Gethsemane
AUTHOR: Lucky.
DISCLAIMER: Except for the creations of the author, all characters, characterizations, situations, and locations described in this unsolicited and not-for-profit work of fiction are the property of ABC Television, Capitol Cities, Inc., Steven Bochco Productions, the many talented people who created the world of NYPD Blue, and the actors who have made that world such a lively place. The author would also like to extend her personal gratitude to Mr. Scott Cohen for his light, his vitality, his inspiration, and for being such a compelling muse. Thank you, sir.
FEEDBACK: To Lucky
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Gethsemane is the name of the city where the biblical
Betrayal took place.
She walked into the dark depot, listening to the sounds of the river splash off the concrete walls. Until she'd played the message on her answering machine, she hadn't even known that CitiWide had a riverfront depot.
That message. It sounded for all the world like a child using a device to alter his voice. She'd barely recognized him through the raw little squeal of his emotions, but she knew it was Harry. He'd promised her his death, offered her his blood, told her carefully where he would be, but offered no invitation.
She had to come.
As she took careful, quiet steps, her foot hit something other than the concrete floor and drew her attention. It was an article of clothing. She picked it up, seeing the CitiWide logo on the front right of the blue blazer. Wasting a moment to ponder her find, her eyes wandered along the floor.
A red tie lay at the bottom of the steps leading to the roof.
A man's oxford, discarded at the fifth step.
A woven leather belt slung over the railing around the ninth.
She followed his trail, picking each item up as she went along. When she reached the landing, she found more.
A scuffed pair of men's shoes in front of the rooftop door.
She pushed open the door, coming on a dirty concrete staircase. A pair of men's dress slacks lay in a crumpled pile in the middle of them. She looked up to the outside door as she collected more of his clothing, seeing his white tee hanging from the knob, swinging a little as the wind from the roof pushed through the open portal.
She knew that wherever he was, he couldn't be very comfortable and began searching through the dim for something to cover him with. After a few moments, she found it. A beaten little blanket lay, carefully folded and draped over a nearby pipe. She noticed as she lifted it that it was not nearly as dirty or worn as she thought it might be, suddenly realizing why, and wondering to herself with a grim smile just how much work gets done around here with people sleeping on the roof landing.
She left his clothing in a little pile on the stairs in favor of carrying the blanket and pushed the outside door open, emerging onto the flat roof of the CitiWide Riverfront Depot.
And there he was.
He stood at the edge of the roof, facing out over the water, shivering as he swayed with the cold wind. He looked, there in his socks and underpants, as if a child had climbed up to see the water, gentle and small and inquisitive, wearing himself shamelessly. But he was not without shame.
He simply had nothing left to shame.
"Denby?"
His swaying stilled, leaving just his shivering.
"Step back from there and come inside before you make yourself sick."
"I am already sick," he mourned to the water. "I have been sick forever."
"Standing outside in your underwear until you freeze to death isn't going to make it better, Harry."
He gave a bitter, ringing laugh. "You don't think so?" He turned to face her, moonlit and pale. "I've been out here like this every night for a month. It was colder when I started."
"Why did you call me this time, then?"
He pointed to a bruise on his arm. "I fell today. I had a..." his hands drew a largeish square in the cold before him, "a box... and I tripped on the stairs..." He sounded distant, like the words going through his brain were traveling faster than the ones coming out his mouth. "And I fell."
"I don't understand."
His mouth curled up in a sad little smile and he looked back out over the river.
"I was always afraid before that if I jumped, I would fly."
She took a few silent steps towards where he stood on the ledge. "Why are you afraid to fly?"
He leveled wide eyes on her, speaking in a breaking rattle. "I don't want it anymore, Diane! Don't you get it? This..! I can't..!" He put his hands into his hair, pulling at his head with a tortured yowl. "I want it gone!" His hands dropped to his sides and he looked at her, panting, cocking his head with the disbelief of a little boy.
"Why can't you kill me? Why won't you stop me like you promised?"
She looked at the mess of his hair, shining blue in the moonlight. The blood red and ice white of his face.
"Please help me," he whimpered quietly. "End me."
She dropped the blanket and slid her hand into her coat.
He gathered up in a big, shaking sigh, turning fully to her and letting his head drop back, breaking into a wild grin as he heard her gun cock. He pointed a triumphant finger at the sky.
"You're next, asshole."
Diane stood forever, her gun centered on his heart, her finger ready. He wanted to go. He was ready to go. It was over and it was exactly as it needed to be.
She just couldn't do it.
With a violent scream, she lifted her gun to the cold stars and fired until her clip was empty. When she could expel no more, she collapsed, wracking with sobs, pitching the weapon away as if she held fire. Over her hell, she heard him scream back at her.
"Judas! Worthless betrayer!" Before she could lift her hands to defend herself, he planted his foot in her shoulder, kicking her onto her back and falling over her, pinning her on his hands and knees. "I thought we had a deal!" He raised his fist across his body, ready to beat his promised death out of her.
She turned away as far as she could, squeezing her eyes shut and screaming the only reason she ever had for him.
"I love you!"
He was nothing but silence for several seconds, then the hand he'd lifted to crush her with came down to cup her chin roughly, forcing her face up to his.
"Open your eyes."
She only cried.
"Open your eyes!"
She opened her eyes as wide as she could, seeing everything about him at once.
"Say it again."
"I love you," she whispered.
He began to tremble like pilings in a storm, his breath coming ragged and hot on her face. "Again..."
"I love you."
"How many times?"
"Until you believe me."
His underpinnings failed him and he laid himself along her body, resting his head on her shoulder. "I'll never believe you."
She put her hands up, stroking his hair, pressing kisses to his forehead.
"Then I'll never stop saying it."
He stayed, his body cooling on top of hers, shivering slightly, then completely, then horribly. She moved her hands over all of him that she could reach, trying to keep him warm, but she finally had to admit defeat.
"Harry, get up," she whispered, nudging at him with her nose.
He gave a complicit little sigh and obeyed, dragging himself off to her side and rolling up into a little ball, rocking back and forth on his haunches while she scrambled to her knees, retrieving the blanket and covering him head to toe. As she tucked the blanket around him, he passed his knuckles under his nose with a sniffle.
"What am I gonna do, Diane?"
She knelt down behind him, rubbing his back and shoulders through the blanket to warm him up. "What do you mean?"
His rocking slowed to keep rhythm with her hands and the only sounds that came out of him were grumbly little purrs of pleasure. Slowly, like a dog pulling itself up for the perfect cuddle, he leaned back until he was resting against her, gazing up at the stars. She dropped her arms down his chest and asked again.
"Harry, what do you mean, what are you gonna do?"
The blanket beneath her wrists stroked her gently as he talked. "It's all wrong. The girl... she was so pretty, and she was so... right there in front of me, and I was so... useless."
She very nearly asked him what he meant, then realized it. "Do you love her?"
"I'm sure she's mistaken it for that."
"Anyone else who might mistake it?"
He gave a little chuckle. "Everyone... her stupid husband. A half- dozen Columbian heroin shippers... that damn undercover narc... the moron who keeps following me around..." He turned his face up, rubbing his cheek against her coat. "Just once I wish I had the balls to screw over everyone in the Big Asshole Parade." He blew out a soft little sigh. "But I can't seem to get out of being the Grand Marshall."
"Was that the only reason you wanted to die?"
He pointed his eyes up at her. "Not until recently."
She traced her fingertips over his lips. "What was until recently?"
His eyes fluttered closed and he took a little swallow before answering.
"Nobody loves me."
"I love you." Diane lifted her hands, stroking her fingers back through his hair as he squirmed himself around to rest his head in her lap. "I love you, and I'm gonna get you out of this."
He opened his eyes to look at her inverted face above him. "Tell me, Diane," he murmured. "Tell me a story."
She put her head up, laughing. "No, no, no... I don't know what's going on. You tell me a story."
He looked up into the stars and unfocused. "Well, once upon a time, there was a handsome devil of a prince who made the mistake of nailing an evil hag who's brother was in a Columbian drug cartel." Diane giggled a little as he started in on his fairy tale with flavor. Harry smiled and continued. "The evil hag blackmailed the prince, so the prince had to pretend to be smitten with her while he thought like hell about how to get rid of her. Eventually, she told the prince all about her and her stupid husband's plan to steal five million dollars of uncut smack from her brother."
"And what did the prince do?"
Harry closed his eyes, smiling blissfully. "He told the Columbians all about it."
"So I take it she's dead."
He looked up into her eyes again, his grin turning slick and wicked. "She hasn't been to work in a couple of days, if that's what you're asking."
Diane had to chuckle. "You're evil."
"I know."
"So what would it take to convince everyone you did it?"
He watched her eyes for a moment, then sat up and turned around, facing her down on all fours. "What are you getting at?"
"Answer me."
"Me saying I didn't. What's your point?"
She took to her hands and knees, coming nose to nose with him. "If you killed this woman and her husband, then if a cop killed you, it would be okay, right?"
He tilted his head a little, his eyes just starting to sparkle. "I don't believe it."
"Believe what?"
"You're scheming."
She pointed her eyes up and right, batting her lashes a little. "Maybe."
He pushed himself forward, nuzzling at her. "You're wicked."
She smiled gently and spun her own fairy tale for him as he bit his lip and whimpered in rapture. "So this trick blackmailed you and you killed them both to keep them quiet about the job, which you jump the gun on anyway, and maybe a few Columbians go down in the process, right?"
"Oh, you're evil," he moaned, making a throw for her mouth.
She pulled back and continued. "Now here's the trick. You have to take a hostage, or I can't kill you."
He crawled forward slowly, setting her back onto her heels. "Oh, god, you're killing me now..." He let out his breath in a soft, high whine. "Hurt me..."
"Oh, it'll hurt. Trust me."
It started in the pit of his stomach, just like it had when she'd slapped him that night in the bar. Oh, how sick he was to find such pleasure in the way she twisted his hatred, forced it into his pain, burned him with it until it shrieked with him. But this was something new entirely. His untouchably perfect Goddess Diane was tickling his mind with her fork-tongued hiss. He tried to relieve it, shaking himself, clawing through his thoughts. He wanted to stop her, to quiet the mouth of this torturing angel.
He wanted to hear her scream.
He pounced, feeling the steam rise from his heated flesh as the blanket fell away, nipping at her in through her flurried defenses, taking release in her pained squeal, finding joy in her angry snarl.
"I'm gonna like putting you down, Denby."
He crushed her mouth in a destroying kiss, biting at her lips until she howled, singing for him. His brain raced, flashing manically. This couldn't be love. "I'm so sick..." he whimpered. "I deserve it... I deserve to be hurt..."
She had no idea what he was doing. Was he going to make love to her? Was this how he wanted her? She could taste her blood in her mouth, even as she felt his in her nails. What was this? It was insanity. It was pain and terror and unity and night and cold and dark and...
"I love you."
He froze entirely, then opened like light. She had to stare. She'd never seen anything like it before. He panted and burned on top of her, trapped in a passion. She waited, watching, as he slowly came back down to earth.
"Make love to me," she whispered, lifting a hand to stroke his damp face.
Her words appeared to spark a little war inside him, which he seemed to lose in a short, frantic skirmish. "I can't," he choked back. "I'm so worthless." He dropped his head into the crook of her neck. "I'm sorry." He thought for a second, then snapped his head back up, making his eyes roll dizzily. "What's Sorenson?"
She considered carefully. "A proxy."
His eyes slipped shut as he hissed at her. "Betrayer."
Her hand stilled against his jaw as her eyes slammed out the night. "I am." The breath she dragged in caught dangerously in her throat. "Oh, god, I am."
He kissed her, soothing her mouth now, touching her tears as they fell. She felt him begin to draw himself up, pull himself away from her and she reached for him, wanting him, wanting to keep him. Still, he broke away, drawing the blanket up over her and taking his feet. Nothing about him had changed.
But the child she'd come up here to find was gone.
"When you betray me again, you'll know it's time."
She twisted the edge of the blanket in her hands. "What?"
He ran his hands through his hair, suddenly composed. "When I send him to you, deny me. The next day, kill me." He leveled a finger at her. "Only you. Don't let them stop you. Anyone else gets killed on sight."
A shiver ran down her spine, ceasing her tears with a startled snap.
"It's done."
He watched her for a moment, then turned on his heel and disappeared. Diane turned up to the stars, listening as the rooftop door opened, then slammed, and strained to hear the sound of his steps as he scooped up his clothing and headed away. After several minutes, she heard a two-cycle engine turn over, rev with a squeal, and fade from a roar into nothing behind the wind above and the water below.
She counted stars for a moment, thinking about the bloodpact she was in now.
"First you," she whispered, "and then all are betrayed."
Continued in Forty-Seven Days.
