall, the door closes with a small click, banking light ... then opens again, just a hair. Just in case. In his bedroom, Chris Rossi reads reports and holds at bay his own dreams, turning his attention once more to hunting someone else's nightmares: a missing father, an anxious daughter, a secret and a lie. The night ticks on.
Sabitha comes by to have a few drinks with Rossi, and ends up crashing on his couch. Contrary to all normal people's expectations, Rossi does not end up sleeping with her. We discover Rossi has had a long-term girlfriend in his past, that Sabitha's a cheap date, and that her dreams are back.
Log from Rossi at X-Men MUCK
Old Brownstone Apts #210 - Rossi
An ancient, faded elegance sketches the boundaries of this apartment, hinted at in crown molding and worn, faded floors. High walls span to high ceilings, pale yellow with the barest of white trim; at one end, three high windows gape to let in day's light or night's dark with equal indifference. A small kitchen pocks a hollow in one wall, a doorless entry that offers glimpses of an metal-framed refrigerator and a cabinet-hung microwave. On the other side of the small living room, a short hallway offers entrances to bathroom and bedroom, both doors battered with the wear and tear of age.
In the living room are the basic accoutrements of comfort: sofas, chairs, table, television. Spartan accessories, betraying little of the owner; that task is left for the walls, hung with pictures of family and friends. Through them all runs the thread of blue, NYPD's uniform tailored to pride and vigor.
[Exits : [O]ut ]
[Players : Sabitha ]
By rights he should be in a bar with his coworkers, raising a glass in honor of the dead. There should be bitter stories, and funny ones, a wake by proxy, held to remember their own fragile mortality. Instead, Chris Rossi is home on Saturday night, half-naked in his living room with a ravaged box of bandages: plastic, fabric, Johnson-and-Johnson appeasement for the stitches and stripes that paint his torso red (brown, /black/) against the dark skin. The television, mute, offers the solace of some distant game. Baritone curses make the commentary.
Sabitha, on the other hand, has spent the day collecting stories. Bittersweet, primarily, tales of hopes and dreams cut short - many with an undercurrent of unease about politics and Purity. She hefts her satchel, filled with stories and photos, onto her shoulder as she exits the last house for the day and starts for the curb. Half a moment's hesitation, and she palms her cell and flips it open to dial as she walks.
The phone is, as ever, within easy reach and yet utterly unreachable, in that mysterious way of handheld devices; its ring pitches Chris forward and sends him scrambling, groping under sofa cushions and his own sweats-clad hip to recover it on the third ring. "/Rossi/," he greets on the press of button, flapping a peevish hand. (The bandaid, unimpressed, clings determinedly to his fingernail.)
Sabitha ought to be used to Chris's exasperated greetings by now. Still, she pauses for half a second as she reaches the sidewalk, meeting the cab called earlier with a hand held to forestall. "Chris? Hey, it's Sabby." A short pause and she adds, "What're you up to tonight?"
"Hello Kitty," Chris answers inconsequentially, peering with bemusement at a new bandaid. The cartoon cat stares back with tranquil, boddhisatva serenity. "Nothing much. Watching some TV. Painting my toenails. You know, masculine shit."
"You're up to Hello Kitty?" Sabby questions in a moment's confusion. "Good grief, Chris." Another half a moment's pause, with her hand on the cab's door, and she offers, "I'm in your neck of the woods. Had a meeting I just got out of, and I have the most amazing urge for a beer with someone who won't bemoan the boring nature of my conversation if I'm a little off." A beat, as she tugs open the door and slides in, palm still held up to the cabdriver. "And I haven't seen you in a bit. Feel like some company?"
A swift pause houses a swifter glance, cast across the disarray of discarded wrappers and emptied boxes. "Sure," Rossi says easily enough, slapping Hello Kitty -- indignity or not -- across a neat array of Beast-born stitches. "Apartment's a mess, but ... how far away are you? I've got plenty to drink."
"Fifteen, maybe," Sabby answers, and pauses to lean forward and murmurs Rossi's address to the cabbie. "Don't worry about the apartment. Give me a place to sit, something to drink, and your sparkling wit and charm, and I'm happy. More than happy." The cab takes off, and Sabitha offers, "I'll see you in a few, then?"
"Fifteen," Chris echoes, obliging. "See you then." The thumb's press cuts them off. It takes a few minutes longer to finish the job of patching, and a few minutes longer to conceal the evidence. Fifteen minutes are barely passed when he reemerges from the bedroom again, fingers working their way up the buttons of a white, long-sleeved shirt.
And fifteen it is, give or take a few, before Sabitha shows up at Chris's door to rap impatient knuckles against it. She's still dressed in a professional pantsuit, although the long (long, long) day has etched tiredness into her expression and posture. For now, though, she's done. For tonight.
The door opens on one hand's upswing, the other still busied with the last, ascending buttons. "Melcross," Chris greets, baritone lazy across the greeting. No signs of work for him, save the creep of a scratch that snakes over a brow and into the line of hair, and the matching scrapes that spider across hands. "Beer's in the fridge. C'mon in and let your hair down."
"Have I mentioned lately that I love you?" Sabitha greets in relief as she steps inside the door and drops her satchel to the ground. She braces a hand against the wall for balance as she tugs at a low-heeled shoe, and her eyes drift closed in bliss while she wiggles toes to freedom. A moment's pause as she works off the other, and then she remarks, "You weren't kidding about the apartment."
The door slips closed behind Sabitha, nudged by a passing elbow. Chris sweeps his glance across the living room, vague chagrin tugging his mouth askew. "I haven't had time to clean lately," he notes, defensive; a toe nudges his own discarded shoes into parallel order by the television, and he finishes the last buttonhole concession to modesty before stretching his long-legged limp towards the kitchen. "Want a glass? You had to work today? Or were you just feeling pretty?"
Sabitha's gaze follows Chris - and his limp - as she slides her jacket off. Slacks and the silky cream shell underneath are not precisely /comfortable/, but they're better than the full ensemble. "Bottle's fine," she answers, and trails after him. Her jacket drops atop piled satchel and shoes from an extended hand, wrinkles unheeded. "Yeah, work. Today. Tomorrow. Monday. Tuesday. Just keeps going." She takes up position against a counter and peers at Chris, studious. "You look a little banged up."
"It's been a weird few days," Chris says over his shoulder, what is visible of his mouth hiked in a crooked almost-grin. The refrigerator hums lovingly to his yank, bottles clinking in the door; arbitrary with his choices, he offers Sabitha a dew-fogged Canadian brew before selecting the same for himself. "Should've realized. Williams is on that whole memorial thing, right? Saw it in the newspaper."
Sabitha takes the beer and downs a long, long swallow before she lowers it to nod. "Well. /She/ isn't. Won't be in until Monday night. But the rest of us? No escaping it." She runs a hand, fast and hard, through her hair and studies him. "You were there?"
The fridge hisses shut, swallowing its spill of light, and Chris turns to settle his back against it, gaze a smiling, drowsing thing under the cautious fan of lashes. "Missed it," he admits, guilt hooded deep under the quiet baritone. "Something came up. I was supposed to be there, though. Guess I lucked out."
Sabitha's eyes darken sympathetic over a quietly (but fiercely) murmured, "Fuck." Another drink, and her beer's half gone already. "Probably bad to say it," she notes. "But I'm glad something came up. Have you watched the footage?"
Chris turns away, drifting aimlessly towards the other end of the kitchen -- glasses, up there, and ah. Pretzels. "Yeah," he says, taking down a bowl, expression still and secret. "It was ... something else. Caught everyone by surprise."
"No one expected it at all?" Her eyes trail after Chris across the kitchen.
The broad back turned to Sabitha, the angled shoulders: both stiffen. "The guys at the rally didn't get a warning," Chris tells the rattle of plastic packaging. "If they did, they would've shut the thing down."
Sabitha watches the muscles stiffen and falls silent. Her bottle tips back for another long drink. "They have me talking to the families," she reveals after a moment. Half a subject change. "Eight of them, today. One woman just handed me a yearbook and a stack of pictures and apologized for not being able to talk to me."
Pretzels rumble into the bowl, and are offered on Rossi's turn back to Sabitha, sympathy scribed on a grimace's slant. "I'm sorry," he offers simply over his bottle's mouth. "That's the part I hate most about the job. Breaking the news to the families-- you okay?"
Sabitha lifts a single shoulder in half a shrug. "I'm drinking beer," she answers. "I should probably warn you, I think I'm drinking to get drunk." She lifts her bottle in mock toast, and swallows again. "Someone has to do it."
"I have stronger," Chris advises, and extends a leg to nudge a lower cabinet open. Bottles range there in the silent dark, promising eventual oblivion: vodka, whisky, scotch, rum. Rossi regards his collection with mild-eyed dispassion. "You want fast? Or painless?"
Sabitha laughs shortly and drops her bottle to her side in one hand's loose-fingered grasp. "I knew there was a reason I loved you," she declares as she takes in the varied collection. "You willing to put up with me? I can have a couple beers and then go home and crash for the evening just as well."
Chris lifts his shoulders in a shrug, folding his arms in a loose knot with his beer entrenched in an elbow's sling. "I can handle it," he announces, long-suffering, noble knight that he is. "I'm a /man/. --Don't worry about it. Everyone needs some off time, now and then. Wouldn't mind the company, myself."
"Load me up then, Chris Rossi, testosterone-filled manly man. Hey--" Sabby's reminded, bottle lifted in midair toward another drink, "How'd your thing with Ashleigh go? Matt said you guys raised seventy-five grand, all said and done."
"Scotch," Rossi decides with a critical eye for Sabitha. He crouches with care, an arm braced against the counter for support; bottles clink, sorted and rejected before he straightens with two. "Then vodka. --Yeah, it went pretty well. FDNY kicked our asses, but it's all good. Haven't had the date with Ashleigh yet," he admits, vague embarrassment creeping tip-toe into his voice.
"Good man," Sabby cheers, and finishes her beer with one last, swift swallow before she moves forward and braces herself sideways against the sink. "Need any help?" Embarrassment is noted, with low interest. "I don't think you had any hope, after Matt. Why haven't you taken her out yet?"
The bottles glimmer stuporous, liquid invitation on the counter, and Rossi delays response long enough to take down glasses. One. After hesitation, two. "Got a little distracted," he admits. "We went and grabbed some pizza and ice cream after the auction thing, but -- we were supposed to go out tonight," he informs. Explanation enough.
Relief slides along the line of Sabitha's shoulders as one becomes two, although concern reappears, quiet as she allows an understanding, "Oh."
Indeed. Chris scythes a glance back at Sabitha, and busies himself with drinks. In silence he wrestles the scotch open; in silence he pours; in silence he offers. And in silence, still, he raises his own glass in a toast. To ... something.
Sabitha steps forward to sweep up her own, and it's a wry smile that meets Chris's in toast. Silence echoes silence, and scotch disappears in a single swift swallow.
The same treatment empties Chris's glass -- alas for appreciation! -- and he gestures with the bottle towards Sabitha again, quizzing with a brow. "Refill?"
Sabitha considers her glass and then nods. "I'm going to regret this in the morning," she informs, extending her glass.
"Water and aspirin," advises Rossi, splashing a liberal portion into the waiting glass before serving his own with less generosity. "Don't worry about it. Live today. Tomorrow can take care of itself."
"Fuck, yes," Sabitha declares with a vegeance, and lifts her glass in another mock toast. This one is sipped at carefully, but quickly, and Sabby leans back against the kitchen counter to regard Chris. "You think I'm interesting, right?" she asks in abrupt nonsequitar.
Pale eyes blink. Chris replaces his glass carefully on the counter and meets it with a hand, braced back against its support. "Interesting. Sure. You going to ask me if I think you're pretty?"
Sabitha laughs shortly. "No, I'll settle for interesting tonight," she answers. "I'm not drunk enough to beg for pretty."
Chris nods, accepting without surprise the vagarities of females. "Why do you ask?"
"Because," Sabitha declares, shoving her glass back to the counter. "I was told otherwise today and tonight, I'm not above a little shameless begging for ego boosting."
The ghost of a smile lurks behind Rossi's grave expression, hinted at behind the fine line of mouth and shadowed, deep-set eyes. "You are /quite/ interesting," Chris says, somber. "I could listen to you for hours. And I don't listen to a lot of women. Canto, Julia, sometimes my mother -- you're part of a pretty select group, Melcross. Congrats."
Sabitha grins, fast and fierce, at Rossi. "You even sound sincere. You do a girl good, Chris." Her eyes drift back to her glass and she questions, "Another? I'm tired of your kitchen."
This time the smile is visible, a wisp of warmth that colors the dragging voice. "After you. Grab the pretzels and the vodka, will you?" The scotch and the remainder are for Chris's capable arms.
Sabitha snakes her arms out to claim alcohol and munchies and then wanders with steps still-firm toward the living room. "I didn't like him anyway," she declares as she settles her load on the coffee table.
"Who?" wonders Rossi, trailing after like a loaded doberman: dangerous, but domesticated. "Can't figure Kessler for telling you you weren't interesting. Guy's FD, but he's not an /asshole/."
Sabitha laughs, edging toward excess as she collapses into the couch. "Nooo. Matt was /great/. I think Matt thinks I'm interesting. I think." She leans forward to snatch a handful of pretzels. "Guy named Bahir. I went out for coffee with his brother on Monday. Who is not interesting, but he's also not an asshole."
"Two guys, not assholes," Rossi congratulates, unloading himself on the coffee table before filling Sabitha's glass again. He hitches himself towards the armchair, easing into it with casual caution, distracting over the descent: "Why's it matter if his brother thinks you're not interesting?"
"I, on the other hand, was a complete bitch to him," Sabby admits, and scoops up her glass without hesitation. She slumps back as she sips. A brief sulk flickers over her features. "Doesn't, I guess. I dunno."
Chris sinks back in the chair, faint amusement veiled behind heavy eyelids. "Everyone has their off days," he says mildly. "Or -- I suppose you could say -- their on days. You want him to like you?"
Sabitha peers across the arm of the couch at Chris and hesitates in hazy confusion before she asks, "Which one?"
"The brother. The one who thinks you're not interesting."
Sabitha empties her glass and leans forward to slide it onto the table. Pretzels are popped without care. "He's interesting," she answers.
Eyes gleam. "Because he doesn't seem to think you are?"
Sabitha bubbles into contradicting laughter. "He was interesting before that. Asshole, though." Crunch.
"You just like assholes," Chris suggests, cradling his drink in the basket of his fingers. "Me, Lazzaro...."
"Percy," Sabby adds without hesitation. "Yeah, probably. Makes me feel better about when I'm a bitch."
Chris tucks a little shadow in the corner of his mouth, and shapes it belatedly into a smile's hook. "You figure you got free license? Yeah, I can see that. Kessler, this other guy, his brother -- you're jumping back into the dating scene pretty hard, sounds like."
Sabitha waves her hand dismissively. "I'm not dating Adel or Bahir. I only went for coffee because he asked me before Matt." There's no shame in Sabitha's voice, and a pair of pretzels disappear. Her eyes slant toward Chris. "You think I'm making a mistake?"
"Mistake?" Chris blinks and slouches further, experimenting -- ow. Eyes tighten. "No. It's what single people do. Meet new people, hang out, have a good time -- or not," he supposes, bare feet encroaching on the territory beneath the table. "Big city. Go for it. You're only young once, right?"
Sabitha's eyes narrow at his expression and then glaze over with alcholic unconcern. "Sure as hell," she agrees, belatedly cheerful. "Huh," she ponders after a moment. "There's Sean, too. He's not an asshole. I don't think." She slumps backwards, considering.
An eyebrow arches, curious. Then: "Sean?"
Sabitha nods sideways. "I'm not really dating him, either," she reveals. "But he's fun to dance with, and to fuck, and I think it works out ok for both of us. Haven't seen him in over a week, though. Maybe I'll just leave it and it'll fade out. That happens sometimes."
"Sometimes it does," Rossi agrees, snaking forward with deliberate, meticulous attention to refill Sabitha's drink again. "Pretty shallow, but they're good for scratching an itch. You looking for long-term, though?"
"Dunno," Sabby answers in swift dismissal. "See how it goes." Her smile is bright on Chris as he refills her glass, and she swirls it once to admire the color. "I'd miss Sean, though. He's got this /accent/. Nothing hotter than an accent in bed, I think. You ever slept with a girl who speaks another language?"
Humor bites sharp across Chris's face as he straightens, self-mockery alight with its scars. "Melcross, I'm not really interested in a girl's /language/ skills when I end up in her bed," he observes, dry. "Usually I'm looking for other qualities."
Sabitha subsides backwards into giggles. "Oh come /on/," she protests. "You don't like an accent? Sean's is Irish, and /damn/. I mean... and languages... that doesn't turn you /on/? Even a little bit?"
"I'm a guy," Rossi reminds, slipping back down to shape his shoulders and his spine to the armchair's support. "I find three things attractive. Looks, availability, and -- two things attractive," he amends, hooking the table's edge with his toes. "If I'm drunk enough, it goes down to one."
Sabitha's giggles bubble up, and she drags in a deep breath to control them so she can sip. "Yeah, yeah," she answers. "No standards."
Chris pares two fingers free and ticks them off, patiently. "I /do/ have standards. Looks, availability -- it's not like I'm looking for the one true love either," he points out, an unconsciously wistful note gentling the Brooklyn accent. "You're a woman. You're all ... aural and mental. Guys don't need that to turn themselves on."
"Oh, I don't /need/ it," Sabby protests, hard and fast. "It's just a nice bonus. So what? You don't work them up at all? Just get 'er drunk and get 'er naked?"
"Don't sleep with drunk girls," Rossi says, steepling his temple with his fingers. He grins.
Sabitha meets Chris's eyes. She stares at him. And then she bursts into laughter again, lost to some private amusement.
Both brows arch for that, curious. Chris tilts his head back to rest in the chair's soft warmth, patience biding a gap in the merriment. "What's so funny?"
Sabitha presses a hand to her lips and shakes her head slowly, helpless with mirth. Her other balances her half-empty glass carefully, and she drags in a series of deep, controlled breaths before she answers, on an explosive grin, "I have no idea."
"You're drunk," Chris announces with an air of epiphany. Lips crimp as he studies her with entertainment, sobriety notwithstanding. "Don't think I've ever seen you like this before. Except that dinner party, I suppose."
"Really?" Sabby questions with curious delight. "I don't think I've ever seen /you/ drunk." A sip empties her glass, which is moved to balance against her knee, and she leans back to throw an arm over her eyes and moan, "Hell. Do not talk to me about that dinner party." Her arm moves slightly, revealing one eye. "I told Percy about that dinner party the other day."
Chris lifts the scotch in his lap -- his second glass, still -- and rolls it thoughtfully in the gyroscope of his hand. "Don't get drunk very often," he admits. "Too many alcoholics in the force. --Did he think it was funny? Christ, it was ... what, three months ago? Seems like a lifetime."
"Man," Sabby declares, and drags her arm away from her face. "That sucks." She leans forward, carefully, to slide her glass (her fourth? fifth?) onto the table. "Funny... no. I wasn't going for funny. Four months. It's been four months since I broke up with Travis."
Who's counting? "Four months," Chris echoes, obligingly adjusting his concept of time. His other foot lifts to join the first, braced against the table's edge; it rocks a little under the weight, shivering ripples through his abandoned beer. "You regret it?"
"Hanging out with you?" Sabby questions in quick tease. She stretches herself out, sliding to lounge on the couch full-length.
Chris shows a flash of teeth, and the press of tongue tucked behind. "Travis."
Sabitha settles into a sigh. Her eyes find the ceiling, musing. "Did for awhile," she admits. "Not so much lately."
"Now you have /Seans/," supposes Chris, wisely. "And Kessler. And ... the interesting asshole's brother."
"And all of them are at least a little bit interested in me," Sabby allows over a dry smile. "I'm only sleeping with Sean, though. Of course, I wasn't sleeping with Travis, so maybe that doesn't mean anything. I haven't spoken to him in months. We were friends, y'know. Before we started dating. Haven't spoken to him in months, though."
The man's gaze disengages and roams, idle, across the apartment -- not /so/ messy, after all. "Most women don't date their friends, do they? Who was it who was telling me ... 'friended,' or something."
Sabitha wiggles her fingers at Chris and then pulls her knees up. "Yeah, well. Now you know why. I mean, who wants it to turn into /that/?"
"Doesn't always. Got a friend who ended up marrying his best friend. They're going strong."
Sabitha snakes her head sideways to peer down the couch at Chris in bafflement. "Really?"
"Really." Chris refocuses on Sabitha, the touch of a smile briefly warming his gaze. "It happens sometimes. There's some chick flick about it, isn't there? --Harry, Sally, something."
Sabitha waves her hand over a snort. "That's the movies. Not the same." Curiousity lights her eyes as she watches him. "How'd they know? I mean, why'd they decide to risk it?"
Chris admits, apologetic, "Can't remember." A hand rifles through the hair at the back of his head, fingers threading between bruised black and the chair's upholstery. "Think it was -- they dated for a while, then they decided they were better off friends, stayed that way for a few years, then just ... ended up together again."
Sabitha tucks her head against the arm of the couch. "It'd scare me to death," she admits at him. "Glad it worked for them, though."
"Three kids now." Chris untangles his hand from behind his head and regards it absent-mindedly: its scars, its calluses, the weave of muscles and bone beneath the skin. "House in Brooklyn, white picket fence, and a dog."
Sabitha's eyes disappear beneath the drape of her arm. "Hell," she breathes, wistful. And then, more firmly, "I don't think I'm cut out for white picket, anyway."
Baritone threads beneath that concealing arm, mellow and wry. "Black picket, maybe. With leather." A pause for thought. "And handcuffs."
"Isn't it a little weird for you to be a cop with a bondage fetish?" Sabby questions without moving her arm. Her toes wiggle at him.
"For you," baritone says solemnly, "it'd be a pleasure." A leg stirs and sweeps, poking at Sabby's feet with its own. "You have to be the one wearing the handcuffs, though."
Sabitha's arm moves, up half an inch so that she can direct the jab of her own foot toward his in response. "You don't sleep with drunk girls," she points out.
"--And you're drunk." There's spurious regret in the assessment, and Rossi cants his head at Sabitha in speculative interest. "I could just handcuff you to the bed until you're sober, I guess. Then again, if you puked, I'd have to change the sheets. Better not."
Sabitha's gaze beneath her arm is sullen. "I'm not going to puke. I'm not /that/ drunk. I'm just... relaxed." Her arm slides away entirely, and she levers it against the couch to push herself up and stare down at him curiously. "Dry spell, Chris?"
He does not pretend to misunderstand. Then again -- "No. At least," he corrects, closing his hand to drop it back across his glass, "not in particular. If I want sex, I can get it. There've just been more important things." Chris sweeps his lashes thick across his cheeks, and grins. "Rallies, and shit."
Sabitha's smile slants toward Chris, and a bit of wiggling readjustment has her curling at the opposite end of the couch, near his chair again. She folds her arms atop the couch arm and plants her chin there. "Chris Rossi," she declares. "Sexiest man in the NYPD. /And/ he has his own handcuffs." She considers him for a moment, silent contemplation.
"I am informed that I am emotionally unavailable," Chris advises with helpful intent. "And I have plastic zip ties for when I run out of handcuffs."
"I think you've told me that before," Sabby muses, and blinks at him. Contemplative. "You're not emotionally unavailable. You just... compartmentalize. You're sure as hell putting up with me tonight, aren't you?"
A lazy, lazy grin ambles across Chris's face, touching mischief behind the green eyes. "I'm not /dating/ you," he points out.
Sabitha's smile flickers to match his grin. "No," she agrees. "You're not. So what, you just clam up with the women you date?"
"No idea." Hands lift, opened to show empty palms: a disavowal of understanding. "Go figure what women want. Don't think I treat them any different once we're dating, but...."
"'ve you ever been friends with someone before you started dating?" Sabby asks, gaze heavy with curiosity.
Chris considers. "Don't think so. Why?"
"So maybe that's the problem, huh?" Sabby suggests. She straightens from her hunched position to tuck back against the couch cusions.
"Maybe. Then again--" Shoulders lift in a lopsided shrug; Rossi slouches to one side, molding himself to the corner of the great chair. "Most of my female friends are cops. Wouldn't work. I'm just not the relationship kind of guy."
Sabitha shakes her head swiftly, and then leans it back against a couch cushion as she quickly regrets that movement. "No... I mean, that you don't treat them different after you start dating. Even girls who don't want a white picket fence don't want to be the same as any other girl you talk to. "
"Maybe," Chris says again, agreeably, as the earlier warmth steals back to nibble at his baritone. "If I ever end up dating someone again, I'll remember that. What about you? What goes wrong with your relationships?"
Sabitha lifts her hand to display a pair of fingers. "Two. I've had two." She turns her head sideways to stare at Chris musingly. "Unless we want to count Sebastian, but I really don't. So." One finger bends down in indication. "Jake. I was sixteen when we started going out, seventeen when we slept together for the first time, and eighteen when he dumped me long distance because he wasn't willing to deal with the total basketcase I was after Mom died." The other finger lowers to join the first. "And then there was Travis."
"Not a large sample to draw conclusions from."
Sabitha laughs briefly. "Really not. I dunno. I was pretty unhappy for that second half of my freshman year, and the fall after. Had a good sophomore year, went out a few times, but nothing... you know. More than a couple of weeks. And then... and then the thing with Sabella, y'know. Kinda put a crimp in my dating style." A twist of her lips makes it a joke.
"Yeah," says Chris, nudging again at her foot with his before retreating to the safety of his own boundaries, Rossi country. "Probably not a great thing to juggle through a relationship." The scotch, utterly forgotten save as a prop, is recalled just long enough to be placed on the table before the man removes himself once more into the sanctuary of his chair.
"You ever date anyone, serious?" Sabby asks from her curious corner of the couch.
"Lots of people." Chris fists his head, and draws a thin smile at her from that canted perspective. "Or do you mean relationships?"
Sabitha wrinkles her nose at him. "You know I do."
Chris gestures, disclaiming revelation or, for that matter, psychic powers. "Just thought I'd check," he says, deceptively meek. "Yeah. I've had a few. Never seem to go for more than a few months, though. Had a couple of good years with Beth, just out of the Academy."
"You regret any of them?" Sabby asks, shamelessly prying.
Rossi considers. "Beth," he decides. "The sex was fantastic. She was good people."
"What happened?"
"Left me."
"Why?"
"Guess."
"You ate crackers in bed?" Sabby postulates.
"Big ones," Chris says somberly. "Size of a goddamn hubcap."
"Damn. Right in one. I was gonna guess that you were an inconsiderate lover, next."
This earns a quiet chuckle, a tippety-tappety across the rough-edged baritone. "Never been accused of /that/, even back in the day. --She left me because of the job, actually."
"You ever regret the job?" Sabby asks, fading into quiet.
"Every day." A smile wings across them, sober and white-winged. "Whatchya gonna do?"
"Marry a millionaire and move to Conneticut."
An eyebrow arches; Chris's look speaks volumes, many of them four-lettered.
Sabitha grins, fast and wide. "What?"
"I'd make a crappy boy toy," Chris advises, painstakingly excavating himself out of the chair's recesses, limb by scored and battered limb. "Can you just see me with a collar around my throat and some rich bitch holding my leash?"
Sabitha regards Chris with weighing interest as he stands. Green eyes rake brazenly over his form. "Mm. Is it a leather collar?" she questions around her grin.
If he is aware of that assessing regard, he makes no acknowledgment of it, bent instead to an arm's jutted support of his first few seconds erect. "Studded. Or spiked, maybe. A man's got to maintain his reputation somehow."
"Yeah," Sabby allows, and her expression shifts to dim concern for half a moment before it's lost again in alcohol's haze. "I can see it." Her head lolls back against the couch cushion, and she smothers a yawn with a lift of her arm.
Green peers over a bowed shoulder at the sound of that yawn, and looses a twinkle in haphazard amusement. "Falling asleep? How're you feeling?"
"Like my head is probably going to explode in the morning," Sabby admits, and stretches her legs out faaaar under the coffee table. Slump.
Wordless, Chris gathers himself and disappears down the hallway to the bathroom -- the sound of water spits and hisses through the open door -- and returns a few seconds later with aspirin in one hand, a glass in the other. "Here." His shadow crouches at his feet, hanging off the outstretched hand to tickle at the woman's hair. "Take these. It'll help."
Sabitha raises a hand to bat idly at his before she flattens it, palm out to take the aspirin while she wiggles round for the glass. "You," she declares. "Are a good man, Chris Rossi." Aspirin is popped into her mouth and chased with a long swallow of water. "How do you feel about letting me borrow your couch?"
"Take it," Chris says with Italian hospitality, sweeping up the bottles and glasses to bear them, clinking, toward the kitchen. "Let me grab you a pillow and some blankets--" And more water, surfed across the other sink and borne back in a taller glass by dark Ganymede: black and comely. "Need a toothbrush?"
"You have a toothbrush," Sabby answers on a wistful sigh. "I think I'm in love with you. Can you spare something I can sleep in, maybe?"
Already headed back towards the bathroom, Chris pauses to lean back against the wall, twisting back far enough to wonder: "One of my shirts work for you?"
"Yeah," Sabby answers, and drains half her glass before she braces a hand carefully against the couch to stand. She resists the urge to giggle. And she begins toward the bathroom.
The light flares in the bedroom, briefly silhouetting Rossi's paused figure as he stands in the doorway, head bowed in some errant thought. Then he is gone, bustling about in the quiet -- and back, bearing a fresh-cased pillow, folded blankets, a Chris-scented T-shirt and new toothbrush atop the neat stack.
Sabitha plucks T-shirt and toothbrush from the pile with a broad smile and then disappears into the bathroom. She reappears several minutes later, with minty-fresh teeth and the comfort of an over-sized T-shirt that hangs nearly, but not quite, to her knees. Her clothes are draped over one arm, and she wanders across the room to drop them atop her jacket and shoes.
By then the makeshift bed is made, with a care that suggests a mother's touch -- though Rossi is anything but, the last of his attentions spent on the cleanup of pretzel bowl and unfinished (finished!) drinks. "Have everything you nee--" His voice breaks off with a twitch towards laughter, muzzled behind crimped lips. Green eyes shine. "I think my shirt might be a little big for you."
Sabitha shoots a half-hearted glare at him. "Better than too small," she retorts, and pads, barefoot, back to the couch. She tugs self-consciously at the hang of the shirt. "I'm just sleeping in it, anyway."
"I would undress you with my eyes," Chris announces with ludicrous aplomb, limping across the floor, "but I'm too tired and you're too drunk to appreciate it. --Grab some more water," he recommends, pausing behind the sofa to fold his arms on its back, leaned over them to cut a crooked, boyish grin at Sabitha. "I'll make you some coffee in the morning, sort you all out."
Sabitha scoops up her glass, although not without a bit of a wobble, and straightens to stick her tongue out at him. "Ass," she declares fondly, and disappears into the kitchen to refill. "Although I'll probably kiss you and call you Saint Chris in the morning."
"Patron saint of the lost," says Chris, suddenly, unexpectedly sorrowful. He straightens then into a fair assumption of his normal manner, his normal stance, and adds, wry, "Jude's overworked, lately. --I'll leave you to it. If you need anything--" A hand tips, gesturing down the hall to the bedroom.
Sabitha waves a hand in silence as she returns from the kitchen, drinking. She drops the cup to the edge of the coffee table as she settles back down on the couch. "Night, Chris."
A backhanded wave bats back, and Chris disappears, swallowed by the half-closed barrier of his bedroom door and the sullen, golden light beyond.
[Time passes...]
It's some hours later before the stillness of Rossi's apartment is broken again. Sabitha, stretched out on the couch, has slept off most of the lingering effects of alcohol. As the chemically-encouraged sleep fades into something more natural, dreams creep in. Silent at first, and then with increasing force that stirs Sabby into dream-spoken protestations against flickering forms, dark and threatening in her minds-eye.
Down the hallway, the door whispers, opening on a silent step. The light has lingered long into the night, spilled under Chris's door like liquor across the hardwood floor. He keeps late hours, pushing his own dreams at bay; summoned by another's, he prowls down the corridor hunting nightmares to their homes, and finds himself brought up against the sofa with night-wise eyes. Trouble pauses him there, arms splayed against the couch's arm, head bowed in a penitent's watch over the stirring woman.
Sabitha is held captive by recurring horror. A sense of rising panic threatens to overwhelm as footsteps pace into her dreams, echoing Chris's wakeful prowling, and Sabby remains locked in helpless audience with breaths that are deep and ragged. A wordless cry escapes; sweaty palms dig deep into her blanket.
The human shadow guarding her stirs at that sound, roused to skirt the barrier of sofa to lower itself with chary deliberation onto the edge of the coffee table. Glass whispers, moved aside for that balanced seat. Chris rests his elbows on his knees, shaping strong hands in a mask for his lower face; over and around the steeple of fingers, green eyes -- stripped of color by the dark -- watch: patient, pitying, wearily compassionate.
It takes several minutes for Sabitha's fears to play out. A taunting voice hisses in her ear; a flash of light threatens with hard steel. Whimpers grow silent and Sabitha grows still, unmoving save for shallow, silent breaths that rake in and out in harsh defiance of dream-given orders. A door slams and Sabitha starts into sudden wakefulness with wide, unfocused eyes that blink into the darkness of an unfamiliar room. An unfamiliar presence. Chris's shadow startles and alarms. A strangled "/No/" escapes with force, and then Sabitha melts down into the couch with choked sobs that she can't supress.
He is there on the instant, dropped off the edge of the table onto a knee -- pain stabs its dagger in a catalogue of hurts, twists, and pulls -- arms warm and wrapping, (strong, /there/) around the shaking shoulders and tight, tortured body. "Sabby." Baritone breathes across terror's sounds, a rope tossed to the drowning. "/Sabby/. You're in my apartment. It's okay."
It takes a second, two, before familiar arms and familiar voice speak through familiar terror. Sabby stiffens in Chris's arms, arches back away, and then recognizes... reality. Her fist rises free to punch at his shoulder, hard anger in a rising swell of uncontrolled emotion. "/Fuck/, Chris." The sound scrapes harsh across a dry, tortured throat, and her hand shoves at his shoulder again. "/Fuck/. Don't... don't /do/ that."
The shoulder rocks under the shove, and arms loosen; too dark in the night-swaddled room for dark face to betray the jag of sharp agony. Chris sinks back on his heel-propped hip, breath stilled in his throat for a hand's count of heartbeats. Another. "You were dreaming," he says at last, baritone grasping after normalcy: blessed, mundane inconsequence. "I didn't mean to startle you."
Sabitha is too self-contained to notice hurt even if there were light to reveal it. The same hand reaches out again, seeking to pull Chris back. Comfort. "Sorry," she answers quietly. "Sorry. I didn't mean... sorry."
Awkward, the slow shift of body, testing the dulling throb of stitches under the stretch of fabric. "Don't apologize to me," Chris says quietly, diverting Sabitha's hand with his own, away from pain to the brush of lips across its back. Eyes glitter, catching light from some vagrant source to attend on the woman. "Are you okay?"
Sabitha's breathing is pulled slowly under control, although her hands still shake and sweat-soaked skin serves as a reminder. She swallows once and nods, firm silence.
Answering silence paces hers, while Chris carefully, slowly pushes himself up off the floor to settle on the table's edge again. Again the spine bows, curling to the press of elbows to knees; the water glass, recovered, extends in mute invitation under Rossi's gaze. Drink?
Sabitha reaches out in silent acceptance. A moment's quiet sipping, and then Sabby lifts her eyes to smile weakly at Chris in the darkness of the early morning hours. "Thanks," she states softly. "I'll be ok. You didn't have to come out."
"I wasn't asleep," Chris says into the mask of his hands, feeding the baritone, hollow, through the ranks of fingers. Somber, so somber, that wandering voice: framed by the confessional and privacy of darkness. "I remember you told me that you dreamt, but--"
Sabitha's eyes sweep to Chris in surprise, and then across the room in silent search of the time. Her fingers curl in comfort around the cup in her hands as she answers in a quiet whisper that's as much homage to the darkened room as to her shaken mood. "It's not all the time. It's just been a bad week."
"The rally," he says. Asks.
Sabitha hesitates. Answers a soft, "Yes." Does not elaborate or qualify.
He does not ask for them. Asks, instead: "Is it always the same?"
"No."
"About her?"
"Yes." A hesitation, and Sabby adds, "Mostly."
"Do you want to talk about it?" The hands drop, opened and empty between the splay of knees; the black head drops, likewise, a mortal crown against the pale glimmer of shirt.
Sabitha frees a hand from its death-grip around the cup to rub, hard and fast, against her eyes, across her forehead. "I don't know."
Silence swallows the echoes of her voice, padded and patient, peaceful: without expectation, without demand. What sights Chris sees pooled on that cold floor is anyone's guess. "Okay," he says gently. "Let me get you some more water."
Sabitha shakes her head in a short, sharp movement. "I'm ok," she answers. A long silence draws out into the darkness before she speaks again. "I thought you were her. At first. When I woke up."
"I should've thought." There is apology threaded through the pause and the reply that follows it. Chris lifts his head, hooking a faint grimace to snag shadow. "I'm sorry."
Sabitha's laugh is hollow and short. "Not your fault. It just takes me a minute. I'm not used to people being there." She pauses again, a deep and considering frown. "I don't usually dream if there's someone else there."
Fingers twine, finding each other somewhere in the dark. "You're lucky."
Sabitha's eyes seek Chris's shadowy form. "You do?"
Shoulders hitch. "These days," he admits. "I wasn't here. If that was--"
"Was?"
"You said you don't dream when there's someone else there. I wasn't here."
Sabitha blinks solemnly at Chris. "There's not usually someone there," she answers. "I'm used to it."
Chris blinks solemnly back. "Yeah," he says. "I know."
Sabitha ghosts a smile. "I might dream when someone else is there," she allows, searching for lightness of tone. "It's hard to say. Not enough days to know."
"Have to find you more Seans," Chris suggests, through the fall of hair tumbled by the evening's rigors. "Maybe a Paddy, or a Pat."
Sabitha's smile returns in full. "Too many and I'll lose track."
The man's dry baritone stretches, mordant in humor. "Who needs to keep track?" No, not humor after all. An arm disengages itself, stretching to brush the backs of fingers, a knuckle's ridge, across the woman's pale brow and cheek. "I'm sorry you dream."
Sabitha's hand slips up in search of his. "I'm sorry you dream," she echoes.
"What can you do?" asks Chris with wry and aching whimsy. His fingers twine with hers, tangling in the dark, the one with the other. "That's life."
Sabitha's fingers squeeze hard and fast around his. "Seems to be," she agrees dryly.
The warm hand closes, responding to that pressure, and another fleeting kiss lowers Chris's head before he drags himself up, inch by bloody inch. "Let me get you some more water," he says, opening his other hand for the glass. "And I can get you some new blankets. There're still a few hours before morning."
Sabitha's eyes mark Chris's slow progress upward, even as she stretches out her glass in obedient acceptance. No alcohol haze, now. "Are you ok?"
"I'm old," Chris advises with sorrow, accepting the glass before ambling towards the kitchen. His voice trails him, pedantic, ambling across the crests and valleys of the Brooklyn accent. "I woke up yesterday and my boobs were down to my hips, my ass was down to my knees--" Water hisses through pipes, gurgling into the sink.
Sabitha twists around to watch Chris's progress. "I'm serious, Chris," she states quietly. "Did something happen?"
Metal creaks as the water cuts off. "Had a stupid thing," Chris says laconically, drifting back out with the glass borne between (good boy!) both hands. "Here. It'll help with your hangover tomorrow, too. Do you want a new blanket?"
Sabitha shakes her head shortly. "No, it's ok. Thanks." Her eyes trace Chris's outline over a frown. Hesitation, and then she remains in decisive silence as she stretches out a hand for the cup.
It is handed across in sibling silence, if not of the decisive sort: meditative, perhaps. Distracted. "Accident," Chris relents, answering that quiet, that passive dark. "In the park. It's why I didn't make it to the rally in time. Got a few stitches. Nothing serious."
Worry spreads, fast and thick. "Chris." Sabitha's hands curl around her cup again, steadying comfort. "What happened?"
"You know the guard rails in the Park?" Rhetorical question.
"Yeah." She answers anyway.
Says Chris, simply, "They're scary."
Sabitha stares across at him and struggles to make that make sense.
"Drink your water," Chris says, abruptly gentle. "Do you want me to stick around while you go back to sleep?"
Sabitha stares at him a moment longer, and then shakes her head. "I'm ok." An obedient sip of water, and then she offers dryly. "Just... if I dream again, maybe wait until I'm past the stage where I might hit you."
A smile touches the man's face, redistributing shadow and the limning of light stolen from the windows and the distant bedroom. "I'll do you one better and wake you up," he suggests. "I would have, if I'd realized--" Well. The hand lifts, brushing a fleeting benediction across her head. "You okay?"
Sabitha's hand lifts, sharp and firm in its movements as she grasps his, removes it with a tight squeeze. "Chris," she states firmly. "I'm ok. They suck. But I've been dreaming for two years, and they haven't killed me yet. I'm ok."
"Tough as nails. Should've remembered," Chris says gravely, and squeezes back before turning his ungainly, off-kilter amble back towards the hallway and the bedroom beyond. "G'night, Horatio."
Laughter, quiet and short, rises from Sabitha as she watches Chris leave. "Night," she answers, and turns back to finishing her water before she slides under the covers again. Try this again.
At the end of the hall, the door closes with a small click, banking light ... then opens again, just a hair. Just in case. In his bedroom, Chris Rossi reads reports and holds at bay his own dreams, turning his attention once more to hunting someone else's nightmares: a missing father, an anxious daughter, a secret and a lie. The night ticks on.
Sabitha comes by to have a few drinks with Rossi, and ends up crashing on his couch. Contrary to all normal people's expectations, Rossi does not end up sleeping with her. We discover Rossi has had a long-term girlfriend in his past, that Sabitha's a cheap date, and that her dreams are back.