Writer In The Dark
A/N: I listened to Lorde and this happened. Song: Writer In The Dark Characters: OC ft. Barba and Benson
Bright red and blue marked all that she could see.
The walls. The road. Even the faces of the small crowd that formed at her expense. The lights were like a cheap dye, carelessly being thrown over all that it could reach with no regard to the consequences, and of the ugliness it inflicted.
It paid no mind. Left no concern. It just continued to blink.
She flinched at the hands that were abruptly on her skin. Rough hands pushed firmly against her back and arms without the slightest trace of gentleness or courtesy. She desperately looked for it, but knew none would come to her.
Break the news, you’re walking out To be a good man for someone else
“Is this truly necessary?”
The sound of his voice immediately drowned out everything else. It affected her so deeply because she was finally given what she had been yearning for just moments prior.
The gentleness.
It flowed through the tone of his words and a smile nearly slipped her lips because of it. She frowned at how inappropriate that might have been.
Then again, she was surely far past the point of propriety.
Sorry I was never good like you
“Yes, Barba. It is.”
Another voice she recognized. Benson.
She struggled to remember her first name but they had met once before. It had been pleasant. They had shared a meal and conversation which had both been light in nature.
Stood on my chest and kept me down Hated hearing my name on the lips of a crowd Did my best to exist just for you
“Maybe there’s a way for us to discuss-
“She broke into your home. There’s nothing I can do- no amount of discussion could possibly change that-”
She winced at the words.
Words filled with such cruelty, with such disdain that it elicited a whimper within her.
Despite being covered with shame and embarrassment she still turned to his direction. She needed to see him. She needed a chance to explain her actions. That the names she was being called, both to her face and behind her back- none of it were true.
She was confident that he knew this. Though they had been far apart for so long- he still knew her. The real her.
He just needed to be reminded.
I still feel you, now and then Slow like pseudo-ephedrine When you see me, will you say I’ve changed?
So why is it, that when she turned to face him, she felt as though she were facing a complete stranger?
She locked eyes with him. Her lips parted. Her tears began to stream down her face.
He looked distraught. Tired. Distant. Why hadn’t she noticed it before? Earlier when it was just them two.
When there were no red and blue lights to distract them?
I ride the subway, read the signs I let the seasons change my mind I love it here since I’ve stopped needing you
He began to walk towards her.
All at once her body felt numb. She pulled her wrists against the cold metal bracelets that encircled them to feel the same stinging impression it had made earlier. She needed to let herself feel something.
No matter how many times she tried, however, it continued to fail her.
“Barba- don’t.”
Listen to her, Rafael. She began to beg silently.
Don’t come any closer. She begged for him to listen to his closest friend; for the officer to grab her by her arm again and take her away, for her legs to move, for her to look away. She begged the unnamed Gods like she had never begged before- but not a single prayer was answered.
If they were, he would not be inches away from her.
Before she could do anything about it he held her face. They traveled slowly, the wetness on her face making it easy for his familiar fingers to run along her cheeks. She relaxed into his touch; she mourned that it was nothing like how he used to hold her, but she ignored the pain in her chest telling her so.
“Please.” She barely heard it, his voice, the tone that showcased more plea than the word itself.
“You need to find help- I don’t know how I can-”
I am my mother’s child, I’ll love you ‘til my breathing stops I’ll love you ‘til you call the cops on me But in our darkest hours, I stumbled on a secret power I’ll find a way to be without you, babe
Flashes of images flashed before her eyes, then. Images she wished were just fragments that her mind had concocted on its own and not actual memories.
Darkness.
She leaned her body flat against the door. Her eyes wandered the empty apartment. The absence of the warm lights, casually mixed in with the faint scent of smoky bourbon served as clues that no one was home.
She kept it that way; relying only on muscle memory to guide her through the darkness.
For the first time, the moonlight was unkind. Not allowing her even a glimpse of her own atrocity. That didn’t stop her from rebelling; pushing her free senses to uncharted limits.
Glass.
So much broken glass. Scattered across his mahogany floor. The bottle was in her hand, shattered at the neck up, and its contents mercilessly dripping down her thigh and onto his thick carpet.
Wrong. This was all wrong.
Light.
He was in front of her. Shouting- at her, and not- at the same time.
He pried the bottle from her shaking grip. He was so angry. He was saying so many things, but she didn’t bother listening. She gave all her attention to his face instead. The face that had lines she did not recognize. A stubble she did not approve of.
Beneath all the changes she also recognized what was missing.
Affection. There was not a trace of the devotion he once swore he felt for her. Why did he have to break his promise? If he didn’t, they wouldn’t be in this position.
There wouldn’t be so much glass. Darkness. Light. Change.
It was all too much.
She watched him take out his phone. She watched him dial the numbers, and read his lips as he clutched the phone in his ear.
She knew, then, that this was it.
This was the end.
The horror of the truth overwhelmed her. She was responsible for all this.
What had she… done?
She flinched away from his touch, leaving his hands as an empty frame for a moment longer until they finally fell to his sides. An action of defeat that matched perfectly with the expression written across on his face that she would never forget.
Each step felt heavier as she was getting closer and closer to the red and blue lights. By now it seemed as though the colors blended together; creating a shade even more grotesque than she had initially thought.
She was seated now. The smell of coffee and old leather filled her senses as she took one last glance past the window. No matter how hard she tried to do otherwise, her gaze still landed on him last.
She whispered the words she knew would never reach him, her breath making etches against the window, until she felt the car move to take her away.
Bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark Now she’s gonna play and sing and lock you in her heart Bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark
To her relief, taking her away further than she could ever hope for.
