Tbh. This Place Is A Chaotic Mess

Except the car was already slowing to a stop. Too late.

“3B, tell him Delia sent you.” The driver gruffly broke the silence between them, cutting off the engine. “He shouldn’t give you any trouble, but if he does, just holler.”

She heard the doors unlock and stepped out right in front of the apartment building. She thought it rather bold of him to drop her off right at the lobby, but with no doorman this late at night, she just walked straight through with no one around to bear witness, thankfully.

The halls were certainly nicer than they were at her own place, if not as fancy as the journey to that penthouse. It felt like she’d lived a lifetime since that night, her heart had beaten quickly enough ever since to more than cover it.

Her coat hung uncomfortably loose over her frame no matter how tight she tied the belt, the lack of layers underneath meant her bare skin slid around in the lining like butter and only made her colder.

She took a second on the stairs to catch her breath, resting at the landing with the door that had the metal 3 screwed into it. It creaked on its hinges in a way that she knew would’ve been quieter had she just opened it faster, like in her own building.

3A to her left, 3C to her right, and 3B lay just ahead, beckoning her, with the busted mounted lampshade beside it standing out among the others she passed.

Was he even expecting her? What sort of a person received guests at this hour? If not, how could Bobby be sure he was even awake to get the message?

Unless that was now Casey’s job.

So she knocked, not with the gentle wrap of someone shirking their own presence, who would rather blend into the walls than be stood in front of them; but with the loud, desperately quick pounding of someone who just wanted this to be over with.

Even more so when she immediately knew the face that appeared on the other side.  

She hadn’t seen that face outside of shapeless black robes before, until the party. Until he stared down every inch of her atop his stocky build, until the only thing stopping him from pulling her into a dark room was the corpse on the bedsheets.

“Ms Novak, you—?” Judge Harriman was staring her down again, but his brow furrowed this time, finally recognizing the woman behind the concealer. “What on earth are you doing here, dressed like that?!”

Not that she had time to check before she was hurried out the backdoor of the club; but her makeup was probably smudged and halfway to melting off after her shift, her hair probably kinked to hell from being pinned down under the wig. Her platform heels at the end of bare legs brought her to his eye level, and were probably far from appropriate work attire.

And not that he was much more decent. His shirt and pants would’ve made up parts of a put-together suit earlier in the day, but white sleeves were now rolled to his elbows and several top buttons were undone, revealing a maze of dark and grey hairs across his chest and up his forearms.

She gulped. “… Sorry, Your Honor, I—"

“For heaven’s sake, get in here before somebody sees you—!”

He pulled her forward by the sleeve of her coat with a steel-like grip she didn’t have time to protest. She stumbled through with just enough time to glance back at the door slamming shut behind her, catching a final glimpse of the empty hallway before the heavy door made her jolt.

Her feet got a small glimpse of relief standing on the plush Turkish rug, a cozy living space ahead of her was centered around an electric fireplace and a carved mantel. A small antique breakfast table and chairs sat beyond the couch, the whole room frozen in a time before the foundations that kept it standing.

“Look whatever it is you need, can it wait?” He said sharply, placing himself across the room. “I’m expecting company any minute.”

Not that she would expect him not to be irritated by her presence in his home, under any circumstances. She did have previous, and from what she’d heard, was rather notorious among them for it. But the pitch black out the window, save for the tiny glimmers of the apartments across the street, gave her pause.

“At one in the morning…?” She enquired, taking in more of the space around her.

The coffee table in front of the maroon velvet chaise longue had something amber in a decanter, with two glasses, and only one still empty.

It dawned on her slowly. That there was only one type of guest who would call at this hour. And that, for all intents and purposes, it was she who fit the bill, now.

Because how else would someone like Delia get someone like Judge Harriman to open the door at this time, other than by appointment?

The nausea didn’t take long to resurface. It was as if fate – or something, someone, much more powerful – were forcing them together, rinsing and repeating, begging them to finally cross that line for whatever purpose.

She drew a sharp breath, her gaze falling to the border where the tassels of the rug ended and the dark wooden floor began. “… It’s me, Your Honor. Delia sent me.”

She looked up again just in time to watch his face fall into disbelief, bordering on abject horror.

“My God, Casey, what did you do?”

The slip in formalities might’ve come as a surprise, it might’ve even conveyed something resembling concern from him. But she wouldn’t answer that in there, obviously, instead letting her gaze fall again, taking a long bite of her lip.

He must’ve sighed to himself, or maybe at her, she couldn’t tell. “… I suppose it would be unwise of me to offer to take your coat.”

She bunched it tighter around herself in confirmation, the warmth from the fake fire doing next to nothing to beat out the chill from under the lining.

But she could see him thinking, connecting the dots. “That… that was you, at young Will’s party, I knew you looked familiar.”

“I was wearing a lot of makeup.”

“And I’d drank a lot of brandy.” He concurred. “Ms Novak, I apologize. If I’d known it was you I obviously wouldn’t have—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Because it didn’t, really. Because if it wasn’t going to be him, it would’ve been whoever got her hands on her next. Because if it wasn’t going to be her, it was going to be whatever girl in the little black dress he accosted next. Were it not for Ivy.

“No, no, it does matter,” he emphasized, “what on earth were you doing there? With all those other girls?! Wha—What’re you doing here?!” He gestured at her with both arms, “are you in some sort of trouble with these people?!”

“… One of the, other girls, is dead.” She said, refusing to answer, again. “Did you know that?”

“I did. Is that what brings you here?”

She shook her head, reaching into her pocket. The corner of the envelope poked her thumb before she got a grip on it and held it out, beckoning him back over. “They wanted me to give you this.”

He took it from her but refused to break his stare. Maybe it was frustration, maybe it was nerves on his part. But at least that made two of them. He breezed past her toward a set of drawers near the dining table, rooting around in the top one and pulling out a polished silver letter opener. He continued on in silence, the chair legs scraping on the floor when he sat, tearing it open while something clearly bubbled under the surface.

She couldn’t see it from where she still stood by the door, her fingers pressed against it for balance, his broad frame blocked whatever was on the paper that crinkled under his fingers. Her steps were too pronounced in those damn heels, each one echoing painfully down the hallway ahead of her by the time she reached the table.

Her thundering heart only made her stomach swirl more, gulping back the racing pulse. “… What does it say?” She asked, hesitantly.

“It’s from Ms Wilson.” He started, turning the page back and forth in his hand. “I’ve not to say anything about the party, obviously. Don’t co-operate. Any cases that land on my desk are to be dismissed by any means necessary…” He peeked back in the envelope, “there’s pictures…” he pulled out the glossy photos, the first in the small pile enough for them to fall to the wood and splay out to his horror, “oh dear god…”

Casey finally peered over his shoulder at the glossy prints. Some of them grainy, some of them very much not so, but all of them she clocked as being taken in the confines of that damn party. She recognized the marble countertop in the kitchen, the buckets of beer on ice atop it, all the other rooms pictured, following the familiar check-grey suit through each of them. Talking to some of the other guests, talking to some of the other girls; and back in the kitchen, talking to Lucy.

“Shit.” She let the word spit itself out a little louder than she anticipated, but he certainly didn’t notice nor care, what with the dilemma now confronting both of them.

“… They’re clever,” he finally muttered, “it’s obvious why they’d send you.”

“Mutually assured destruction.” She agreed.

He turned back from where he was sitting, eye level with Casey’s torso, still securely wrapped in her coat, and remembered why he made the call in the first place, his original evening plans.

He finally looked up. “… Do you really think they expect, us, to—?”

“I doubt it, Your Honor.” She made sure to emphasize it, for both their sakes. “Looks like they’re sending us both a message.” She nodded over to the pictures, to the at least four she could see, of a black dress behind ice buckets in the kitchen.

“You are in trouble with them, aren’t you?”

Anything you do say can and will be used against you in a court of law.

She still wouldn’t answer, hoping her rattled breathing could instead fill in the blanks without committing her to her own word.

He started stuffing the photos and paper back into the envelope while he waited on the non-answer, before announcing, “I suspect there isn’t really much I can do to help now anyway, not without putting my own head above the parapet.”

He got up, the chair scooting backwards forcing Casey out the way, leaving only the letter opener on the table in his wake.

“You can go, Ms Novak.” He grunted on his way back to the couch, tossing the envelope down beside the glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose with his newly freed hand as he folded down to sitting on the edge of the couch.

Casey soon followed, slowly stalking the other side of the room until she was back at the door, where the real world and its consequences lay beyond.

She turned back one final time, her hand still on the knob. “… Are you going to report me?”

“I think we both have bigger problems here than the goddamn Ethics Committee.” He practically sneered at the thought. “It’s like you said,” he reached over and held up the envelope one more time, “mutually assured destruction.”

She just nodded an acknowledgement, leaving him in silence. Untouched, at least, but not undisturbed.

She spotted through the lobby that the car was already gone from outside, once again left to make her own way home. She felt her phone still tucked away in her pocket. She already needed to call a cab. Maybe after calling the cab she could just call someone, anyone. This could all be over with if she just called someone right now—

“Hold the door…!”

Someone appeared from the dark street seemingly out of nowhere, bounding up the steps toward the glass, squeezing through the gap between Casey and the open frame, disappearing down the lobby and up the stairs she’d just descended.  

“You’re welcome, I guess.” She mumbled to herself, finally calling a cab while letting the door swing shut behind the stranger.

And her thumb did hover over her call list while she waited out in the cold, again. Olivia, Amanda, Alex. Any of them, just any of them just put your thumb down and call someone.

Or maybe this wasn’t something a phone call could fix anymore. Not with what Judge Harriman had on her, or she on him. No, this was too big for a phone call now. It became too big the moment Ivy’s heart stopped beating, even if Casey could never truly know when that was.

She hesitated for too long, and it just wasn’t the sort of conversation to have in the back of a cab, where anyone with any intention could be listening through the divider. So she didn’t.

She didn’t sleep the rest of that night, either. Not that it was such an anomaly, anymore. For her to climb under the sheets for those precious few hours only to lay there, staring at the whitewash ceiling or one wall or the opposite; pondering every possibility, every path she was taking each day that propelled her closer and closer to disaster. She’d climb out again before the sun was up, and pretend the cold water hitting her eyelids an effective replacement for what was needed behind them.

Then she would turn up to the office like nothing had happened. She was getting good at that. Maybe a little too good. At pretending she lived a normal life outside those walls, that she could still box it away to deal with later. That her daytime persona was just too preoccupied to deal with the chaos of her alter ego, too busy to acknowledge that they were indeed the same person, with the same problems, now heading on a certain collision course.

She already lost count of the cups of coffee from the break room. She sat at her desk with the latest one, blithely going between her laptop and the piles of papers in front of her, pouring over case notes that seemed to grow more and more incomplete by the week no matter how hard she tried to keep up.

She rubbed at her eye with the heel of her hand just as a gentle knock came to the half-open door to her office.

“Do you have a second?” Alex was teetering at the threshold of the room, not waiting for a response to her knock before making clear what she wanted. Up there on her pedestal, hair shining and with a crisp, clean aura about her that still put the stale, dusty air of Casey’s office to shame.

They hadn’t spoken face to face since they parted the morning after the night before. When Alex was in such a hurry to leave after waking up that she wouldn’t even stay for coffee.

And now all that stood between them and that night were a few awkward voicemails. And the weight of the world still on Casey’s shoulders, untouched, a burden still neither shared nor halved.

But she nodded Alex through regardless. The blonde closed the door behind her gently enough, but the half-open venetians rattled against glass and wood regardless. She took her place right across the desk again, making herself comfortable in the opposite chair, crossing one leg over the other as she started.

“We’ve not had much of a chance to talk, and you’re barely answering your phone."

It wasn’t intentional. The first few times, at least. When Alex picked up the case and was calling at such ridiculous hours that a non-answer was both expected and encouraged. But she wouldn’t have been aware of the exhaustion that ran deep through Casey’s bones no matter the hour, or that sometimes seeing Alex’s name light up the screen was enough to unsettle her, remind her that she would simply never match up now.

“… Sorry,” Casey maybe enunciated a little too sharply, like she was sick of hearing it from her own mouth already. “Just been,” she cleared her throat, “super busy.”

“Are you…” Alex cleared her own throat, now chewing over her own words before they’d come out. “Are you uncomfortable with what happened between us?”

Of course she wasn’t. It was the most comfortable Casey had felt in years, actually. To be touched while actually wanting it, for her bare skin to be seen as human and not that of a plaything to be tossed around for pleasure. To feel attractive as herself, as Casey, and not the caricature of herself that grew more grotesque with each passing night.

But just like everything else these days, it felt impossible to address out loud. That things were messier than they could possibly imagine, and Alex would do well to steer clear of Casey’s web, but proximity gave them no choice.

“Look,” Alex straightened up, folding her hands into her lap, her eyes trained on the edge of Casey’s desk. “We’d both been drinking, and we both crossed a line.” She stated almost rhythmically, like she’d rehearsed it on the way there. “If you’re not comfortable working together anymore that’s fine, we can talk about a transfer—”

“No, no, no, that’s not—” The words rushed from Casey’s throat. A transfer this early on would get alarm bells ringing with the higher ups, an almost certain death knell for her quasi-probation, even if pairing her with the Alex Cabot was a well-known baptism of fire. “That won’t be necessary.” She insisted, “it’s fine, we’re fine.”

“You’re sure?” Alex’s brow might have raised a fraction.

“Of course. I’m happy to just forget about it, if you are?”

Why did she say that why on earth would she say that?

Casey didn’t want that night to leave her mind, ever. How easy it all felt, how genuinely she was cared for. The fact that it was Alex to do all that, was yet to be determined as a bonus or a curse. But she had to take the positives where she could get them, being so few and far between these days.

“… Sure.”

Her heart might’ve sunk at Alex agreeing to those terms, but it made sense. They had to stay professional no matter how much Casey needed otherwise, if only for the sake of convenience. For the sake of her career.

Alex checked the silver, glimmering watch on her wrist, partly hidden beneath the sleeve of her blouse. “I’m actually about to go arraign the birthday boy from the penthouse party, you want to come with?”

“Uh, can’t,” Casey thought she made a pretty good job at hiding the rising tide in her chest, the flashes of memory racing across the front of her mind. Of the raunchy crowds, of Judge Harriman, of Ivy. “Got, uh, some catching up to do in here.” She made her hands busy with one of the reams on her desk. “But, thanks.”

“Okay.”

Alex had made herself scarce almost as quickly as she’d appeared, leaving the room lighter than when she’d entered. And maybe Casey was just that fatigued, but she still couldn’t figure out how on earth she was doing that.

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