Work Text:
She appears one night. As of course she would. Jimmy rattles the security door closed, rooting around for the right key to lock it, and when he turns around there she is. Blonde hair shining under the harsh fluorescents.
“Hi.”
His mouth goes dry and his heart is thumping madly in his ears. “Hi.” It’s croaky and rough, a voice he can barely recognise as his own, and he wonders if she can.
“I uh, think I may have left my wallet in your store.” Her voice is pitched slightly above her natural register. There’s a glint in her eye, sparkling above a swirl of emotions.
“Um - oh.” It takes his brain a few seconds longer to adjust, after all this time, to register what she’s doing. “I - I’ve just cleared everything. No wallet.” He means to shrug, arms swinging outwards in a show of earnestness, but his muscles are too tense to obey command, instead their sole focus is keeping his knees from hitting the tiled floor.
“Huh, well, I guess I’ve got it somewhere.” She lamely pats at empty pockets, eyes never leaving his. “It’s late - you wouldn’t mind walking me to my car, would you?”
Jimmy’s chest tightens as his breath leaves him all at once. He stammers out some noise in the affirmative, then gestures downwards. “I just gotta -” He jostles the garbage bag in his hand to complete the sentence. A muscle tugs at the corner of her mouth and she makes some imperceptible gesture for him to move before falling into step with him.
Jimmy leads them down the corridors, breath sharp in his chest, terrified of looking across at her in case suddenly she’s just gone. He hazards a couple of glances before losing his nerve. He’s sure her footsteps must be echoing in the empty mall, but he can’t tell over the pounding of his heartbeat. She didn’t used to wear heels out of work hours. He desperately wishes he could hear what kind of shoes she’s wearing now. He catches himself mid-thought and realises what a pathetic wish that is.
They get to the dumpster room and as he shoves the door open with his shoulder and hip, reflexively moving to kick the doorstop underneath, the weight lifts from his side. She’s at the door, leaning almost casually against it, holding it open. He means to say thank you but his throat just constricts wordlessly. Moving quickly he flings the bag over the side of the metal bin, turning just as fast to make sure she’s still there — and she is. Back pressed up against the door, one hand resting on the handle, eyes glimmering with something else now. He can see her breath, where it expands in her ribcage, wonders, dimly, whether his lungs are moving at all — it doesn’t feel like it.
He slips through the door, watching her the entire time, just in case, doesn’t dare relish the heat he feels as their bodies pass mere inches from one another. He watches as she lets the door fall closed, barely hears it slam. They fall into step again, this time it’s him following her, and this feels better. It doesn’t ease the tension in his shoulders or the weight coiled in his chest, but there is an unbalancing comfort in being able to follow someone again. She leads them back through the corridors, through the silent mall, towards the darkened parking lot.
The icy wind cuts through them as they step outside, and Jimmy is briefly thankful for the chill in his bones. Surely hell would be warmer. Surely the fresh air would have woken him.
The car they approach is foreign to him. Of course it would be. Maybe it’s a rental — no, too much paperwork. Without him realising it she has produced a key and the car in front of them chirps, making him jump.
“Need a lift?” And it’s closer to her natural cadence now, the previous airs disappearing in their increased isolation.
“Sure,” tumbles out of his dry mouth, full of desperation and fear and hope. His vocal chords spasm trying to produce a single syllable more and fail.
The car chirps again as the engine starts, locking them in. His eyes lock onto her profile, but she doesn’t look over at him. Knuckles curled around the wheel she stares into the cold darkness and says, “Not yet.”
The drive is silent. With each street Jimmy becomes increasingly more hopeful and terrified in turns. At one set of lights he’s sure he is about to start babbling, overflowing with endless unshared words, the breaking of a dam. By the next intersection he’s convinced this is putting them in certain danger, ears pricking in anticipation of gunshots, sirens. Time is lost to his oscillating emotions, played out to the vision of her pale profile, flickering under the streetlights, until finally they slow into a driveway. The ignition switches off, and in the darkness she reaches into the middle console, flicks her wrist and produces a slim wallet.
“Ah, there we go. Must have had it all along.” The words slowly fall into her normal tone, become pointed as she allows the wallet to fall open. Jimmy’s eyes dart down and he sees the little square in the faint streetlight — it’s her, gazing unamused back at him, but the name is wrong.
Claire Gillespie.
He looks up at her, away from the ID, mouth open, and she sees the question forming and says, “Not yet.” It sounds heavy in her throat.
She unlocks the door and the interior light turns on, spilling harsh golden light into the cabin. “Can I offer you a drink?” Her pitch shifting upwards again, tone lilting. He doesn’t answer, just gets out of the car and follows her up to the house. He watches her deft movements at the front door, the easy way her fingers twist and the lock clicks, but it feels delayed, like trying to move faster in a dream only to be weighed down, slower and slower.
The door shuts behind them and suddenly it’s just them in the darkened hallway. Nothing else exists. Jimmy can hear her breathing now, the sharp edge to it, the way it’s almost ragged with fear? Hope? They hold each others gaze through two, three breaths, stretching into eternity, and the glimmer is gone now, no longer obscuring the raw emotion held within. He thinks of uncut sapphires. Another breath. It sounds like the desert, vast and terrifying. And gradually, in the darkness, behind the imagined safety of a locked door a spark, an ember of confidence begins to grow and the words start to form in his throat, his hands almost daring to reach out to her. But he’s not sure whether —
“Now.” She says it as though she’s standing at the edge of the world.
He takes a step forward, a hand half way to her jaw, drawn there by impulse, magnetic.
“Kim.” His voice almost breaks, and once again he feels his knees struggle not to give way. There’s tears in the corner of her sapphire eyes and her lips, pressed together in a quivering line, the last line of defence, give up the fight.
“Jimmy,” and it’s a whisper but it feels loud, the sound of his name on her lips so miraculous he imagines he would be able to hear it from the ends of the earth. Then the space between them closes, the hand at her jaw shifts to hold the back of her neck as Kim’s arms clamp tightly around him, vicelike. His other hand clutches into her side, grazing her ribs.
“Jimmy,” she whispers, so close he can feel the movement of her lips against his cheek. “Jimmy.”
Her name flows over his lips like a cascade, like he’s afraid he might never get to say it again, and eventually his voice does break, and he can feel that there are hot tears escaping through his lashes, and he doesn’t care. Jimmy can feel the tightness in Kim’s shoulders, the way her back has stiffened, can feel her tears against his cheek and neck, and it’s the most alive he’s felt in a long time. Being Gene hasn’t been so bad, but being Gene without Kim has been nothing short of torture. Slow, painful, biblical torture. And he thinks, if he died right now, he might be okay with that. But he hopes he doesn’t.