and tonight i know it all has to begin again so whatever you do, don't let go
Title: us against the world
Fandom: suits usa
Characters: harvey specter (pov), donna paulsen
Pairing: donna/harvey
Warnings: shooting, blood, self-harm, death, basically the whole shebang
Summary: in the aftermath of a shooting at pearson hardman, people learn to pick up the pieces
He kept repeating it to himself, whispering it while the glare of broken glass shimmered beneath his shoes, cutting up his thoughts into tiny reflective pieces. His lips kept moving, the vowels drowning on his tongue while the scene replayed infront of his eyes. Again again again.
He found himself at Mike's desk, hands staying on the walnut polish and watching the emergency crews wash over him. The blaring sound of clutter and disorder and mayhem and anguish and Norma. Good god, he couldn't bare to think of the secretary, red blood dripping from her abdomen, Mike's eyes wide and panicked while he yelled at himself, herself, everyone for not being good enough while her mouth opened to let gasps of pain escape like crumpled packages.
He lifted a palm, his face a shroud of nothing, wrinkles pulled together to hide from the reality, and it shook, trembled as he tried not to say the idiom one last time.
There's 146 choices, even when-
Even when what? His throat catches on his grief and he stuffs his hand into his pocket, his knuckles grazing against the broken glass at the bottom of his pocket. He wonders numbly about how it got in there, how the angle of the blast managed to cause the glass to embed itself in his cheek, his thigh, his pocket. It seemed so remarkable, that feat, as it burst from the glass, as it crucified the people in the room, as it embedded itself in his pocket For safe keeping it seemed to say. A present, a reminder of what had occurred.
So he dug his knuckles into the sharp edges and waited for the burn.
They sat him down after an hour, finally managed to locate him as a missing name on their list. He was on someone's list now, a lesser priority, a sum of a whole he didn't even know. Mr Specter? They had said to him, bandaging his wrist. Are you feeling dizzy? Are you feeling OK?
He had tried to speak then, as Mike had approached him, hand clasped on his shoulder, his fingertips burning his pride. Mike was checking up o him He had tried to say it, try to ask about the others Th other. But Mike had simply pulled him onto the gurney and ordered him to 'sit tight'. He had rolled over, tried to place himself. Where was he? This was no longer Pearson Hardman. This was moving. This was moving much too fast.
So he closed his eyes, tight, crows feet meeting his hair line, creeping into the recesses of his mind and yet he still pushed harder, made his eyelids reclaim the darkness and still it wasn't dark enough to stem the blurry images that crashed on his skull again again again.
A headache, he proclaimed silently, when the ambulance stopped blurring, moving, wasting time, this was all a migraine, a headache, a dream. His hand started to shake, as they pulled him up. We need the bed, they insisted. You're not so badly hurt.
But I am, he wanted to say. He tried to, honestly, but the words wouldn't come, his tongue thick and guilty with the weight of the circumstance. Guilt nestled itself deep in his stomach, gurgling delightedly at the space it had to call home, intermingled itself with regrets from his past and started to eat away at his throat, slowly climbing up his oesophagus until he was whispering where is she? where is she? tell me. show me. can i see her? show me her. show me.
They brought him t He instead, like he could handle seeing her right now. Jessica was seated in the waiting room, a crisp suit that had been white this morning - he remembered because he had told her it seemed stupid to wear white when she was crucifying someone. She had told him that angels could smite too. He hadn't listened to her, thought himself God when he'd finally pinned this whole cock up on Hardman - but now the dust and blood had seduced the satin and interred itself. She did not look defeated, that was not physically possible for her, but she did not look at him when he entered.
I'm sorry, she said, before he could speak. I'm so, so sorry.
He wanted to say something, truly (possibly) but it got stuck in his throat underneath the more pressing matter of where was she. The she he had intended to see.
I don't think Hardman wanted this. He didn't. He couldn't. Harvey, what happened today, what happened?
He didn't have any answers to that, but he tried to reach to her anyway, somehow cage the guilt up by offering some sympathy but as soon as his hand left his pocket it begun to shake with such a propensity that he felt he was only going to hurt her more.
I have to go, she told him slowly. I have to check on them.
He simply left the room, pulling away from her as her posture slipped just a little. Not defeated but demolished.
He walked back towards the emergency room, past Carver and Stokins, his eyes in front of him lest he face the terror embedded into their irises. He didn't want to see what he knew was mirrored in his own eyes. If he did, the guilt would swallow him like a predator in an almighty gulp, so fast and quick he wouldn't even have time to react.
React How pathetic that it should all come down to that. To the ability to make a choice in a split second. Choices, he'd told Mike, are always there. There is always a choice.
Zoe found him first, her arms wrapping around him, tears leaking onto his shoulder and the fear in her eyes. Harvey, how did this happen, what happened, how could this happen, she threw them all at him until he felt like he was pressed up against the front of a freight train, crumpling into nothingness, a million separated particles that were each so heavily laden with regret they simply sunk and sunk until they disappeared into the universe.
With her engulfing him, he felt even more trapped than he had felt in the office in the moment before the gun had fired.
Trapped. With a moment to react. A moment to make a choice.
He shook himself, breathing in from his nose, and out as well as his mouth still refused to cooperate. Refused to make words, or mould them. His tongue simply lay, dormant and heavy and disgusted. He had had to make a choice.
Zoe pulled away after what felt like hours, wiping away at her tears. I'm so glad you're okay, she had said then, when she had cried herself out, made herself feel better. He had managed to nod severely, maybe a hundred times to assure her he was okay. It felt like such a challenge, tilting his chin to affirm her, make her feel safe, and sure of his survival but the intensity of hatred he had felt in himself made it all seem so heartless.
I should go, the child, she had said and once again, he had nodded or made some sort of acknowledgement of her departure that she had simply melted away, her tears shrouding her face and his tears shrouding her. She had said goodbye, poised at the door, waiting perhaps for him to ask her to stay but he had been unable to say anything. He didn't deserve the company.
It was a long time later, after the Doctor had told him where she was, after Mike had come in to sit with him that he moved from where he was sitting. As he walked the halls towards her, all he could see was red hair, blinding cerise as she'd stepped in front of him. On las fuck you to him, her way of saying it all without saying anything.
He found her, after much circling and sat down beside the bed, his hands dug into his pockets. He stared at her, his jaw clenching and unclenching until he found a way to breathe through the guilt. Why, he thought, would you do it, how stupid, of all the choices, of all the flight instincts, this was the most quintessentially Donna, quintessentially stupid
Her chest rose and fell making room for breaths that he watched with fixation, not breaking concentration as she slowly, slowly stirred. Her head tilted, her forearm shifting to prop up her cheek and he saw the tiny red lines dotted like breadcrumbs up the underside of her arm, tiny punctures that he felt right in his gut, right in the place where the guilt clotted, fixtures in his daily life that were magnified by the sight of her.
Rachel's breathing stirred him from semi consciousness as she stood by the door, blood red nails that made his fingers dig into the glass a little deeper, that were curled around the white door jamb as if she was holding on for life.
I can't sit, she told him when she saw he was awake, I can't stand. I can't feel my hands. I can't feel my legs. I just smell ash. I just taste ash. I just see glass. Shattering. She paused for a long while, until the silence and the timid beeping of the machines was the unspoken apologies between them. What happened, Rachel whispers, I don't understand.
And Harvey doesn't understand either but the effort of shrugging is too much so he slumped instead, carefully creating a chasm of compunction that spread up his spine until he was curled in his seat, trying to exist in as small a space as possible.
The woman in the bed twisted onto her side and then hissed as she moved the wound but did not relinquish the position, her eyes waking him as she stared at him. It occurred to him that perhaps she had not done it because she was a martyr but because that had been the only choice she had seen in that moment. With a gun to her head she hadn't seen 146 options but one. And she had reacted to the trapped feeling with a decision.
There was a relinquishment of responsibility that had passed between them in that moment, she had given it to him. He managed to sigh, pulling the air up from the clutches of his guilty conscience.
I'm sorry, she had said to him unapologetically, her voice more defiant and yet softer than it had been, he remembered, this morning. But I did say I wasn't leaving, she joked gently. He tried t do n response but his hands simply dug into his pockets further until he was curled over in his seat, his back twisted painfully into the plastic seat and his eyes burning into the laminate flooring.
You still got hurt, she said after a while, the red smudges on his pockets betraying him. It seems a little fairer, too, she tells him with a small smile that he isn't sure it entirely appropriate for the situation.
It was stupid, he tries to say, opens his mouth to make space for the sounds but a void comes out and swallows his best intentions leaving him wordless and pitiful. His face tries to contort itself into some sort of excuse, some sort of apology but he isn't one to indulge in vulnerability and his eyes steel themselves against her gaze.
Three times a charm, she says and then after a beat, maybe this time it'll get through to you. Her hair shrouds her expression until she moves an arm to push it away and he sees the wires and drips and bits of hospital move with her and he winces.
You didn't ask me to do this, she says for him because he doesn't have the guts to be angry with her when she looks like this. But you expected it of me.
To kill yourself for me? He says soundlessly, the regret leaking down his cheeks, cupped in warm, salty droplets. His palms moisten and he extracts them from his pockets, wiping them down his pant legs until they're just as grimy and dirty as they were before.
He was going to kill you, she reminds him and he wonders how she processes this, understands the circumstances when they're lawyers and secretaries and then a man comes in and closes shop not with a contract but an automated rifle. How that makes sense to her. You just stood there, she tells him like this is all too obvious. You watched him from behind the glass, saw him, and didn't say anything. You didn't even react. So I had to.
The self condemnation stirs and starts to gnaw at his guilt until his chest is a battle ground for a greater self hatred, a greater disgust with oneself.
There's a gun to your head and you've got- he starts to tell her and she shakes her head, her face pressing into his memory, his weakness, a small reminder of sacrifice he doesn't fully appreciat yet
Two choices, Harvey. Just two.
Fandom: suits usa
Characters: harvey specter (pov), donna paulsen
Pairing: donna/harvey
Warnings: shooting, blood, self-harm, death, basically the whole shebang
Summary: in the aftermath of a shooting at pearson hardman, people learn to pick up the pieces
He kept repeating it to himself, whispering it while the glare of broken glass shimmered beneath his shoes, cutting up his thoughts into tiny reflective pieces. His lips kept moving, the vowels drowning on his tongue while the scene replayed infront of his eyes. Again again again.
He found himself at Mike's desk, hands staying on the walnut polish and watching the emergency crews wash over him. The blaring sound of clutter and disorder and mayhem and anguish and Norma. Good god, he couldn't bare to think of the secretary, red blood dripping from her abdomen, Mike's eyes wide and panicked while he yelled at himself, herself, everyone for not being good enough while her mouth opened to let gasps of pain escape like crumpled packages.
He lifted a palm, his face a shroud of nothing, wrinkles pulled together to hide from the reality, and it shook, trembled as he tried not to say the idiom one last time.
There's 146 choices, even when-
Even when what? His throat catches on his grief and he stuffs his hand into his pocket, his knuckles grazing against the broken glass at the bottom of his pocket. He wonders numbly about how it got in there, how the angle of the blast managed to cause the glass to embed itself in his cheek, his thigh, his pocket. It seemed so remarkable, that feat, as it burst from the glass, as it crucified the people in the room, as it embedded itself in his pocket For safe keeping it seemed to say. A present, a reminder of what had occurred.
So he dug his knuckles into the sharp edges and waited for the burn.
They sat him down after an hour, finally managed to locate him as a missing name on their list. He was on someone's list now, a lesser priority, a sum of a whole he didn't even know. Mr Specter? They had said to him, bandaging his wrist. Are you feeling dizzy? Are you feeling OK?
He had tried to speak then, as Mike had approached him, hand clasped on his shoulder, his fingertips burning his pride. Mike was checking up o him He had tried to say it, try to ask about the others Th other. But Mike had simply pulled him onto the gurney and ordered him to 'sit tight'. He had rolled over, tried to place himself. Where was he? This was no longer Pearson Hardman. This was moving. This was moving much too fast.
So he closed his eyes, tight, crows feet meeting his hair line, creeping into the recesses of his mind and yet he still pushed harder, made his eyelids reclaim the darkness and still it wasn't dark enough to stem the blurry images that crashed on his skull again again again.
A headache, he proclaimed silently, when the ambulance stopped blurring, moving, wasting time, this was all a migraine, a headache, a dream. His hand started to shake, as they pulled him up. We need the bed, they insisted. You're not so badly hurt.
But I am, he wanted to say. He tried to, honestly, but the words wouldn't come, his tongue thick and guilty with the weight of the circumstance. Guilt nestled itself deep in his stomach, gurgling delightedly at the space it had to call home, intermingled itself with regrets from his past and started to eat away at his throat, slowly climbing up his oesophagus until he was whispering where is she? where is she? tell me. show me. can i see her? show me her. show me.
They brought him t He instead, like he could handle seeing her right now. Jessica was seated in the waiting room, a crisp suit that had been white this morning - he remembered because he had told her it seemed stupid to wear white when she was crucifying someone. She had told him that angels could smite too. He hadn't listened to her, thought himself God when he'd finally pinned this whole cock up on Hardman - but now the dust and blood had seduced the satin and interred itself. She did not look defeated, that was not physically possible for her, but she did not look at him when he entered.
I'm sorry, she said, before he could speak. I'm so, so sorry.
He wanted to say something, truly (possibly) but it got stuck in his throat underneath the more pressing matter of where was she. The she he had intended to see.
I don't think Hardman wanted this. He didn't. He couldn't. Harvey, what happened today, what happened?
He didn't have any answers to that, but he tried to reach to her anyway, somehow cage the guilt up by offering some sympathy but as soon as his hand left his pocket it begun to shake with such a propensity that he felt he was only going to hurt her more.
I have to go, she told him slowly. I have to check on them.
He simply left the room, pulling away from her as her posture slipped just a little. Not defeated but demolished.
He walked back towards the emergency room, past Carver and Stokins, his eyes in front of him lest he face the terror embedded into their irises. He didn't want to see what he knew was mirrored in his own eyes. If he did, the guilt would swallow him like a predator in an almighty gulp, so fast and quick he wouldn't even have time to react.
React How pathetic that it should all come down to that. To the ability to make a choice in a split second. Choices, he'd told Mike, are always there. There is always a choice.
Zoe found him first, her arms wrapping around him, tears leaking onto his shoulder and the fear in her eyes. Harvey, how did this happen, what happened, how could this happen, she threw them all at him until he felt like he was pressed up against the front of a freight train, crumpling into nothingness, a million separated particles that were each so heavily laden with regret they simply sunk and sunk until they disappeared into the universe.
With her engulfing him, he felt even more trapped than he had felt in the office in the moment before the gun had fired.
Trapped. With a moment to react. A moment to make a choice.
He shook himself, breathing in from his nose, and out as well as his mouth still refused to cooperate. Refused to make words, or mould them. His tongue simply lay, dormant and heavy and disgusted. He had had to make a choice.
Zoe pulled away after what felt like hours, wiping away at her tears. I'm so glad you're okay, she had said then, when she had cried herself out, made herself feel better. He had managed to nod severely, maybe a hundred times to assure her he was okay. It felt like such a challenge, tilting his chin to affirm her, make her feel safe, and sure of his survival but the intensity of hatred he had felt in himself made it all seem so heartless.
I should go, the child, she had said and once again, he had nodded or made some sort of acknowledgement of her departure that she had simply melted away, her tears shrouding her face and his tears shrouding her. She had said goodbye, poised at the door, waiting perhaps for him to ask her to stay but he had been unable to say anything. He didn't deserve the company.
It was a long time later, after the Doctor had told him where she was, after Mike had come in to sit with him that he moved from where he was sitting. As he walked the halls towards her, all he could see was red hair, blinding cerise as she'd stepped in front of him. On las fuck you to him, her way of saying it all without saying anything.
He found her, after much circling and sat down beside the bed, his hands dug into his pockets. He stared at her, his jaw clenching and unclenching until he found a way to breathe through the guilt. Why, he thought, would you do it, how stupid, of all the choices, of all the flight instincts, this was the most quintessentially Donna, quintessentially stupid
Her chest rose and fell making room for breaths that he watched with fixation, not breaking concentration as she slowly, slowly stirred. Her head tilted, her forearm shifting to prop up her cheek and he saw the tiny red lines dotted like breadcrumbs up the underside of her arm, tiny punctures that he felt right in his gut, right in the place where the guilt clotted, fixtures in his daily life that were magnified by the sight of her.
Rachel's breathing stirred him from semi consciousness as she stood by the door, blood red nails that made his fingers dig into the glass a little deeper, that were curled around the white door jamb as if she was holding on for life.
I can't sit, she told him when she saw he was awake, I can't stand. I can't feel my hands. I can't feel my legs. I just smell ash. I just taste ash. I just see glass. Shattering. She paused for a long while, until the silence and the timid beeping of the machines was the unspoken apologies between them. What happened, Rachel whispers, I don't understand.
And Harvey doesn't understand either but the effort of shrugging is too much so he slumped instead, carefully creating a chasm of compunction that spread up his spine until he was curled in his seat, trying to exist in as small a space as possible.
The woman in the bed twisted onto her side and then hissed as she moved the wound but did not relinquish the position, her eyes waking him as she stared at him. It occurred to him that perhaps she had not done it because she was a martyr but because that had been the only choice she had seen in that moment. With a gun to her head she hadn't seen 146 options but one. And she had reacted to the trapped feeling with a decision.
There was a relinquishment of responsibility that had passed between them in that moment, she had given it to him. He managed to sigh, pulling the air up from the clutches of his guilty conscience.
I'm sorry, she had said to him unapologetically, her voice more defiant and yet softer than it had been, he remembered, this morning. But I did say I wasn't leaving, she joked gently. He tried t do n response but his hands simply dug into his pockets further until he was curled over in his seat, his back twisted painfully into the plastic seat and his eyes burning into the laminate flooring.
You still got hurt, she said after a while, the red smudges on his pockets betraying him. It seems a little fairer, too, she tells him with a small smile that he isn't sure it entirely appropriate for the situation.
It was stupid, he tries to say, opens his mouth to make space for the sounds but a void comes out and swallows his best intentions leaving him wordless and pitiful. His face tries to contort itself into some sort of excuse, some sort of apology but he isn't one to indulge in vulnerability and his eyes steel themselves against her gaze.
Three times a charm, she says and then after a beat, maybe this time it'll get through to you. Her hair shrouds her expression until she moves an arm to push it away and he sees the wires and drips and bits of hospital move with her and he winces.
You didn't ask me to do this, she says for him because he doesn't have the guts to be angry with her when she looks like this. But you expected it of me.
To kill yourself for me? He says soundlessly, the regret leaking down his cheeks, cupped in warm, salty droplets. His palms moisten and he extracts them from his pockets, wiping them down his pant legs until they're just as grimy and dirty as they were before.
He was going to kill you, she reminds him and he wonders how she processes this, understands the circumstances when they're lawyers and secretaries and then a man comes in and closes shop not with a contract but an automated rifle. How that makes sense to her. You just stood there, she tells him like this is all too obvious. You watched him from behind the glass, saw him, and didn't say anything. You didn't even react. So I had to.
The self condemnation stirs and starts to gnaw at his guilt until his chest is a battle ground for a greater self hatred, a greater disgust with oneself.
There's a gun to your head and you've got- he starts to tell her and she shakes her head, her face pressing into his memory, his weakness, a small reminder of sacrifice he doesn't fully appreciat yet
Two choices, Harvey. Just two.