the air chills in an instant. there are her hands, pressed against the other side of the glass, pale and pathetic, and those sad, sad eyes. her voice is even sadder.
"i was married once. or i think i was."
tap, tap, tap. the glass ripples like water.
"i thought i had the world. i thought, after misery, after being such a lonely person, i finally figured it out."
wriggles. her arms, smeared with blood, slowly push through. her face. her curls stick to her forehead as she dangles, half out of the wall, holding herself up with the frame.
a painful smile. one hand, outreached. her cool, damp fingers, sticky and red.
"i think you're lonely. i think you're just like me."
"i think i can help you."
the kiss is soft, and slow. louise tastes of metal. gin. the stuffy feel of something sick.
So was he, once. Married. Young and eager, the world at his fingertips, everything a man could have wanted. The job, the family, everything you were promised if you just worked hard enough for it, it was all right there, the beginning of something wonderful—
They never said how quickly, how easily it could all be ripped away. One mistake, one catastrophic mistake, and the picture of happiness shatters with no hope of being made whole again no matter how your fingers bleed trying to scrabble for the pieces. The guilt still clings to him like a second skin.
Trench thinks he imagines it at first—the sudden drop in temperature, the chill that crawls beneath his flesh and burrows deep into his bones. Cold air tends to be a bad omen—a precursor to tragedy, to things that struggle to be explained without delving into something bordering on the occult that either invites fanatic discussion or a look that deems the speaker worthy to be committed in the other's mind.
When he sees his breath puff in billows of smoke each time he exhales, the uneasy feeling in his gut gets a name. Trench's eyes snap to the glass now rippling in time with each tap, fluid like water. Louise is moving, distorting the reflection once again. Most notably are the absence of the cracks, the splintering of her image into different facets of her personality, different lives she may or may not have really lived kaleidoscopically mashed together to create something out of the chaos. She's whole, whatever exactly that means for her.
The Service Weapon shudders at his hip, pulsing with energy.
Trench's feet are anchored to the ground, limbs no longer obeying. Her bloody hand reaches out and Trench stiffens as she brushes her fingers along his face with a deceptively gentle, affectionate touch, leaving a trail of red ice on his skin at the points of contact. He shivers, the lines between his brow growing deeper.
Her hand cups his face—like Kate once did, like Casper does in stolen moments of foregone professionalism—she is both of them at once and neither of them, disorienting and tender and terribly cold, and all these contradictory sensations send his thoughts into a dizzying spiral.
The words ring true—hit a little close to home. He won't admit that. Can't. It's his cross to bear, his penance, an inevitability. Trench keeps his expression carefully neutral, his face a mask that doesn't quite cover the truth bleeding out through his eyes.
Her lips are on his before he can get the words out, filling his head with the hiss of old television static. The kiss is too soft, too gentle—more than he deserves—reminiscent of a lover, of fleeting moments of happiness turned sour.
There's a metallic taste on his tongue. Alcohol—familiar, comforting, but not his, he's never been a fan of gin—and the more he actively thinks about it, the louder the hiss of the static grows, stuffing his head full of cotton.
The moment stretches ad infinitum until Louise pulls back, looking through him. Trench can feel the ice in his lungs spreading with each breath he takes. The feeling of wrong races through him, twisting, wanting to find the spaces in which to make itself right. He won't allow it. Trench's eyes narrow. The Service Weapon vibrates at his hip, insistent now.
"—I don't need the help." He sounds breathless, distant. The phantom touch lingers on his skin. "Don't do that again."
