Out Of Control 13

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AnCatKatie

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Oh my, 2 chapters in one day...exhausting to write so much... :yawn:

I like this much more than the '86 one I wrote after it, maybe because I had a whole lot more energy to write it...and I realized I'd forgotten this part of what happened when Ruth was at Isaac's...

Warnings: language. Violence. Etc.

***


1978​

Ruth awoke feeling more full around the edges, more real, than she had earlier in the week. A faint warmth a little ways away from her, a dark shape in the thinning predawn darkness was Isaac. He hadn’t asked why she had been moving so little—guilt clamped its hands across her belly and squeezed, like some forewarning. She’d sat, relieved to be alone, in the bathroom the afternoon before and absently put her hair up. It contrasted to the weariness on her face. She felt a tingling rush of exhaustion still throughout her. Yesterday her interactions with Isaac had been like that of an old woman; she’d kissed him on the cheek, and tried not to cry when he looked at her.

It had been a week since she assumed she was pregnant, and no red contradiction yet. Something kept her here with him. This bare existence, in the dark hotel among the stark sky-scratching oppressive buildings, gave her too little or too much to do and let her mind run free. She’d thought furiously for the past few days, ideas halfheartedly scrawled across her mind against the weight of the air or of the thick layers of clothing she pulled over herself against the still-chilling March air and Isaac’s gaze. She felt like he could see through her body to the little kernel of cells that had no right to set root in her at a time like this. Her days had been full of running; occasional escapes to the outside and away from him, the heady rush of fresh air and the sight of grass or trees heartening her. This week was a strange pause, a null space of neither love nor hate for him. But that could not last, she knew. She was still very, very afraid.

Ruth stood up, the exhaustion of yesterday settling to her feet and dissipating, pulling her sweater over her head in the bare scrap of light and shivering with the air across her bare shoulders and chest, then slipping out of her pants and going into the bathroom to wash up. Before she did, she stared for a moment outside. Nothing had changed, but the dimness hid the uglier aspects of the city and blanketed it in soft grey, muting the lights beginning to be turned on. The moment passed, she shook her head at herself, naked near the open window, then stepped into the shower and let the water hiss over her.

She walked downstairs to scavenge a roll or two for breakfast, and heard some of the hotel staff talking about she and Isaac. She looked over, unnoticed as Eve, and continued on her way, thinking. Someone had assumed they were married. Ha.

It hit her like a great weight, just then, at the bottom of the stairs. She had to stop herself from any outward signs of realization, and walked over, found some bread and slapped some jam on it, then gave the man at the desk her hotel key and walked carefully outside, barely able to eat. Her eyes widened. The cold air rushed along her arms through the sweater like lightning, invigorating with her sudden thought.

I don’t have to stay with him.

Because what the fuck did it matter if he was in her life or not? If somehow things didn’t work out and she was stuck with him and a baby? She would never be happy. She just—could. Not. Live with him. It hadn’t been a silent week, it had been building tension. If he had touched her once, at all, in the last few days, the tension would have snapped and she would have hit him and run as far as she could. She was done with this.

She ran, her heels burning after a few blocks, the air whipping past her and stinging her cheeks. She felt like laughing. Migod, it’s over. Her hair whipped behind her and her pace increased, the sidewalk rushing past, and she forgot that anything about her had changed. Something made her stop where she had been before. The door hung darkly open, in innocent cracked blue paint, and the blinds were still open. There was a bicycle wheel just inside the doorway that Isaac’s da had tripped on when coming into the house.

It smelled strange, inside. She soaked up the dissonance of his house and the quiet after the storm, standing there like something forgotten, and walked forward into the hall, trailing her fingers over the wallpaper. It was crackly and dustily soft beneath her fingertips. She laughed, softly, coming to the bathroom and staring at the chipped bathtub. What on earth had made her so afraid here, when she had been here a week ago? Not everything was coming back. Brief moments of Isaac shielding her with his body from the unknown person outside…him saying something, her escaping to hide here.

She opened the door again and half-stepped out, seeing a photograph fallen over on a shelf a few feet away. She stared at it, not sure who was who, and began to leave the bathroom when her foot thudded on something. The bathmat bunched under her shoe. She leaned down and tugged on it hard and ended up sprawled on the bathroom floor, the bathmat flying out into the hallway from her grip. She blinked, began to push herself up with her hands, seeing only darkness, she was so close to the floor—her hand nudged against something cold. Feck. What was that?

She propped herself up and stared frozenly, picking it up like it was something much heavier. Her hands were cold. She was shaking thinly, and stilled, turning it over in her hands, staring at the hollow void and the handle and closing her eyes, trying to shove it away from her.

There had been a gun with her in the bathroom, she had discovered for the icy half-hour she lay huddled in the waterless bathtub. She’d stared at it in disbelief and wondered why it was there, if it had been used and what could possibly have motivated its use—if she would have to use it to get out of the house. She’d accidentally opened the cylinder after much trial and dropped what bullet she could remove into her hand, giving a small laugh in fear and kneeling on the floor, attempting to flush them down the toilet. It didn’t work; she’d hidden them in the space between the bathmat and the wall, hoping no-one would find them or have reason to need to find them, and then curling up into the bathtub again, feeling like the world had near ended.

She jumped back, shaking, as the door opened.

“Ruth,” Isaac said, too close. “What was that note you left for me? Something about leaving?”

It wasn’t a question. She saw his face was slightly red and shone in little tracks down from his eyes like he’d been crying.

She held up her hand, showing him the gun, eyes wide. “Isaac, what’s this?” she asked in turn. “What’s this doing here? Why do you have a gun in the house, Isaac?”

He blinked, confused for a moment. She had only ever called him Aodan a while, and opened his mouth. But—he was too close—she backed away and felt she had come to the wall, unable to back away any further.

“What the hell made you think I would stay, Isaac?” she asked. Her eyes reflected for a moment and she screamed in fear and surprise just as he did—her numb fingers had slipped as she tried to throw the gun far away—and the room echoed with the crack and the endless roar.

*

Isaac was only aware through the blinking darkness of trying to breathe. The pain was so senseless he had difficulty trying to place it. He curled a hand around the handle of the door and pulled himself up, gasping and falling back down again. He tried once more and raised himself, face pale. He wrapped a jacket around his chest, and looked down. The flickers of consciousness drained down and back to him like water, and he pulled the coat away for a moment. The most blood and the deafening pain was closer to his hip. He would probably live.

He half-walked, half-stumbled, gasping with the shock that came with injury, the streetlights wheeling like great gas planets above him, and dragged himself into the Black Cat, sitting down at the bar and somehow managing to communicate he wasn’t sick or hung over—no, nothing so minor as that—before passing out onto the cold surface. The rain washed away footsteps and blood, blood and footsteps.
 
God, it was satisfying. I do enjoy causing him pain. I'm such a nice author ^^

I'm probably going to have another '78 chapter after this because '86 really isn't getting all that clear to me until after I figure out what happened in the past...

I was noticing the alliteration too :giggle: It's fun!

Oh no! I always make sure the blinds are closed. I don't trust my neighbors :slant:
 
Hahaha, good. I have more inspiration for '78 at the moment, is why. '86 will have actual plot once I get past some '78 stuff...
 
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