(no subject)
Title: Void Filler
Author: cecism
Fandom: Private Practice
Characters: Cooper/Violet
Prompt: #8 - I'm cruel @ un_love_you
Word Count: 1028
Rating: PG
Disclamer: Not mine, never will be.
Author's Notes: Rambly angst; I was in the mood. (I'll post something a bit more cheerful soon, promise!) Toys with the idea of their FWB pact - if they had actually followed through.
Violet picks up her glass by the stem and takes a long, lengthy gulp swig, letting the wine dance around her tongue before swallowing. It’s slightly tart but she doesn’t mind. She can’t remember what label it is; that trip to the liquor store seems like hours ago.
It was hours ago, she dimly remembers.
She’s not sure how many glasses she’s already had. If she had it her way, she would’ve drained the whole bottle. She doesn’t want to think. She wants her mind to go blank. Or blissfully unaware of the twisting in her stomach until tomorrow morning, when she can deal with it under the influence of a hangover.
She is a failure.
Her methods of filling her void are foundering; she doesn’t even know what the void is. She wonders why her years of medical and psychiatric training is leaving her more questioning than if she hadn’t studied at all.
There’s a hollow pit in her stomach that the wine hasn’t filled. She’s tried. Oh, has she tried. Maybe draining the bottle would be the ultimate solution, but her hazy mind doesn’t think so. She resists. Her arm is tired and doesn’t want to pick up the bottle anymore.
The day previous she tries her psychiatrist routine on herself and asks her reflection in the mirror when her emotional void had become apparent.
She says aloud that she doesn’t know.
She does know. She knows that it started on a Sunday morning when she had woken up to a visually perfect Spring day and started sobbing because her bed was too wide for one and her house too big to be alone in. She wonders if these thoughts are sudden or have simply been in hibernation all this time.
She’d got through that Sunday and into the Monday and he had asked her what was wrong. She hadn’t answered and then had poured him more coffee from the pot in the kitchen.
She knows this is when her void throbs emptier but she doesn’t admit it to her mirror reflection. That would be saying it for her own ears and she doesn’t want to hear it.
But she’d tried filling her unexplainable void so densely it has no hope in hell in appearing again.
Naomi had offered her cake without actually knowing of any such rut, but with the plain belief that cake made a workplace happy. Cake was airy and sweet and didn’t satiate her at all.
She’d bought herself new sweatpants and had run along the beach until she couldn’t breathe. She’d collapsed on a park bench, her legs burning with effort and her stomach as empty as it could ever be.
She didn’t want to cry, thinking that perhaps if she kept it inside, it would contain itself and eventually go away.
Her reflection had glared back at her in the mirror and she’d looked away.
“What are you doing?” His voice breaks her reverie and she realises she’s simply staring through indistinct eyes at her empty wineglass sitting on her bedside table. Her mattress slopes down slightly under her weight as she sits on the edge of it and her toes are getting cold against her floor.
Her naked back is turned to him but she knows he’s watching her through curious, worried eyes.
He shouldn’t be worried; she doesn’t want him to be because it’s not about her and she can’t stand it if he is.
“Sorry,” she murmurs in an apology of which she doesn’t know its purpose and swings back around to lie down again, staring up at the ceiling.
She expects him to move closer because that’s what he does in every other aspect of her life. He doesn’t and she wants to be relieved. She’s almost convinced that she is.
His left hand slides across to meet her right and his fingers loosely lace through. It’s easy and it fits, but she doesn’t like to acknowledge that. It makes it though to be more than it is.
Her hand remains flaccid underneath his fingers and the duvet and she squeezes her eyes shut because maybe she can just pretend it’s not him. She can sense his body is warm and his familiar smell stains her sheets like an inkblot.
He’s always tried to fill her void because that’s who he is. But that was with predictable movies and bags of takeout and a box of Kleenex. This time he doesn’t know she’s tried to make him fill it again and his unawareness of her selfish intentions makes a muscle in her chest ache. He thinks he’s finally got her like he’s always wanted; she doesn’t have the courage to tell him he’s just an emotional stranger to her right now.
She can’t stand it because she’d once told him it would be settling and had made him agree; she is a hypocrite but she hopes he doesn’t remember. He probably does but doesn’t want to break them by mentioning it.
For someone with his track record of using people to fill a void, she wonders why he assumes he isn’t lying in her bed for that same reason. He doesn’t think this time is for two strangers because it’s her and she’s not his stranger.
She wishes he is her stranger, unemotional and faceless. He isn’t and she can’t fathom why she had thought he would be.
But she pretends he is because this is her last attempt at filling her void. It’s wrong, but then again, she always has been.
“Are you okay?” he asks and she doesn’t look at him because she doesn’t know what would happen.
“I’m fine,” she says quietly, and he knows any more attempts at conversation are futile.
He eventually falls asleep after an indeterminable amount of silence.
Her void is finally filling, but it’s filling with guilt and she doesn’t think she can ever quite forgive herself for doing what she’s done to him. Deception has never otherwise been one of her strong points.
He wasn’t ever going to be unemotional and faceless to fill her void.
But she can’t bare to tell him that.
She lies awake.
Author: cecism
Fandom: Private Practice
Characters: Cooper/Violet
Prompt: #8 - I'm cruel @ un_love_you
Word Count: 1028
Rating: PG
Disclamer: Not mine, never will be.
Author's Notes: Rambly angst; I was in the mood. (I'll post something a bit more cheerful soon, promise!) Toys with the idea of their FWB pact - if they had actually followed through.
Violet picks up her glass by the stem and takes a long, lengthy gulp swig, letting the wine dance around her tongue before swallowing. It’s slightly tart but she doesn’t mind. She can’t remember what label it is; that trip to the liquor store seems like hours ago.
It was hours ago, she dimly remembers.
She’s not sure how many glasses she’s already had. If she had it her way, she would’ve drained the whole bottle. She doesn’t want to think. She wants her mind to go blank. Or blissfully unaware of the twisting in her stomach until tomorrow morning, when she can deal with it under the influence of a hangover.
She is a failure.
Her methods of filling her void are foundering; she doesn’t even know what the void is. She wonders why her years of medical and psychiatric training is leaving her more questioning than if she hadn’t studied at all.
There’s a hollow pit in her stomach that the wine hasn’t filled. She’s tried. Oh, has she tried. Maybe draining the bottle would be the ultimate solution, but her hazy mind doesn’t think so. She resists. Her arm is tired and doesn’t want to pick up the bottle anymore.
The day previous she tries her psychiatrist routine on herself and asks her reflection in the mirror when her emotional void had become apparent.
She says aloud that she doesn’t know.
She does know. She knows that it started on a Sunday morning when she had woken up to a visually perfect Spring day and started sobbing because her bed was too wide for one and her house too big to be alone in. She wonders if these thoughts are sudden or have simply been in hibernation all this time.
She’d got through that Sunday and into the Monday and he had asked her what was wrong. She hadn’t answered and then had poured him more coffee from the pot in the kitchen.
She knows this is when her void throbs emptier but she doesn’t admit it to her mirror reflection. That would be saying it for her own ears and she doesn’t want to hear it.
But she’d tried filling her unexplainable void so densely it has no hope in hell in appearing again.
Naomi had offered her cake without actually knowing of any such rut, but with the plain belief that cake made a workplace happy. Cake was airy and sweet and didn’t satiate her at all.
She’d bought herself new sweatpants and had run along the beach until she couldn’t breathe. She’d collapsed on a park bench, her legs burning with effort and her stomach as empty as it could ever be.
She didn’t want to cry, thinking that perhaps if she kept it inside, it would contain itself and eventually go away.
Her reflection had glared back at her in the mirror and she’d looked away.
“What are you doing?” His voice breaks her reverie and she realises she’s simply staring through indistinct eyes at her empty wineglass sitting on her bedside table. Her mattress slopes down slightly under her weight as she sits on the edge of it and her toes are getting cold against her floor.
Her naked back is turned to him but she knows he’s watching her through curious, worried eyes.
He shouldn’t be worried; she doesn’t want him to be because it’s not about her and she can’t stand it if he is.
“Sorry,” she murmurs in an apology of which she doesn’t know its purpose and swings back around to lie down again, staring up at the ceiling.
She expects him to move closer because that’s what he does in every other aspect of her life. He doesn’t and she wants to be relieved. She’s almost convinced that she is.
His left hand slides across to meet her right and his fingers loosely lace through. It’s easy and it fits, but she doesn’t like to acknowledge that. It makes it though to be more than it is.
Her hand remains flaccid underneath his fingers and the duvet and she squeezes her eyes shut because maybe she can just pretend it’s not him. She can sense his body is warm and his familiar smell stains her sheets like an inkblot.
He’s always tried to fill her void because that’s who he is. But that was with predictable movies and bags of takeout and a box of Kleenex. This time he doesn’t know she’s tried to make him fill it again and his unawareness of her selfish intentions makes a muscle in her chest ache. He thinks he’s finally got her like he’s always wanted; she doesn’t have the courage to tell him he’s just an emotional stranger to her right now.
She can’t stand it because she’d once told him it would be settling and had made him agree; she is a hypocrite but she hopes he doesn’t remember. He probably does but doesn’t want to break them by mentioning it.
For someone with his track record of using people to fill a void, she wonders why he assumes he isn’t lying in her bed for that same reason. He doesn’t think this time is for two strangers because it’s her and she’s not his stranger.
She wishes he is her stranger, unemotional and faceless. He isn’t and she can’t fathom why she had thought he would be.
But she pretends he is because this is her last attempt at filling her void. It’s wrong, but then again, she always has been.
“Are you okay?” he asks and she doesn’t look at him because she doesn’t know what would happen.
“I’m fine,” she says quietly, and he knows any more attempts at conversation are futile.
He eventually falls asleep after an indeterminable amount of silence.
Her void is finally filling, but it’s filling with guilt and she doesn’t think she can ever quite forgive herself for doing what she’s done to him. Deception has never otherwise been one of her strong points.
He wasn’t ever going to be unemotional and faceless to fill her void.
But she can’t bare to tell him that.
She lies awake.