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The chandelier overhead casts a harsh shadow across his face, and Grimsley can still see its light from behind his eyelids. It burns a little.
There’s a loose heaviness to his tongue and to his fingers, and as he brings the glass to his lips it nearly slips out of his grasp. But somehow he manages to keep it from falling away, not that it matters much; the slow-melting ice is all that’s left and all it does is clink around in the glass uselessly. Lowering the rim from his mouth, Grimsley gingerly places the near-empty glass onto the floor. When he draws his hand back up his fingers are trembling. He presses the hand to his face, drags it down until his fingers fall off at his chin.
Grimsley twists and turns, stretching himself out across the couch. Crossing his legs at the ankles and ignoring how his sweat sticks his skin to the fine leather upholstery of the couch. The sigh that comes up and out stings his throat in that uncomfortably raw sort of way. He squeezes his eyes shut, the swirling patterns behind his vision an easy distraction. Still, they eventually fade away. It always does, everything always does. He rubs at his eyes, a few more seconds with those dizzying patterns. It’s not enough— never is; the hollow emptiness left behind is worse now than it ever was before. He really shouldn’t have expected anything different.
Something blots out the light that still bleeds through his lids— it happens so suddenly it almost startles him. Still, the emptiness of what’s left behind is comforting in a sense. Grimsley keeps his eyes shut despite the something new that he should probably be paying attention to. He’s been running on borrowed time for a while now: what difference does a few moments make?
Inhaling through his nose, Grimsley quirks a brow before he even opens his eyes. The gentle scents of bergamot and honey tickle his senses and as he cracks open an eye to confirm, Caitlin’s tired eyes bore into his own. An ocean of endless blue.
A halo of warm amber light surrounds her head. It’s an ethereal look. Caitlin gazes down at him, a sort of practiced stillness to her gaze.
“You make quite the lovely lampshade, dearest,” he purrs in lieu of an actual greeting.
“Aren’t lampshades supposed to be transparent?”
“I think you fit the role perfectly well.” Almost on cue, something in her shifts. It’s not a particularly strong thing, but as Grimsley’s eyes flit across her face it’s impossible not to see. The shifting of weight between her feet evens out— just a touch more distributed to the left than the right— and she picks under her nails. Not exactly tells, but something similar. She’d be terrible at poker, either way.
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“Maybe so.” He tries his best for a teasing smirk, but he’s not too sure he succeeds. “What brings you here this time of night?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Yet you didn’t.”
“Fair enough.”
Something in her expression shifts again, taking on a suspicious quirk to the wrinkles in her forehead. She looks at him, really looks, and Grimsley can’t help but squirm.
“Come on, move over,” Caitlin instructs. When he doesn’t, the gentle pulsing warmth of her psychic powers cocooning him. He’s raised off the couch just enough for Caitlin to get herself situated before he’s lowered back down; his feet hang off the far end and his head rests on her lap, gently cushioned by the thick layers of her dress.
He sighs, and what’s left of the wiry strength in his limbs fades away. He tries to settle but as he closes his eyes he can’t help but notice how much worse the lighting is from this angle. Honestly, a chandelier and braziers? He really wasn’t thinking when he designed this place.
“Something wrong?”
“The lighting in here is ridiculous.”
“You say that as if it’s my fault,” she huffs. Still, he can feel her move beneath him, raising a hand and snapping her fingers. Even through his eyelids he can see how much darker the room has gotten.
Grimsley peeks up at the chandelier, eyes catching on the fine curls of smoke coming from the extinguished wicks. “Quite the party trick.”
She hums nonchalantly. “If you say so.” Caitlin’s hands begin to toy with a lock of his hair, twirling it around her fingers in an endless loop.
“Oh, please don’t,” Grimsley protests, swatting her away.
He can hear the pout in her voice. “Why not?”
“I’m graying!” he bemoans, like it’s anything to really be upset over. “No one needs to see all that.”
“And I started getting frown lines when I was eleven: we can be hideous together.” She moves a finger down the curvature of his cheek: the tapered edge of her nail runs through every valley, as miniscule as their depth is.
“That’s not anything like what I said.”
“It’s what you meant.”
“I… sure. If that’s what makes you feel better.” Her hands migrate back over into his hair, the acrylic nails running pleasant little rows along his scalp. Grimsley hums. “Manicured? That’s not like you, dear.”
“I didn’t choose it. Shauntal and I got them done together.” She pauses a moment, inspecting the glimmering polish. “She paid for it. Nothing much mattered to me after that.”
Grimsley puffs out an amused breath through his nose. Beneath him Caitlin fidgets and goes to cross her legs, but as one swings over the other, the sound of shattering glass filling the empty air between them. He tries to sit up but only succeeds in getting caught by the shoulder and laid back down; when he twists his head Grimsley sees the shards floating about three feet off the ground, piecing themselves back together until they’re repaired, perfectly so.
“Not perfect,” Caitlin corrects. “I just put it back together, it’s not fixed.”
“Is that so?“
“It is. It may look the same, but structurally, it's not as sound as it was before.”
“But it still works.”
“Theoretically, yes.”
Grimsley sits up and grabs the glass, freeing it from suspended animation. With as much dignity as he can muster, he spits into the glass. He smirks. “See? It works perfectly.”
“Does it now?” Caitlin wrinkles her nose. “And what about when there’s more than… that in it? What will happen then, in the hands of someone else?”
She reaches for the glass, grabbing it by the rim and trying to pull it away. He resists, obviously, and all it takes is that swift tug for something to shatter between them.
“I… suppose you have a point,” Grimsley concedes, examining the blood running down his fingers and the shards of glass in his lap.
Caitlin huffs and reconstructs the glass once more, her powers easing it gently to the ground. The silence that spans between them seems different than before. Somehow. Before he can think better of it, Grimsley opens his mouth.
“I’m so tired, Cait.”
She doesn’t say anything for a few moments. When she finally does, the words are simple. “So rest.”
Whether she knows it or not, Caitlin’s given him a choice. It would be too easy to roll his eyes and pretend like there’s nothing beneath his words. It’s easy, but he doesn’t.
“It’s not… that type of tired.” The words pain him, almost.
If she notices anything, Caitlin doesn’t let it show on her face. “Sleep anyway, there’s no harm in it.”
“It’s time lost looking for an answer.”
Caitlin laughs, and the noise reverberates in his ears. There’s something about it that’s so cruel, with a harsh edge and a ferocious bite. When she speaks, kindness leeches back into her tone. “You of all people should know better than to think like that. Sometimes when you flip a coin, it doesn’t come down at all.”
“And what if I want it to come back down?”
She gazes down at him, hair falling free from where it was tucked behind her ear. “We don’t always get a choice. Sometimes… we’re snatched up and taken away by the whims of fate.”
“I didn’t think you believed in fate.”
Caitlin makes a noncommittal noise. “That’s neither here nor there.”
Grimsley frowns, ignoring the heaviness in his chest. “Are you telling me to leave?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, love.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I think it’s a perfectly acceptable answer.” And still she opens her mouth to grant him another. “Think of it less like telling you to go and…” Caitlin’s face pinches as she searches for her next words, “more like setting you free.”
“I’m plenty free.”
“There’s only so far you can do with one hand wrapped around the bottle and the other always rolling the dice. The house always wins, love. Leave while you’re ahead.”
“I’m not.” He isn’t quite sure which part he’s objecting to.
“Then leave before they run you dry.”
“A thirsty village will stop at nothing to save themselves. I am no village.”
“No, you’re not.”
Grimsley groans, limbs going slack as unease begins to seep back into him. “What will the others think?”
“They haven’t lived a day in your skin. To hell with what they think.”
He laughs; a small and pitiful noise.
“Sometimes there is no easy answer.” Caitlin sighs and her eyes grow distant. “But at the end of the day there is only one who bears the weight of your sins.”
“I know.” He says the words, goes through the motions. He’s lived like that far too long. “I know,” his voice repeats, raw at the edges.
“There’s nothing wrong with turning away: sometimes it’s your best option. Don’t take that away from yourself.”
“Of course.”
Something about his offhandedness changes something in her. Caitlin clicks her tongue and pokes him between the eyes, almost patronizingly. “Get some sleep, then; you’ll feel better in the morning.”
Grimsley’s been telling himself that for quite a long time now. Yet he still closes his eyes and draws in a long breath, the scent of bergamot and honey heavy in the air.