CHAPTER 5 | FIXATION | BRIAN MOSER
Description: After a rough night and a worse morning, you find yourself tangled between work, lingering dreams, and an unexpected night out. There’s tequila, bad exes, and even worse neighbors, but when Rudy shows up, the night shifts and the past starts bleeding into the present in ways you can’t ignore. Word Count: 4.3k
I’m back in the dark room.
Not really, but it feels like it. It always does in dreams. Cold metal hums under my bare feet, and something wet trickles down from a place I can’t see. There’s no voice this time, just the sheer presence of someone watching. And then, like it’s whispered into my skull:
Angel.
I jolt awake with my nails digging into my palm.
“You okay?” Debra’s voice slices through the haze, pulling me back to her living room and out of my skull. She’s sitting cross-legged across from me, smoking her cigarette and watching the news on TV, like I didn’t just wake up gasping for air right next to her.
I nod slowly. “Just a dream.”
She doesn’t press. Instead, she smirks over her cup and tilts her head. “Rudy really likes you, you know.”
I glance over at her, head cocked sideways. “Yeah?”
“He said you’ve got this... vibe, like you’re familiar. You’ve probably met before or something.”
I try to smile. “You okay with your boyfriend liking someone else?” I ignore the rest of her sentence and instead change the topic.
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be weird. It’s a compliment. I think he’s just interested in who I spend my free time with.”
I nod again, slower this time, but the weight in my chest hasn’t left. I decide to go outside to get some air, maybe stop reliving this nightmare. It’s silly to think, though, how nightmares have a funny way of reaching me, and this time it’s him.
Rudy.
Leaning against his car, a plastic bag in hand. He looks up like he knew I’d come out. Like he’s been waiting for me. He comes up to me by the front door. "Couldn't sleep?" he asks me.
“What makes you think that?” I say, hugging my arms around myself despite the warm morning.
“You’re at Debra’s house, and it’s 9 am,” he says plainly. “It’s a little early for a sleepover, don’t you think?”
“Maybe we were watching the sunset together or something, you know.”
He chuckles and looks down. “Checks out.” He looks back up at me. “So what was it? Bad dream?”
I hesitate. “…I don’t really remember.”
“Sure you do,” he says, but it’s gentle. Not pushing. “You just don’t want to talk about it.”
I glance up at him. “Do you always show up like this?” I ask. “Mysteriously waiting by people’s houses and offering unsolicited advice.”
His eyes narrow just slightly, but the smile lingers this time. “Only for women who are worth it.”
There’s a pause. My chest feels tight, and not entirely from discomfort.
“…Deb’s inside.” I say.
He steps just a little closer, still casual. “But you’re out here.”
And maybe it’s the lack of sleep, but something about him, maybe the way he always seems to know more than he should, makes me feel like I should say something. So I do.
“…Because it’s freezing inside.” I say, half-joking in a desperate attempt to diffuse the tension in the air. He doesn’t laugh or respond though. Just smiles at me and walks inside the house. I sigh in relief. Fuck, what even was that? Man, he’s so sexy… What the fuck am I talking about? Debra is gonna kill me and turn my skin into a jacket.
I walk back into the house and catch them both mid-makeout session. “If you guys keep going like this, you’re not gonna have faces anymore.” I say, rolling my eyes and looking over Deb’s kitchen table for my hair clip.
Debra snorts mid-kiss and pushes him off, wiping her mouth. “Sorry, I forgot we had company.”
Rudy straightens his shirt; it makes me wonder if he’s ever actually been flustered in his life. “Can’t help it,” he says, glancing at her. “She tastes like cinnamon today.”
“Gross,” I mutter, grabbing the clip and twisting my hair up. “I hope you tell your dentist everything.”
Debra laughs, oblivious, while Rudy just leans back on the counter, arms crossed. I can feel him watching me, even when I’m not looking. “You sticking around for breakfast?” Debra asks me, pulling orange juice and pancake mix out of the bag Rudy brought.
I shake my head. “Nah. I should get home. I’ve got work later, and…” I trail off because Rudy’s still looking at me. “Stuff... yeah, stuff to do.”
“You should be doing less stuff…” Rudy says, slow and deliberate, then adds with a faint smirk, “…and more people.” He tilts his head slightly. Like he doesn’t mean to say it out loud, but it slipped. He smiles, all warmth and white teeth.
Debra’s laugh carries in the room. “Okay, Freud. Ease up on the horny philosophy.”
I smile at her. “He gets one cinnamon kiss and thinks he’s Casanova.”
Rudy just chuckles, raising his hands in mock surrender—but that glint in his eyes? Still there. Deb’s voice cuts through. “He’s exactly right. You need to loosen up! I heard Masuka is really good with his hands.” She jokes, and Rudy joins her, although he’s quieter, less performative.
“Yuck. Like I’d do anything with that perv.” I say, scoffing.
Debra snorts. “C’mon, you’re too picky.”
“I’m not picky,” I protest. “I just have standards.”
“Masuka’s harmless,” she says through a grin, pouring the juice.
“Masuka probably has a collection of hentai in his desk drawer.” I reply.
That gets Rudy to laugh; it’s low, but it rumbles out of him like it’s genuine. I glance at him without meaning to, and he’s already looking back at me. In the same flirty way. Deb hums to herself while flipping a pancake in the pan, and I suddenly feel like I’ve walked into someone else’s life.
My phone buzzes on the counter. A text from Doakes. Crime scene. A… park? “I really do have to go,” I say, grabbing my phone. “I’ll tell Masuka to keep his hands to himself.”
Debra blows me a kiss. “Tell Dex I said it wouldn’t kill him to check on his sister.” And Rudy just lifts a mug and nods at me, same smile, same flirty air.
As I walk out of the house, I think about what Debra and Rudy say about ‘doing someone.’ I never actually thought about having a love life since my work consumed me fully. As time went on, loneliness felt more like solitude; that’s just how I coped with things. Yet having the company of Debra has been increasingly better for at least my mental well-being. I hadn’t loved anyone since my parents left me, and even that day was bitterly heartbreaking. It’s easier to spend your nights cleaning blood off your work shoes than wondering why someone isn’t texting you back.
Maybe I need something reckless. Not love, not even sex, just noise. A reason to get out of my own head. Maybe even a night where I don’t drink shady liquor store bought vodka and watch true crime till paranoia seeps its way into my floorboards. I drive fast. Once I’m at the crime scene in the park, and somehow made a 20-minute drive in 15 minutes, I wait patiently there and observe the body being picked up and put into the ambulance van. I pull the phone out of my pocket and scroll down to Deb’s contact.
‘Deb Cakes.’
It’s so stupid and corny it’s kind of funny. I type out a few messages, testing which one will make me sound less robotic.
‘Hey girlfriend you wanna go out 2nite?’ That doesn’t sound like me.
‘Ty for letting me crash at your place, let me repay you with a night out?’ I sound like a sad man.
‘Feeling like mojitos tn? On me.’ Sounds casual enough, but we are past casual.
‘Club after work? Or do I have to convince you to have fun with me?’ Send.
I start cleaning up the scene once all the evidence and everything is gone. Blood drips from blades of grass, seeping into the ground, and fragments of skin are still left on the wet soil. I finish up, and as I begin to take my gloves off, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I nod to the other TCST, signalling my leave, and slip into my car.
‘Fuck yeah! Meet at Sol Noche, 9 PM?’ I type out "yes" and put my phone down on the passenger seat.
By the time I’m home, the sunset is kissing the rooftop of my apartment, but a car sits in my parking spot. That fucking loser is letting his girlfriend park here. I sigh and, reluctantly, park 3 spaces down the block. When I walk up the stairs this time, I’m not heading to my house but to my neighbor’s. I knock, not aggressively, but still loud.
The door swings open, and a slender girl hangs in the doorway. Her makeup looks ruined but in a good way, short shorts hug her legs, and the baby tee she wears stretches over her like it was tailor-made—insane because it once was mine. “Did ya’ need something?” She says questioningly. I grit my teeth.
“Your car is in my parking spot.” I say plainly, no longer upset about the car and instead about why this woman has my old shirt on.
“My boyfriend said it’s fine there.” She says, twirling her hair. She looks young, like 20.
“Your boyfriend is wrong.” I say to her, and I know he is. I know he’s doing this out of spite. One night stand gone wrong, now I can’t even have common courtesy.
“Oh, well, I’ll move it in the morning then.” I should argue with her, but I don’t; I just walk away. I don’t hear her close the door until I’ve opened my own.
I strip my shirt off in the entrance and unclip my hair, running my fingers through it to relieve the stress building in my bones. I go into my bedroom, peer into my closet, and hopefully find something that I don’t feel ill-fitting in.
I slip into a sheer, olive-green handkerchief skirt, with delicate embroidery near the slits. It moves when I walk and kisses the backs of my calves. The matching cami clings to my ribs and has a faded look, like it came from a thrift rack with stories baked into the threading. I cinch it all with a double-looped leather belt that sits low on my hips.
I slip on chunky resin bangles in olive, moss, and gold and big amber earrings. A round, olive-toned pendant hangs from a suede cord at my throat, resting right between my collarbones. Right below the scar of my past that continues to haunt me. I grab my Blumarine sunglasses and slip on my pistachio-coloured Coach platforms. They’re clunky and a little worn, but I love them anyway.
I give myself one last look in the mirror. I’m not deathly tonight. I’m sunlit and unreadable. My mascara is soft on my face, lips brown and pink, eyes shimmery, and cheeks tinged pink. I look alive.
I go to my kitchen, deciding to have just one free drink before I blow $70 and then some just buying more drinks. I pour gin into an opaque-pink shot glass, received on my 21st birthday from a random lady who worked with me some years ago; it's tacky and says ‘Florida!’ on a white sign with a beachy background. I decide to cut a lime just to chase the drink, and when I open the drawer, my blood runs cold.
There’s a knife that isn’t mine.
It’s similar—about the same weight, same shape—but it’s cleaner. Sleek. Navy blue. I frown, holding it up to the light. And that’s when I see it. Text that’s etched faintly along the blade, near the hilt, just subtle enough to miss:
‘I could’ve carved love into your throat.’
I drop the knife and stumble backwards. Before I can fully process everything that’s just occurred, my phone begins to buzz on the counter, Debra.
‘Free drinks all night!’ I can’t even question her or react properly in excitement. I down the shot of gin and recollect myself, then walk out the door.
When I stop outside Sol Noche, the sun’s almost fully gone, and the purple, hazy light emitting from inside is already bleeding onto the sidewalk. The club is nestled between a shuttered pawn shop and a shady tarot place that smells like burnt-out incense. There’s a velvet rope, but Debra’s waving me in like it doesn’t exist.
Inside, it’s all flashing lights and bodies too close together. Cigarette smoke clings to the ceiling, and the bass sounds like it’s beating at the same rhythm and tempo as my own heartbeat. My heels stick slightly to the floor as I walk toward the bar, and the air smells like sweat and ecstasy.
Deb throws her arms around me. “Finally!” she shouts over the music. “You look sooo hot!”
I smile, but it’s tight. “I’m surprised I even made it.”
She laughs like she didn’t hear me, already ordering tequila shots. Then I see him behind her, arm snaked around her waist and a grin plastered over his face as he looks down on me. “I didn’t know he’d be joining us.” I say to Deb, putting a cool smile on display. She looks back from the bar at me.
“What else did you think free drinks meant?” She grins and kisses Rudy with full force, parading themselves into a makeout session right in front of me. I fake laugh and leave them to it while sitting on a bar chair.
“Give me the strongest mojito you have, preferably with Marienburg 90.” The bartender looks at me with that look, but she shrugs and starts to make some concoction. It’s not what I asked for, but when she finishes and places the brightly coloured drink in front of me, I can’t help but try it. Fucking god, it hits me like a train. In a matter of hazy minutes, and two of whatever the hell she gave me later, I’m pulling Deb to the dance floor.
Seconds are spun into minutes and minutes into hours, while the glassiness of the floor begins to morph into itself. I stumble off of the lit-up dance floor and over to where I was last. I ask the bartender for water to sober myself up a bit, and she passes me one readily.
A voice cuts through the noise behind me.
“You clean up well.”
I turn, and it’s Rudy.
Dressed in black. Shirt unbuttoned just enough to show the suggestion of collarbone. My stomach drops, and I don't know if it’s from excitement or nausea.
I glance around. “So, Deb brought you to buy us drinks.”
He smirks, sipping from his clear plastic cup. “She said you invited her. I’m just tagging along.”
Of course he is.
I roll my eyes and take another sip. “You looked like you were having fun out there,” he says, leaning in slightly to be heard. “Didn’t expect that from you.”
“I didn’t either,” I say, trying not to mirror his closeness. “Just felt like letting go.” I say, although it sounds more like I'm questioning myself. He puts his drink down and looks over his shoulder. Debra signaled to him to come and dance. He reluctantly goes over, not sparing a second glance back at me. When he does get over, she eyes him down, and not in a friendly way.
“Excuse me, miss.” I hear an all too familiar voice next to me. I turn around.
“Zach.” Aka, my shitty neighbour. I give him a bitch face and sigh outwardly to further express how pissed I am to see him.
“You knew it was me. Guess I never leave your mind.” Zach grins and leans against the bar top, dangerously close. His eyes wander. “Last I saw, you were all dark and morbid,” he says, grinning like it’s meant to be charming. “Now you’re glowing. “What, finally decided to quit that shitty blood job?”
I stare at him blankly, sip my drink, and tilt my head. “And last I saw you, you were banging some coked-up chick next door. and wouldn’t give me my clothes back.”
Zach laughs, low and forced, like he doesn’t want to admit that stung. “Still a mouth on you.”
I arch a brow. “Still a parasite.”
He’s about to say something else that’s probably gross, and then I’ll regret not throwing a drink over it, but a hand casually laces itself around my waist and pulls me in. “Everything alright here?” Rudy’s voice cuts into the conversation and carries just enough weight to make Zach glance up and stiffen. I don’t even need to look to know Rudy’s smiling that same too-calm, too-clean smile.
“Yeah, uh, everything’s fine. Just wanted to talk to this pretty lady.” Zach says, suddenly gripping my wrist like he’s trying to assert some last pathetic dominance. It’s not tight, but it’s enough.
Before I can say anything, Rudy moves. Not chaotically. Not even quickly. Just… deliberately. His hand releases my waist only to grab Zach’s hand, fingers clamping around his wrist. I hear Zach’s breath catch and the subtle crack of pressure building where bone meets bone.
Rudy’s smile doesn’t change.
“I’m afraid she’s already talking to someone,” he says softly.
Zach tries to pull away, but Rudy doesn’t let go. Instead, he leans in closer, like he’s telling a secret just for him. “You’ve had your moment. Don’t make it awkward.”
Zach nods, barely, and Rudy lets go. Zach steps back, rubbing his wrist with a forced chuckle. “Didn’t know you brought your watchdog,” he says to me.
I smile, baring my teeth. “Goodnight, Zach…” and tell that chick at your place to take my fucking shirt off.” He disappears into the crowd, and it’s like the loudness of the room goes with him.
I turn back to Rudy. “Thanks,” I murmur, more breath than voice.
He shrugs, as if nothing happened. But something did. His hand is still warm against the curve of my waist when he touches me again, gently this time, thumb dragging slowly along the fabric of my shirt, just above my hipbone.
“You alright?” He asks, his voice dipped in genuine concern, but his eyes are unreadable.
“I am now.” I say.
He studies me for a second, like he’s debating something. “Dance with me?” he says, not a question, not a suggestion. A gentle command. When I nod, slow, almost hesitant, he pulls me through the crowd, into the pulse of the music, the dark, and the heat. Right there, his hands find my hips, and mine find his shoulders, and for a moment, I forget about the knife, the scar, and the way "angel" floated so effortlessly off his lips. My hips roll with the beat, slow and instinctive, and I feel the way his breath stutters once against the shell of my ear. He spins me, and I lay my back against his chest.
I tilt my head back just a little, eyes fluttering, letting myself move with him, and that’s when the familiarity suddenly makes sense. His grip, his eyes staring into mine, and the way he drags his hand down my throat and stops just above my pendant, right where the scar is.
And it hits me.
A flicker of my existence, or what could’ve been the end of it, a version of himself, and a knife held at my throat. It’s navy blue. Then everything vanishes as fast as it comes.
I tense, every part of me screaming to run, but I don’t move. Not with his fingers ghosting over the scar like it’s still fresh. “Trying to hide this from me?” he murmurs. I nod before I can lie. He brings his face just inches from mine, and I swear, I can feel his smile. Not the fake one. Not the charm. The one beneath it. The wolfish one. “You were talking so much a while ago; what now?”
His hands slowly glide over my thighs and torso, not in the seductive way, but in the sizing-me-up way. Like snakes preparing their prey. My body betrays my better thinking, and I arch myself into his touch, knowing that I’m walking that thin line between lust and morality. Sin and sinning. He turns me to face him again, and this time I’m seeing him for real. Under dim light and heavy-lidded eyes, I’m putting pieces of a puzzle together, but they’re just becoming even more scrambled.
“You keep looking at me like that, and I’ll think you’re actually into me.” He says to me, a breathy laugh escapes his lips. I see it as a challenge.
“So what if I do?” I say it with intensity, before the thoughts of Stockholm syndrome can hit me. He leans in again, closer this time, but not to kiss me. No, he’s more careful than that.
He presses his mouth beside my ear, “Goodnight, Angel.” He says it and dissolves into the crowd of people around us. I’m standing by myself in the middle of the dance dancefloor, stunned and nonplussed. I was stuck in a fog, in a memory, but when he left suddenly the room looked brighter and sounded louder, and Debra, smiling at me and weaving through the crowd, beamed 10 times over.
“Do you know where Rudy is? I can’t find him anywhere.” She asks me.
“I think he went to the bathroom over there.” I say, not even looking in that general direction. She walks past me, and maybe it’s the smell of her perfume that makes my eyes sting or the big drunk guy who keeps hitting my shoulder, but I think it’s time I went home.
The walk back to my car is a blur, and I don’t remember saying goodbye to Deb or even if the bouncer gave me a second glance. I only remember the sound of grown men yelling outside and homeless people sleeping on the pavement and how suddenly cold it got outside when the sun was kissing the moon. When I get home, my throat is dry and my chest is hollow. I leave the lights off, lock the door, and walk into darkness, like I’m afraid to see something I’m not ready for.
I drop my platforms by the door; my accessories and pendant hit the floor next. I don't even look at the knife again since I left it where it landed. On the tile. Near the cutting board. I’m afraid if I pick it up, I’ll read it again. I shower in silence, with cold water and only the emptiness of the house to accompany me. I scrub until my skin is tender, like I can wash the memory off me.
Sleep doesn’t come easy. Everything feels unfamiliar, off, since I know now that the person who’s been in my house is so close yet so far out of my reach. The AC kicks in with a loud whine, and I flinch like it’s a scream. I lie there, staring at the ceiling, tracing the outline of the darkness and where my lamplight diminishes it.
And still, he’s under my skin.
When I finally do sleep, I dream I’m back in the dark room again. Not the club. Not Deb’s place. But the real one. The one with metal floors and a voice I can’t place taunting me. I say something; I can’t remember what, but I do remember light but rough hands grazing my hair and tugging with clumsy force. I remember blisters on my bottom lip after my parents rushed to my side and screamed, “Where did you go?” and “What happened to you?”
I remember a picture of me in a local newspaper; my parents threw it into a fire, and I’d forgotten it ever existed. Fire was how you escaped a bad memory, and that’s how I remembered them.
In that fire.
The screaming of the neighbourhood—
When I wake up, it isn’t screaming, though. It’s sirens.
Not the blaring kind that wails down the street and vanishes into someone else’s nightmare. No, these are parked. Stationery. Flashing red and blue bleeding through the blinds, pulsing right outside. I sit up slowly, migraine throbbing in my head and body heavy with remnants of alcohol. I move to the window and peel the blinds open with two fingers. Two cop cars. One unmarked. Caution tape was already being strung up like party décor next door.
“Fucking Zach, what did you do to that girl?” I step outside the door barefoot, everything about me still soaked in the afterglow of sweat and regret. A female officer eyes me but doesn’t say anything.
And then I see her.
That girl from last night. Standing outside in one of those tacky robes that you can buy secondhand for $12. Makeup in ruins, and arms crossed. Her baby tee—my baby tee—is balled up in her fist.
She’s crying, saying, "I didn’t do anything." I woke up, and he was just… gone like that.” Her voice cracks. “I thought he was asleep.”
But the EMTs aren’t rushing; they’re quiet, professional…slow.
Because he’s dead.
Zach’s body is wheeled out under a pale blue sheet, and for a moment the wind picks up just enough for me to see the outline of his neck. It's too clean. Like a warning.
I take a step back inside and close my door, locking it, and slide down until I’m sitting on the floor in my underwear, mouth dry, heart racing.
That girl is going to be blamed. She's young, she's hysterical, and she's easy to write off, but I know it wasn’t her.
I know the difference between a messy mistake and a message.
And Rudy would never leave a loose end.
masterlist.