heaven has cigarettes
Rust Cohle x reader
Summary: it starts with a mug of hot coffee, the exact way you make it, sitting on your desk when you walk into work; and then that same mug, every single day. you know who the culprit is, though you'd never say it to his face. Then, Marty Hart calls in sick. And Rust Cohle asks you to accompany him to interview a victim. What ensues? A whole lot of quiet time in a small car.
No use of y/n, gender neutral reader, 1st person present tense. no kissing or anything, just a whole lotta yearning. 2,700K words approx. reader is a detective working with rust but i tried to give as little detail as possible on their personal life etc <3
Warnings: swearing. the usual
A/N: everybody clap and cheer we're so fucking back. summer is here alevels are done im listening to ethel cain and thriving. whoever gets the title reference gets a kiss and a secret mini rust fic i wrote (joke. kind of) anyway i love you all. sorry the summary is so shit it is 3:22 in the morning and MAYBE i will change it tomorrow
There's a mug of coffee on my desk.
I wouldn't usually think this is strange. Often, I forget to clear my empty mug into the precinct kitchen at the end of a long day of work- by this point, standing over the sink for five minutes scrubbing at the stains at the bottom of the mug has become part of my morning routine.
But no- this mug isn't cold, dirty, half buried under a pile of files. It sits politely on a clear space, filled with coffee, and it's steaming.
Again, my coworkers at the precinct are not above "borrowing" a mug from the cupboards when they can't be bothered to wash theirs up. But I staked my claim on this one- slightly wonky, a faded orange owl in chipped paint on the front- a month or so ago by dramatically coughing into it. This is my mug.
I sit down, slowly, dropping my bag at my side and shifting piles of paper to clear a little space in front of me. The precinct is still almost empty; I bring the mug forward, peer into it before casting a glance around me. Alvaro sits at a desk not far off, immersed in whatever is happening on his computer. A newbie whose name I can't remember is hunched over, two empty cans of some energy drink pushed to the corner of her desk.
The only other person in this room is Rustin Cohle.
The light above his desk flickers, momentarily casting dark shadows across his face. If the deep lines under his eyes are any indication, he has been here all night. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone, the fabric the same colour as yellowing paper in the precinct's colourless lighting. His hair is dark, messy, as if he has been running his hands through it over and over and over again.
Next to his hand sits his own mug- a bland off-white that belonged to the precinct- and it, too, appears to be steaming.
First and foremost, I'm a detective. Second, I'm not a fucking idiot. Unless Alvaro or the newbie have made me a coffee without making themselves one, which is highly unlikely- this is not the time of day for thoughtlessly kind gestures- Rust Cohle has made himself coffee, and in the process has also made me coffee.
What the fuck?
I'd be lying if I said I hadn't noticed Cohle. They call him the Tax-Man because of that big notebook he carries around; he's always here when I arrive, and usually still here when I leave in the evening. The closest I've ever come to him is a few times in the office kitchen, both of us moving in our own worlds of sleep-deprivation and desire for another coffee. Occasionally, I overhear him and Marty talking across desks. I know he drives the big red pick-up truck; sometimes, late at night, against my will, I think about what it smells like in there, what it feels like to drive it. I know he smokes, and I know he doesn't sleep.
Okay, maybe I've more than just noticed him. My fingers itch for a cigarette whenever I look at him, as if the acrid taste of tar at the back of my throat is the closest I can get to him; I wonder if he drinks, what he likes to drink if he does, if he's ever been married. I don't talk to anyone else here, really, so I don't get an in on any work-place gossip. I have a thousand questions about him, and I don't want them answered in half-cruel whispers on the way out of work. I want to sit in the car with him and unpick his brain; I want answers to come willingly, in that slow drawl of his, as we share a cigarette.
I have to blink, hard. These are thoughts for my drive home, when even my old car's air conditioning and open windows can't help against the Louisiana heat. These are not thoughts I can be having while sitting a few desks away from the subject, wondering if he made me coffee.
Slowly, I lift the mug. It's cooled a little by now; tentatively, I dip my tongue in, and find it's been made exactly the way I usually make it. Every detail, down to the smallest, stupidest shit I do just out of habit rather than preference, seems to have been recorded and imitated, made in such a methodical way that it could've been a futuristic machine rather than a man.
I don't sleep that night.
It is as if my every nerve is alight; I find myself wondering as I stand to pace around my room in hopes of tiring myself out how much caffeine was in my coffee this morning. Only I know the amount, because it's the same amount I always put in it. How does he know? Did he watch, those few times in the kitchen, so he could imitate? Or was this just a spur of the moment decision; did he simply glimpse my mug in the cupboard and decide to make another coffee, maybe to put off a frustrating task he had to finish today.
No, I think- I mumble the word out loud to myself, and it tastes like coffee. I have a routine every morning, and I stick to it. He must have registered, somewhere, exactly what time I usually come in. Did he see my mug, having just checked his watch, and think of me?
I tug at the old t-shirt I wear to sleep. All of a sudden, the fan humming above my bed is too loud; the crickets and cicadas outside are almost screaming through my open window. I run my hand through my hair and go back to bed, burying my head underneath my pillow.
8:01- I pull into the car park outside the precinct, half a minute later than usual. I hardly slept, and I think it shows. 8:02, I get out of my car and walk the short distance to the doors, then from the doors to my desk. Yesterday morning was a one time occurrence, I'd convinced myself at some point in my half mad late-night spiralling. A coincidence- Rust Cohle had been in the kitchen, seen the time and my mug, known unconsciously that I must be coming in soon, and had almost thoughtlessly made me a coffee to procrastinate doing something. My usual is pretty basic- he'd remembered some parts, again, coincidentally, and had improvised the rest. He'd been lucky.
"That's all it was," I mutter to myself. I'm not even halfway through the sentence when I spot it again.
My stupid mug, badly painted owl almost smiling at me, sitting in that same spot on my desk, steaming.
Out of the corner of my eye, I think I see Cohle turn away, as if he'd watched me come in. An almost full mug sits by his left hand.
It happens over and over and over again. Every night I lose more sleep, and every morning I walk in at the same time to find my mug in the same place. It doesn't matter where I leave it the night before, Rustin Cohle somehow finds it, makes me coffee exactly the way I've liked it since I was a teenager, and leaves it on my desk. He still hasn't said a word to me, even when we find ourselves in the kitchen at the same time (although- my mind jumps simply at the memory of it- I stayed late some nights ago, barrelled into the kitchen half-asleep expecting to find it empty. It wasn't a collision, but it felt like one- Cohle's shoulder brushed against mine, sparks ricocheted through my arm, not dissimilar to the pictures of lightning striking the Eiffel Tower an old friend of mine was obsessed with. Neither of us said anything, he didn't even spill his coffee, and every day since has been completely normal.)
Except today.
Because today, Marty Hart is off sick (hungover, I heard someone mutter) and Cohle has asked me to drive with him to interview a victim's family.
It didn't come out of nowhere, somehow. Earlier this morning, I'd caught his gaze over the top of my computer; he'd maintained eye contact for a total of seven seconds before looking away, leaving my heartbeat thundering away, lodged halfway up my throat. I hadn't slept for a single minute last night, resorting to sifting through old files on my living room floor until morning came as a way of occupying the swarm of bees buzzing around my mind at all times. Cohle is eating away at my every waking moment- even cigarettes bring no solace, because I only taste him when I pull in smoke. I've memorised every detail of my case, and I recite it to myself, yet he still manages to take up space. Sometimes I think the little voice in my head, repeating back the lines I've read over and over again in my file, is his. If there's a familiar drawl to it, a slight lilt.
The first words I say to him as we duck out of the badly air-conditioned precinct and into the sweltering midday heat: "We takin' your car or mine?"
I watch his eyes jump to my car. It shouldn't make my spine cold that he knows what I drive, but it does.
"We can take yours," he says. I hadn't realised that him saying yours while addressing me would provoke an almost physical reaction, down at the base of my neck.
"You wanna drive?" This is a bad idea, I think. Because of late, I've started to become acutely aware of the fact that he must touch my mug, when he makes me coffee- to see him holding the steering wheel might actually kill me.
We've reached my car. Wordlessly, he ducks into the passenger seat. I am disappointed and grateful at the same time.
The drive isn't a long one- I know this because I am unable to keep my gaze from going to his watch, which is visible because he's rolled up his sleeves, which I am immensely distracted by- but it feels excruciating. He's warm, and the car is warm, and the air that comes in through the open windows tastes like dust and fuel. Cohle still smells like cigarettes. His watch looks old. His hands are abnormally still in his lap, as if he is physically restraining himself from twitching.
It is a physical strain, forcing myself to look at the road.
The interview itself is perfectly average. Cohle and I take turns asking questions- I think the elderly woman trusts me more, so I end up taking the lead (Cohle, for the first time ever, forgot his ledger- he's been using my small, worn out notepad and the hotel-brand pen I stole from an uncle a few years ago). We leave her sitting quiet in her chair, the place so still one wouldn't know without being told that there used to be someone else living here; someone who is now gone, who will be gone forever.
I push the thought from my mind as we walk down the driveway. Don't get attached is the first rule of working for the police, as a detective. I glance at Cohle and lightning fast, I think- too late!
The thought is gone by the time we've reached the car.
This time, he offers to drive. When I hand him the keys, our hands touch; butterflies erupt in my chest and I have to suppress a gasp, as if the contact left a cold shock. I'm a fucking disaster, I think as I duck into the passenger seat. An embarrassment. Only teenagers get flustered at such trivial contact.
He starts the car, and instantly my mind jumps back- in another life, would he put his hand on my knee? In another life, would we turn the radio on, sit in silence as some mindless country song played, half drowned in static? In another life, would I ask the questions that sit heavy on my chest?
When he slots the key into the ignition, his sleeve shifts a little bit further up his forearm. I bite down, hard, on my tongue. Of course he has a fucking tattoo. All I see is feathers, ink that has faded somewhat over time, but it's enough to cause a thousand more questions to bloom in my mind.
It's not necessarily that I'm physically attracted to Cohle. My eye catches on him, involuntarily, whenever I enter a room. But I've never really been close enough to really look- to see the slope of his brow and the way it meets his nose in a soft curve that I now desperately want to press my lips to, just for a moment; to see the way his eyes are always narrowed just a little bit, as if he needs glasses, and the way he clenches his teeth as if in perpetual pain.
Everything about him intrigues me. That's what it is- not necessarily lust, attraction, but curiosity. I want to know everything about him. I want this car ride to last forever so that I can ask and ask and ask.
"Is it you?"
I don't expect the words to actually come out, breaking apart the soft hum of the engine and the road beneath the wheels. I'm mulling the words over in my mind, wondering what they'll taste like if I actually say them, wondering what the response will be. Will the mugs stop appearing? Will we go back to cold indifference- did we ever leave cold indifference?
"I mean, is it you who's making me coffee?" I correct myself after a split second, when his brow furrows just a tiny bit more. "Every morning, my mug is on my desk. With coffee in it 'nd everything." Now I'm over-explaining.
He hums, and that's acquiescence enough.
"How did you know to make it like that?" My tongue is sandpaper in my mouth, heavy and dry. That's two questions- four, if you count the two earlier.
Rust doesn't answer. There's a minute change in his expression, a minute shift in the direction in which he's grinding his teeth, that I can't read yet.
The silence stretches. I wouldn't say it's awkward, exactly, although I've been watching him for too long now; surely he feels it, my eyes tracing his profile over and over again as I mull over those small shifts, the twitch of his fingers as he grips the steering wheel. His collar is slightly uneven.
Wordlessly, I reach out. Swallow as I gently tug at the corner of the yellowing fabric, pull it into place. It's a tiny movement, but my knuckle briefly brushes the back of his neck and I wonder what would happen if I left my hand there, let my thumb trace his jaw, felt his pulse against my fingertips. Would he shake me off? Would the mugs of coffee disappear?
I let my hand linger, just for a moment. Just long enough to brush my thumb over the tic in his jaw, just for half a second. I withdraw, drop both my hands in my lap. The moment is over, but the car feels considerably warmer.
"You got a smoke?" I ask after a few beats. Question number five. My hand burns as if held in boiling water. Rust pulls a packet from his pocket, one hand still on the wheel, and hands it to me. They're not the brand I like, but I pull one out anyway, keep myself occupied, light it with the zippo I keep in the glovebox. We don't speak as I blow smoke out of the window. I don't tell him I think the cigarette tastes like him.
The mug keeps reappearing on my desk, every morning. I come into work early once and find him in the kitchen; he hands the already full mug to me, then reaches out to tuck a strand of hair out of my face. The heel of his hand brushes my cheekbone, his fingers hook briefly to stay for half a second at my jaw. Then he's gone, taking his cigarette smell with him.
