Title: 2 am
Summary: Hanson and Hoffs in their darker moments.
Disclaimer: I don't own Jump Street, though owning Dennis Booker would be lovely. Nor do I own the song this is based on.
A/N: This actually started out as a songfic, based on the song "Breathe (2 AM)" by Anna Nalick. However, the other songfics I've posted here got pulled for being violations of the TOS, so I'm posting it as a multi-scene vignette sort of thing. You can see it the way it's meant to be at my site (link is in my profile).
For reference, he is Tom Hanson and she is Judy Hoffs. In case you get confused. Because I would.
It's 2 am and he opens the door and is a little stunned to see her standing there staring at him. Her face is streaked with some mixture of rain and tears, and he only knows that it's rain at all because her hair and shirt are dripping on his doorstep. Somehow, her skirt is dry, and he doesn't really know why he notices that.
She doesn't say anything at first, and he wants to say something but doesn't quite know what. Silently, he steps back and she steps forward, and it's only when she's within the dim glow from the television that he realizes that under the tears are bruises on her cheek and around her eye.
He knows who put them there, and he knows why, though he can't fathom anyone being dumb enough to beat up a girlfriend who's a cop. That's asking to be arrested – or shot – and he knows he wouldn't blame her for a second if she'd done it.
He figures that her being here means she's finally left, and he's glad, both for her safety and for more selfish reasons. He's wanted to be with her for so long and every time she's come crying to him it's broken his heart just a little bit more. He knows, though, that she doesn't feel the same, and he respects her, if for no other reason than she deserves respect from someone; she's not been getting it from him.
Inside, she waits, and he waits, watching her drip, on the carpet this time. After what feels like an eternity, she steps forward and wraps her arms around his waist. He doesn't pay attention to the water soaking his shirt. It's only water after all, and cloth, and worse happens to it in the washing machine.
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He holds her for a long time, so long his back stars to hurt and his arms long to move, but he remains still, knowing without either of them ever speaking how much she needs this.
She's so strong and it kills him to see her reduced to this by someone who was never worthy of her anyway. She deserves so much better than what she's been given, and he wishes she'll see that, even though he knows it'll mean she's pulled away from him again, because as much as this jerk doesn't deserve her, he doesn't deserve her either.
She's so beautiful and smart and here, in his arms, she feels perfect. She's small and soft and she seems so frail, but it's an illusion and he knows it because he's seen how hard – how deadly – she can be. There's nothing like a woman with a gun in her hand, but he finds it hard to reconcile the woman he's seen in action with the woman he's holding right now.
He wants to whisper to her, to reassure her, to remind her that everything will be fine, that everything is fine and she has nothing to worry about and that if the guy ever comes near her again he'll kill him and he won't be the only one. Doug and Harry and even Booker would love to get their hands on this creep, if they knew, but he knows they don't because he knows he's the only one who's seen her like this.
He knows he's the only one she trusts so much that she'll allow to see her like this, and it touches him more than she can ever know, and it makes seeing her pain almost worth it, knowing that he's the only one she comes to when she needs a shoulder to cry on.
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She watches him set the shot glass down on the bar and watches the bartender fill it once more. It's become almost automatic; the bartender makes his round down the bar and each time he comes back he pours him another shot without him even having to ask.
The whole thing hurts, so much, because this is a routine they've gotten into over the last weeks and she feels tears fill her eyes. She fights them back because she desperately doesn't want him to know just how much it hurts, even though she knows it's a losing battle and she suspects that he does too. He drains the glass and sets it down and the bartender drifts back toward their end of the bar and raises the bottle and for a moment she wants to step in and say that he's had enough and it's time to go.
She knows why he drinks, knows how much he wants to feel numb, because she's been there herself and sometimes she's desperate to go back, and she doesn't really know why she doesn't. Watching his face, she sees that it takes more time and more shots and more alcohol now than it used to for that numbness to settle over him, and that hurts too, but not as much as just being here night after night and week after week.
She wonders if it will ever be month after month and year after year. She wonders if they'll live that long, or if he'll drink himself to death or she'll cry herself to death or one of them will turn around at the wrong time and a well-aimed or poorly aimed bullet will solve all their problems.
She wonders if he ever wishes that would happen, and she wonders if he knows that sometimes she does, though she's afraid to admit it even to herself, and more afraid to admit it to him.
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It's after the fourth or fifth or ninth or tenth shot – or it could be more; she's lost count probably long before he did – that after he puts the glass down he pushes it away and the bartender comes by and sweeps it away before his drunken customer gets it into his head to have another.
That's her cue to move to his side and put an arm around him and help him up and get him home and into bed. The first few nights he would pull away, but now, like most nights recently, he just leans into her and doesn't say a word as she leads him out of the bar.
She's glad he's taken to this bar near his place, because she wouldn't be able to afford cab fare every night and neither would he and if it were more than a block she doesn't think she'd be able to get him home. Emotional exhaustion has a way of translating into physical, and she's noticing that more and more these days.
They stop at a corner and an old corvette screeches by them, almost going up on two wheels, and then she sees the black-and-white fly up behind it seconds before the 'vette crashes into a light pole. She tries to find it in herself to give a damn but every ounce of her that's capable of caring is wrapped up in him and herself and trying to get home and make it through another night.
He seems to notice that they've stopped and she feels his lips search out hers and it occurs to her that that's become a routine for them as well, and each time she brushes him off but each time she cares a little less and she's almost willing to go along with whatever just to feel a little warmth and whatever else he's got to offer her. But there's still a little part of her that respects him too much for that, and she supposes she respects herself too much too.
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She's never felt it before but now she knows what it's like to feel her blood run cold and it's possibly one of the most frightening sensations she's ever had in her life. She stares at the gun but that's not what's scaring her so much. It's the look in his eyes, the look that tells her that he just doesn't care anymore, that if the kid pulls the trigger he won't even move.
She opens her mouth to yell anything at all – her mind isn't capable of forming real thoughts right now, let alone coherent sentences – but not so much as a sound comes out. She stays where she is, her eyes on the gun, his eyes on the gun, the kid's eyes on the gun, and she realizes she's not sure she cares what happens to him as long as it happens to her too because it's not fair for him to leave her here to deal with everything alone.
Then there are sirens and the gun wavers and she sees her chance and she takes it and when it's over the kid is on the ground and the gun is in her hand and he's still just standing there staring. Then he shakes his head and that frightening look is gone and the mask is back, the one that everyone sees but her.
And as the uniforms come in and the kid is handcuffed, she hands the gun over to the officer in charge and they walk away and she takes a chance and looks over at him. For a second the mask slips and she knows that the next time he's staring at a gun there's every chance in the world it will happen just the same way, but maybe the next time she won't be there, or maybe the next time she won't care enough to move, just like he didn't.
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She sets her shot glass down on the bar and watches the bartender fill it once more. It's become almost automatic; the bartender makes his round down the bar and each time he comes back he pours her another shot without her even having to ask, then he moves on to him and does the same and it occurs to him that now she's right where he was, only now there's no one to help either of them get home.
She's not new at the drinking game but she hasn't exactly been at it as long as he has, either, plus she's a girl and she's smaller and so it's only five or six drinks before she says the whole room is spinning and she's the only thing standing still. He walks over to her and puts his arm around her waist and she lets him pull her off the bar stool, though she's not really even on it anymore.
She's almost hanging on him as they leave the bar and they get to the corner and it's him that realizes they ought to stop before they get run down. She keeps walking but he pulls her back and she ends up in his arms and his lips are on hers and she's not pulling away. He knows why she did all those other times, but he knows that now that last little part of her that respects them both too much is gone, swept away by some combination of alcohol and depression and desperation. He's not trying to take advantage, really, but he needs to hold onto her if he wants to make it home and it's not because he's drunk that he's worried about making it home.
It's because he doesn't think he really cares anymore if he does and part of him wants another car to come along and maybe he'll let them both cross the street at just the wrong time. But it's just his luck and there don't seem to be any crazy drivers out right now and he pulls away from her and they head back to his place. Hers is too far and it's starting to rain and it occurs to him that he's not so numb anymore, that he can actually feel the rain on his skin, soaking through his shirt, and he wonders if she felt it that night she showed up at his place at 2 am.