Chapter Text
The trembling of the earth had ceased days before, but Rook still felt the rhythm in the marrow of her bones. It followed her like a dream never ending- The smell of the ash. Scorched pine. The blaze. The flesh of the old world cracking and simmering underneath a scorching Montana sky.
She’d thought the roaring of the fires above were the most terrifying sounds she’d ever heard. That is, until they stopped.
Because then there was only silence.
The old world was a carcass. They were maggots, dug in deep, waiting. Waiting.
Waiting.
Joseph played the waiting game well.
He hadn’t uttered a word since she’d woken, which Rook couldn’t identify as a blessing or a torment. On one hand, she didn’t know if she could stomach any more of his horseshit, his taunting, his patronizing, his scolding.
But… it was eerie to watch him in his silence. At least if he was blathering, she could anticipate his next move. Mentally she might’ve prepared herself. After all, he’d never been shy about being upfront with her.
Now he just watched. Piercing, hollow eyes. It was another game they played. Any time one caught the other staring, their gazes would lock. An intense, yet entirely nonverbal exchange that neither seemed intent to shy away from. Intimate and treacherous.
These mental bouts usually ended with Joseph breaking contact, glancing back down to a book in his hand or about the room at the faded posters and paintings. One might mistake this as him conceding the tiny power struggle. But both of them knew better.
Joseph was a persistence predator.
*************
“What are you going to do to me?” Rook finally asked on the second day, when the tremors were then distant hums in the earth.
Joseph had been reading the contents of a manila folder- Dutch’s gathered information on his family.
His finger gently traced a polaroid of his siblings standing together. Faith was as lovely as ever. John was posturing, his grin reaching his eyes for once. Jacob’s rugged face remained as still and as somber as stone.
He let the silence between them settle on the air.
“I’m going to tend to you.” He answered softly.
And tend he did. It started small- the destruction of the deputy’s pride. There was a monumental amount of it, seemingly a cornerstone of her very being. It was the first thing that had to go- the tilling of the soil.
She could do nothing without him. He fed her, watered her, escorted her to the bathroom. The convincing to let him wash her took several days but eventually she relented, only because Joseph offered no alternative.
Her eyes never even drifted near his during. She simply stared down into the water or to her hands, cuffed to the pipe in the wall. Her form was a pillar of strength and survival but even so, it wilted under Joseph’s calloused hand. Limbs curled close together, bastions of the body. Armor.
“You have nothing to fear from me, child.” Joseph promised as he washed away the ash and soot, his touch never lingering too long on any patch of skin-except for the angry red scars of Wrath above her breast. It was an absentminded gesture, the pad of his thumb lightly tracing over John’s small legacy.
Her shiver didn’t go unnoticed.
“When John was small, I used to do this for him, too.” Joseph murmured. “Our parents never looked after us, so Jacob taught me how to feed him, clean him. Just as he’d done for me when I was...”
His eyes were distant.
“…I remember…”
Joseph’s voice tempered off into a hoarse exhale. Rook noted the white knuckle grip on the tub, how the muscles in his arm shuddered and writhed. She dared not move. Not now.
Eventually, Joseph reached up a tender hand to touch her forehead. Stroked her hair once, twice. Then he took her arm, guiding her to stand.
He took to drying her, then had her slip on the large white tshirt he’d found in one of the dressers. It was a fitting look- fresh faced, white linens. Born anew.
Gilded.
Those eyes still burned into him.
He envisioned what they might look like with less heat- soft, admiring. Beautiful.
He’d see it soon enough.
Love is patient.
***********
Love is kind.
Every day was a new trial.
Rook could feel herself slipping away. Little by little, Joseph sought to carve her out, make a hollow vessel so that he could fill her. Another mindless, loving doll, a puppet, a pawn.
First it was the reliance she was forced to place on him. Utterly stripped down to her basest of functions as he watched and coddled over her.
Then it was the talking.
He never. Stopped. Talking.
Gentle, honeyed tones. Drifting, intruding. Sometimes it was directly to her, other times he spoke to himself.
Often times, he spoke clear out of his head. Perhaps, to the air. Perhaps to someone else.
No matter how quietly he spoke, his voice always felt like it was right next to her ear. She could almost feel the warmth of his breath on her skin even when he was clear across the room.
It addled her. Her mind ran in circles, trying to rid all senses of him and failing.
He talked of himself, his life, his siblings, his visions, his dreams. The worst was when he preached. When he reminded her of who God had favored, who had won in the end.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
She knew what he was doing. Rook knew how to profile, came with the job. She’d had him pegged from the beginning. She wondered if he knew. Or if this was just the way he was wired, the way he really thought people ought to work.
She supposed it didn’t matter. It was damaging her.
Usually, she was quiet during these monologues. Hardly speaking unless addressed directly and even then only giving one word answers.
One day, he said something. Something. Something completely asinine and pointless. Something about wheat? A harvest?
Rook couldn’t even recall, just that it whatever it was caused a part inside of her to burst. She’d been split open, spilling out on the floor as she screamed at the top of her lungs. Anything, anything to keep him from speaking a moment more. She kicked her legs out, aiming to knock over the bedside table. Just Something to connect with so she didn’t remain an open, wired nerve.
She kept going, writhing on the floor and scraping the back of her legs on concrete, heaving and sobbing so violently she felt she might vomit.
She didn’t even realize he was with her until she recognized the warmth of another body draped over hers.
Her face was wet with tears and salt as she quaked in Joseph’s arms. Uncertainty. Confliction. Her gut knew what was happening but all she wanted was this poison out of her. All this anguish, the guilt, the fear. She ached for relief.
For Emptiness.
Joseph said nothing as her sobs turned into shudders, hiccups. He simply held her, stroked her hair, even began rocking her back and forth. Reminded her of the deep sea fishing trip she’d taken with her father as a graduation present. Lying awake at night, staring up at the stars as the boat swayed with the waves. Feeling so lost and yet so at home under the cosmos.
Adrift at sea.
Rook noted that she was uncuffed now, but it mattered little. She was a prisoner of the mind. Too broken in this moment to fight against her warden’s tenderness that encaged her like steel bars.
And she knew it.
They stayed this way for a long while. Silent. Warm. Until finally, Joseph placed his palms on either side of her face and lifted up her gaze to meet his.
His eyes were always hollow, cold. A barren mirror. He always looked at her the same way- carving, loving, terrible.
Leaning forward, he touched his forehead to hers and the warmth of his breath made her stomach twist but she didn’t recoil.
Thankfully, it only lasted a few moments longer before he withdrew. He studied her once more, his eyes half lidded as he brushed hair from her face. Seemed to be considering something.
The cuffs were back on. Joseph went to fetch a glass of water.