just a part of some big plan; DEKKER}

[rivalo]

i just shut down
there's still too much to learn,
just so much to learn



DEKKER

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The moments seemed to stretch into minutes, hours, even days, in the time it took for Dessiree to react to his outstretched hand. If it hadn’t been for the delightful blow of her fully functional air conditioning unit, he would not have been surprised if sweat began to bead across his forehead with the anxiety of it all. This was a pivotal moment for her and he could do absolutely nothing to help her decide what to do. She could opt for change in her life, accepting him and hopefully making a move for the better, or she could reject him completely and disappear into herself and the delicate world she’d constructed out of cards for herself. He wanted to be the cement between those thin slips of cardboard, help her remain standing when the lightest hitch came along to ruin her effort to stay clean and happy. This woman needed someone, and this was the moment she could decide whether she wanted him or not. Dekker maintained eye contact, never wavering and hardly even breathing for fear that it would make her think she was doubting himself and his offer.

Suddenly, her eyes broke away and her crutches smashed to the hardwood flooring before she collapsed on the floor. Surprised, he looked down as she looked up, snatching his hand and tugging him down. She seemed so small and child-like, tugging on his arm like a baby might to encourage him down to her level. As her slender hand wrapped into his larger one a thrill of excitement and terror shot through his every nerve ending; she had accepted him, she’d made her choice, and wanted him with her. He obliged immediately, mind whirling as his anxiety moved from worrying about her acceptance to worrying about what she would say to him. He still couldn’t quite come to terms with the fact that he was purposely putting himself directly into the life of a former addict, the same as those he’d seen in college and looked down upon. He’d always been a little bit afraid of them, afraid of the world he’d been so sheltered from and taught was nothing but a load of taboo, and a one way street to dying unloved, unhealthy, and alone. His mentality had always been one to think, why would anyone choose that path for themselves? Like how someone could purposely eat loads of food until they’re hundreds of pounds overweight and then feel so unattractive they don’t want to do anything about it anyway. At least it seemed like someone could come back from that; addicts, though, were sucked into a black whole with the thinnest of fishing line attached to their bellybuttons. He wasn’t sure what to expect, much less how to respond to what she would say. He had never been good at consolation, not at all, but he knew how to listen in a way that a person needed.

His legs were bent upwards so he could place his arms on the knees of his jeans, eyes fixed upon the face of Dessi. She didn’t look at him one time, not once, and played with the frayed ends of the plush rug she’d lowered them both down upon. He waited patiently, breathing even and face in a firmly set expression of neutrality mixed with mild concern. In reality he wanted to shake her, get her talking so he could hurry up and know how to help. Alas, that would definitely not go over well, much less have positive consequences. He needed to wait, so wait he did. She bit her lip, an endearing motion which under other circumstances might be a turn on, and then looked directly at him again. It was like her bravery came and went like the ocean tides; she was small and timid, then she was back and bold and ready for anything. She started out with parents, something he wasn’t overly surprised to hear considering he firmly believed a ruined adult started from a ruined childhood experience. He kept his face mostly expressionless as she hypothetically asked about his parents; he wasn’t about to tell her, ‘why yes, my parents still adore me to this day,’ when she was about to spill how horrifying her own were.

He listened closely, quietly, letting her put every ounce of her brain power into telling him what had gone on. A moment of distraction and she could realize the extent of what she was telling him and panic, backpedaling and regretting her decision. It was slightly fascinating from a medical as well as inexperienced point of view; how must something be for a person to not care about what happened to them or around them, much less to the people they’ve known their entire lives? What kind of toxicity must it have to create such a feeling that a person’s world can alter to revolve around getting more? She paused, obviously letting her author status play a bit of a role in her tale. He thought maybe she was enjoying it for a moment, and to a certain degree he kind of hoped she was enjoying it, enjoying sharing with him. She seemed to regain her breath and told him emotionlessly about her mother and the way she’d acted when she’d seen her daughter injecting poison into her bloodstream. He couldn’t imagine his mother ever rejecting him for any reason, even this one despite his difficultly in imagining the scenario in the first place. He wouldn’t do it to his own child, he knew that for a fact, and the child wasn’t even born yet. He didn’t even have someone to start a family with yet and he knew he would never reject them so coldly when they needed him most. She laughed, a chilling thing as it was laced with the bitterness she felt in her heart. He didn’t blame her.

She fell back onto the rug, her lengthy hair spreading messily behind her head and for a moment he wanted to neaten it for her, push it back into place the same way he wanted to move her heart back into a regular beat. With her eye contact torn from him his jaw clenched and face reddened involuntarily, able to let his frustration with the concept of her parents out in a more physical way. His fists clenched as they dangled in the air and he looked sideways, feeling a tad bitter himself at the soft rays of sunlight that filtered through big bay windows to play across the floor, small bits of dust floating through the air as if there was nothing but calm in the world. She continued to speak, calling his attention back to her lovely form sprawled on the floor in front of him. The betrayal of her father surely had been an even bigger blow than the rejection of her mother; the cowardice, even years from the day it happened, would have been enough to send himself over the edge. He leaned a little to the side to see her cheek shining, but before his heart even had a chance to swell with emotion for her she’d wiped them away and it was as if they’d never fallen. So, that was where it all started. Or rather, was this when the actual drug use ended? She hadn’t actually told him she’d been on drugs throughout high school, but he deduced as much considering she’d resorted to injections to obtain her high. He knew they didn’t start that way, that injections were as powerful as you could get. So, he assumed this was where some form of recovery started. Recovery from the drug, anyway; not from the psychological effects it had on her.

She sat up, staring at him for several moments likely trying to gauge his reactions so far, but he stared right back and offered a small toothless smile to encourage her along. It was a sad smile, not a happy one, but would be enough to keep her going. She sighed frustratedly, running a pretty hand through her hair and continuing with the scenario. All these years. All these years and still they wanted nothing to do with her. Surely it was out of cowardice, out of shame that they had given up on such a miraculous person as their own daughter. Surely, surely that was why. They couldn’t possibly hate her for recovering.

She quieted, her voice much softer but eyes brimming with unspilled tears he would do anything at that moment to relieve her of. He didn’t say anything at first, instead pursed his lips and let his eyes speak more than his mouth. He tended to ruin things when he spoke. His expression was slightly pained as he was still absorbing the information for himself and realized on his own that this was only the tip of the iceburg for this beautiful woman. She was willing to talk for six hours, but he wasn’t sure that would be the best way to do it. Perhaps they shouldn’t talk about it all at once; slow and steady won the race as far as he was concerned, and he wanted her to know he was absorbing it all. He sighed quietly, never letting his gaze waver from hers. ”Dessi,” he started, letting his masculine voice break the silence lingering there, ”I want you to know that I think you are...” he trailed off, his expression thoughtful and an warm smirk he couldn’t suppress planting itself on his lips. He scooted none too gracefully closer to her, placing his chin squarely on his knee while reaching forward to touch her soft cheek lightly, running his thumb across her skin and reveling in the feel of it. He searched her bottomless eyes and then brushed stray hairs behind her ear ever so gently. ”I think you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.” he said candidly, hoping she surely knew he didn’t just mean physically.

How distasteful and douche-bag-ish would that be at this moment, to hit on her? He kept his eyes on hers and let his hand linger along with his blue eyes, but he only let that statement hang between them for a few moments before breaking eye contact and slowly removing his hand. Then, looking back and acting as if it had never happened, ”I am willing to listen for as long as you want to talk, but I don’t have a problem with cookies either.” he said with a sincere smile, ”Besides, there’s really no decision in this for me. You opening up to me, bringing me inside.. that’s all you. I chose to listen from the moment I met you; I’ve been doing this for a week or so now, you’re just catching up.” he said with another smile, this one brighter as he tried to tease her a little. He wanted desperately to get rid of those tears. ”I am more than happy to take it slow for you. That’s a lot you just told me; you don’t have to tell me more until you’re ready. But when you’re ready, I’m ready.” he said sternly, setting his jaw as if she were more than likely going to fight with him about it. He doubted she would, but one never knew with this girl. That much he already knew. He waited for her now, as the next move was her call. He wanted nothing more than to pull her in close and never let her go until she realized what an amazing person she was, and that the world couldn’t get her when he was around. She looked like she needed a hug for sure anyway, so it took self control not to just swipe her into a bear hug in the first place.

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comments: well i reckon that's around two thousand ish! and by the way, i nearly pissed myself laughing when you said your internet decided to take a shit. priceless.[/blockquote]

[dessi]

you’ve shown me eventually what you’ll do.

There were days when Dessi tricked herself into believing that her parents simply didn’t recognize the things she sent them, that they were filled with denial that they hadn’t given her a chance like they should have, that they threw away an unpolished diamond too soon. Those were the days when Dessi was simply looking for an excuse to give her parents, looking for a way to make them seem less terrible than they really were. Those were the days she spent immersed in her own nostalgia, dreaming, wishing, hoping, praying for better times. Most of the time however, she had come to terms with the fact that her parents hated her simply for the fact that the willpower they thought she had was not as strong as they had boasted. In fact, her mother had prided herself that her children were the cleanest kids in the area. And when one took into consideration her two older twin daughters had gone through high school with a shockingly clean record, with her middle aged daughter in high school and her son about to be in high school; all assumingly sober, why shouldn’t she boast?

Too bad Dessiree broke the mold and thought outside of the box.

What was even stranger to Dessi (and perhaps even more hurtful) was that her sisters refused to talk to her, even on the odd occasion that they ran into each other at the grocery store, and they had been fairly close growing up. The only person of the family that acted like she hadn’t dropped off the face of the planet was her brother. Then again, the last time she had managed to exchange a few words with him, it seemed that Dessiree had blazed a shining new trail for her younger sibling and he too had been dabbling in the dark taboo of drugs; though in all due fairness, he had only tried a bit of weed and he had decided that he would only do drugs at parties. Dessi’s first experience had been with heroin and she’d seldom tried a few other equally dangerous drugs. Perhaps it was best that she got herself stuck on heroin, considering she had toyed with both ecstasy and crack cocaine.

All things considered, shit could have gone a lot worse.

Silence had fallen between them after she had finished talking, and her throat tightened. This happened every time she had told someone just a little bit of her story, silence then abandonment. Once again, she was fighting the urge to shoo him away before he had the chance to leave; best be her own doing than allowing herself to get attached one more time. Such a fickle being she was. To be fair, she had been stupid and let the mistake continue on multiple times before she finally shut down her attempts at reaching out and threw up her defenses. Maybe if she had been given an intervention, a place where all her friends and loving family got together and expressed their worry for her and her habit things would have gone differently. It wasn’t like she didn’t want to change.

Oh, she wanted to change so bad.

But drugs had that funny way of keeping someone dependant until they were dead, never broke as far as money went, just dead. Money was something that was just the middle man of drugs, there was no real thought process on what money or where it came from. So long as they had it they were happy. Now, Dessi was no rich child, and while she could generally maintain a steady income for her drug supply, there were times when she had no money and needed a hit to the point where she’d do just about anything for those drugs. There was a reason that she was friends with primarily drug dealers…male drug dealers. While they would not do it for her all the time, in exchange for money, she’d offer sexual services. It was a twisted world she had found herself locked in. She did not resort to whoring herself for drugs very often because she wasn’t much of a fan of that final option, but she couldn’t deny that she did it.

It was just something she rarely talked about.

Much like her drug addiction, the extremes she followed to finance her expensive ‘hobby’ she was mostly ashamed of. Of course, when she was a practicing, full blown addict, she felt no shame for doing what she did. But hind sight’s 20/20 isn’t it? If only she could have peeked into the future and seen what it had in store for her if she continued on that corrosive path that she had so happily marched on for four years. Obviously, when she had really needed the help and looked around to the bottom of the pit in which she had fallen, it was clear that making friends with drug dealers, male drug dealers no less, was a bad idea. She had needed a place to stay, but she had found that not all dealers were strictly in the drug business, there were quite a few pimps on that list of suppliers.

(Official) Prostitution was not a level she was prepared to sink to at that time in her life.

In fact, it had never been something she had wanted, desired, or planned to do. Of course a few of her books were on the subject of prostitution, but in such a rare event, she was not writing from a direct experience; simply understanding the rules and unwritten commandments was enough to form a fairly successful book. In all honesty, Dessiree pitied prostitutes; she knew that sex and money from sex could be as addicting (and as taboo) as drugs. She could only imagine how her mother would have reacted if she knew how her darling little angel had gotten her drugs at times. Sniffling lightly, she noticed Dekker swiftly and gracefully move closer, and her natural reaction was to tense up and fly back; she’d received her fair share of hits, punches, and slaps to be wary of unexpected movement.

However, what he did was not something she had expected.

When her mom had found out about her drug problem she’d slapped her (as if that’d fix the problem), Dekker now knowing of her past drug problem reacted the opposite. Involuntarily flinching as his hand touched her face, she opened a tightly shut eye to discover the sharp pain of a slap, but just his reaction was not something she was expecting, just the feel of his thumb gliding across her skin, she watched him for a second, still not realizing it was a more affectionate move; instead she was more focused on his words. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had told her she was beautiful. True, complimenting a woman was the quickest way onto her good list (and occasionally into her pants), but Dessi had neve really been the type to search for compliments and mostly ignored them when she got them.

So why was it so important to her now?

Just as quickly as it had occurred, he had withdrawn his hand and was speaking. She closed her eyes and brought her knees up to her chest, listening to him, with her chin resting on her knees. It was strange, how comfortable she felt suddenly, how easily it seemed to talk to him. Then again, there was very little ‘grey’ area between them as far as her own past went. Half the time with new people she met, she was secretive and reserved when it came to her history. Funny how easy it was to connect with someone when the gaps of one’s knowledge was filled with truth. A small smile brightened her face when he said he enjoyed cookies, but was quickly gone when her natural instinct fought with her once more. So dead set in her ways, still terrified to get attached. Which she knew was completely unfair to him; she could see he was trying, and at least she was trying. Obviously there was so much she could do. Looking back towards her kitchen, she shoved away all inhibitions and scooted closer to him, the grabbed his hand and tugged him back up, smiling,
Well, we can bake cookies then, though not a national holiday, today’s a special day.

She left her crutches on the floor and hobbled off to her kitchen, not really wanting to bake cookies, but thankful that she had packaged cookie dough.

It was a ‘special’ day indeed. Four years ago to the date, she had checked herself out of rehab, a sober and changed woman. Turning the oven on she spread a dozen or so spoonfuls of cookie dough onto a baking sheet then slid it into the oven when it was ready. Sitting up on her counter she looked over at Dekker and chewed on the inside of her cheek, trying her best to forget all the sorrows that bubbled to the surface,
Four years ago today, I checked myself out of rehab. It’s not really something I like to celebrate…since that kinda solidified the shitty relationship with my parents, but I guess I can make an exception, I hope you like chocolate chip cookies.
She smiled at him, yet there was still something missing in her smile, like a hole in her heart, or that lack of trust still coming out to play again.

When would she learn that not everyone in the world was out to get her?

Perhaps after she’d lost just about everything and everyone close to her, then maybe she’d learn from her dramatic mistakes.

---

1616
notes: it does! It likes to forget how to work D:<

[rivalo]

i just shut down
there's still too much to learn,
just so much to learn



DEKKER

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It pained him to see her flinch away, eyes shut tightly as if she expected him to slap her or shove her away. How many times did something have to happen before it became expected? Astonishment reached her eyes when she realized he wasn’t out to demean or injure her, and he didn’t quite know what to make of her expression when he told her she was beautiful. He’d expected something more than nothing, but she didn’t even make a sound as his hand moved regrettably away from her. She seemed to cling to his words, though, even if she hadn’t clung to his hand, and he realized that with her actions would more than likely speak louder than words. He could say and do all he wanted right now, but what happened from this point on would show the merit of his words. He waited for something, he half way thought she would want to keep talking, but surprisingly she made a bit of a bittersweet expression and looked towards the kitchen. She moved closer for one heart throbbing moment then stood shakily up with himself in tow. Careful not to lean on her, he rose up accordingly and watched with an astonished smirk as she twirled away with the intention of making cookies. He hadn’t really thought she’d take it literally, he was more making a point that he wanted her to be comfortable, but he supposed he couldn’t complain. She wasn’t about to explode with tears, so that was a plus. Mission accomplished?

He could hear her banging around in the kitchen and in the few steps it took to get there she was sliding the pan in and climbing nimbly atop the kitchen counter. How could she move so fast and still manage to hop on top of something with only one good leg? Resilient woman she was turning out to be; Dekker couldn’t help but be impressed. He stood at the kitchen entrance, leaning against the ornate door frame and watching as she indecisively twitched atop the dark marble counter. She spoke again, and a soft smile slowly spread across his face as she began. It melted away, though, when she remarked about her parents again. He couldn’t imagine why her improvement would only further the distance between herself and her family unless they were just too ashamed of themselves to face her. It was the only possible reason he could fathom as to why this would have made a negative impact on the relationship. She smiled at him, but it wasn’t the kind he wanted to see. He smiled toothlessly back, waiting a few moments before pushing off the door frame to amble a short distance to the counter across from her. Leaning back on it, arms behind him to relax his fingers off the edges of the marble, he sighed and offered a more genuine smile to her. ”Well regardless of whatever ludicrous stance your parents take, I think that’s something to be proud of. Congratulations.” he said with a nod, his tone remaining more on the quiet side than anything. He grinned now, ”And I love anything with chocolate in it about as much as a PMSing woman.” he said jokingly, eyes bright as he hoped to cheer her up just a little more. He still didn’t have that spark back in her eyes he so desperately wanted to see. ”So if you ever piss me off the quickest way to make up sex is by starting with chocolate.” he said with a shrug, as if he were seriously considering the sex. Or that this would suggest the possibility of a relationship.

He wouldn’t tell her he was a virgin. Never in a million years. Unless they actually did -- NOPE, and he shoved that thought right out of his head. He was quickly on the path to running her off anyway.

An unexpected pink tinge had come to his face as he’d managed to embarrass his own self without saying much and quickly he laughed, shaking his head and rubbing his hand nervously through his hair for no reason at all. What a stupid idiot he was being! She liked poking fun at him though, maybe something good would come of his lack of thought. He was too innocent, bottom line. Forty year old virgin innocent. He set himself up for ambush on that one. Awkwardly he looked back at her, his grin still planted and hopes high for a smile. A real smile.

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