Under A Rest Pt. 03

Several Weeks Later

Damn it. He could've sworn that coupon expired next week.

Maybe he could still get the cashier to take it. After all, at this hour they were either half his age or inebriated. Likely both. None of them would give a man like him trouble at the grocery store at this hour.

So he hoped.

There stood a weary Detective Berman in the breakfast aisle of his local supermarket, its bleak, overwhelming fluorescent light bearing down on him. The box of whole-grain bran flakes in his hand was more than he could justify without the coupon, and the other brand, though cheaper, he knew wasn't quite as tasty. But there was a new brand on the shelf which looked appealing enough to give a try. Should he even bother to get another type if the coupon didn't go through? He was trying to tighten his budget, but maybe he deserved to treat himself. His credit card company had upped his grocery cash-back bonus to three percent, after all.

He sighed and pressed his lips together, rubbing an eye under his glasses. The amount of high-stakes decision-making required of him immediately following a 12-hour shift of constant high-stakes decision-making was beginning to get to him--and that was just the cereal. It hadn't helped that on top of all the running around he'd done that week, he'd begun to suffer stomach trouble. The detective supposed it was the recent onslaught of work that had him spread all too thin, that nagging Walter case notwithstanding.

It was a strange case, that one. Lately, it had begun to plague him to the extent that he'd actually started having second thoughts about it. He could've sworn that at some point he was doggedly on the trail of his strangely bewitching ostensible primary suspect, but the details of his first brushes with her now seemed distant and hard to recall--more impressions than memories. And the more time he spent with her, the less certain he was of her culpability.

For one, she was oddly at ease with a law enforcement official arriving at house every Friday night for extensive questioning. Most criminals were well aware of their rights; if they weren't, more than a couple of interviews with him prompted calls from lawyers and pleas of the fifth from any sane person, let alone a bona fide murderer. Doctor Angelos simply made him cups of chamomile tea and...obliged his questions.

Of course, he didn't normally interview a single suspect over the course of an entire weekend, let alone every weekend for well over a month straight, but this case was simply making his head spin. She simply gave completely sound answers. Her alibi was simply airtight.

The man was simply altogether too close to just throwing his hands up and leaving the store with naught but a handle of scotch.

While on a brisk walk at the rear of the store, a ponytailed, sweatpants-clad Doctor Angelos could've sworn she spied a familiar figure in her peripheral vision. She stopped, took a single, incredulous step backwards, and discreetly peered down one of the aisles. There were a couple of others milling about, but she instantly honed in on one bespectacled, wild-haired man, coupon in hand, mumbling something to himself about whether the cashier was high enough to scan it.

The doctor frowned in thought. It would be quite risky to be seen with him like this in public, even at this hour of the night with hardly anyone else around. But she couldn't help but stare at him in such casual attire, visual whiplash from the sharp jackets and ties he typically wore for work.

He looked like nothing special, of course--just a faded, navy blue flannel sloppily tucked into jeans that looked almost as old as he was, all tied up in a bow with dirty white running sneakers. But she found something pleasantly, humorously intriguing about seeing him perusing cereals in humble garb, akin to seeing one's respected professor on a late-night run to Taco Bell.

There was, too, something to be said about the fun in observing him like prey: watching him compare prices, furrow his brow in thought, dig in his pocket for his shopping list--all the while blissfully unaware of her gaze.

She bit her lower lip, suppressing a laugh at his sheer concentration, as fascinating and charming as it was strange. With the unholy amounts of intense focus he put into a task as menial as cereal choice, it was no wonder that the moment she'd seized it, he was putty in her hands.

Driven by adrenaline and serendipity, not to mention how very pinchable his ass looked in those jeans, Doctor Angelos decided she'd wait until he was alone before pouncing.

He looked up in her direction for a brief moment; she instantly hid behind the endcap, holding her breath. The man paused, rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, then went back to his extremely important deliberation.

Luckily, it seemed as though he hadn't caught a real glimpse of her. But he'd finally placed a box in his basket and was on the move again now, and off she went to shadow him discreetly. Up and down several more aisles he wove, taking his sweet time, the doctor thanking the stars that the store was sparsely populated.

All of a sudden, as he ponderously perused pints of fudgy ice cream, one of the man's coupons fluttered out of his pocket onto the cold, aged linoleum floor of the freezer aisle. As if on cue, Doctor Angelos silently snuck up behind him and snatched it.

"You dropped this."

He whirled around in shock at that smug, familiar voice coming from behind him. Upon registering the source, he chuckled.

"Am I gonna need a restraining order?"

"Wow. No hello, not even a thank you," she said with a smirk. "I see how it is."

"I'm sorry. Good evening, dear madam, and thank you so very kindly for picking up my expired coupon for a buck fifty off a box of overpriced bran flakes. However might I repay you?"

"I've got a bright idea," she said, stepping closer towards him. He stepped backwards, feeling his back touch the freezer door. "No, but really, I just so happen to shop here, too, you know. As I'm sure you've pieced together, I don't live very far."

"Likely story, 'normal lady who comes to the grocery store at ten for just crackers'," he said dryly, nodding his head towards the only item in her hand. His own basket, of course, was stuffed with processed foodstuffs and frozen meals.

Doctor Angelos laughed, her eyes meeting his. His deep, smiling brown eyes seemed to sparkle behind his glasses in the store's lurid fluorescence, holding her captive for a moment. Taken off guard, she purposefully broke eye contact.

"I did really come for these," she said, looking at the green-and-orange box of organic flaxseed crackers. "I usually do most of my shopping at Joe's down on Green Street, but they've got a few things here that I like, so here's where I usually take care of the rest."

He blinked a few times, the magic word giving him that funny feeling to which he'd become so accustomed over the last several weeks. Once foreign, the warm calm that spread through him was now a familiar sensation--though in public, he found himself fighting it.

"Really?" he said flatly. "Here?"

"Well, for starters, they're the only ones around here who even have these, the ones with the flaxseed, and I--"

"No, I mean...you know what I mean."

"What's wrong?"

"We're in public, for one," he muttered warily, his eyes no longer naturally meeting hers but now helplessly glued to them. She put her hand on his arm and stroked it gently. He swallowed.

"Ah. So you still don't trust me, after all the time we've spent together," she said calmly. "That's understandable. But you know, nothing bad will happen. I won't ever let it, you see, and so you don't need to worry about such trivial matters as being in public, because you are with me, and with me you feel so safe, and when you feel safe you feel so relaxed, so tired, so good, so in dire need of rest."

She tugged sharply on his arm. His features slackened, his basket clattering to the ground as he leaned against the cold glass of the freezer door. Mentally, he reeled, trance flooding his mind and trouncing his defenses, his breath slowing.

Fine, so she was good at this. Really good at this. That, he could wrap his mind around. What he couldn't quite wrap his mind around was how the hell she'd managed to tug his arm and send him plummeting in the middle of a Shop 'N' Save. Though with each breath, veins filling with tranquility, the fact that he was at her mercy amid said Shop 'N' Save seemed less and less relevant.

Abruptly, squeaking footfalls on tile reverberated throughout the largely empty aisles, getting louder as they neared. Doctor Angelos acted swiftly.

"Find energy in your muscles to stand at attention while remaining in this state of mind. Eyes open," she said quickly. Detective Berman's posture straightened and his tired eyelids lifted, eyes bearing a glassy lack of focus.

"You know," she started in normal conversational tone. "They never put mint chocolate chip on sale."

"'cause it's the best one," he replied without missing a beat.

She cracked a grin. A man of culture.

"We deserve a break every now and again, don't we?"

"they put catcher's on sale."

"Catcher's doesn't count. Catcher's is frozen insulation."

"good enough for me," he said. She tutted.

"You've really got to love yourself more."

"You see that, Steve?" hissed a man's voice behind them, trying and failing to be inconspicuous. "That's exactly how you look when I try to talk to you."

"What look? The hell are you talkin' about?" came another, older man's voice, not bothering to conceal itself.

"That couple over there. Yeah, go ahead, stare with your mouth open. Very discreet."

Doctor Angelos' eyes darted over to see an elderly couple making their way through the aisle. The two men gave friendly, half-hearted nods as they passed, muttering to each other discontentedly.

"That guy's not listenin', he's got the Celtics game goin' in his head. I'm not like that. Me, I listen to you."

"Not when the Celtics are on."

"Gimme a break."

"I am."

As the older couple shuffled out of the aisle, its two younger occupants turned to share a glance. The doctor grinned, then began to laugh quietly; the detective chuckled in kind.

"Funny. You're listening more closely than he ever could."

"pretty good at it."

"I know. At ease, Pet." Detective Berman exhaled, enjoying the plunge. He allowed his posture to relent somewhat as he leaned back against the frigid glass, his blinks long and slow. The doctor noted his enervated disposition, finding something oddly commendable about his insistence on living in a state of perpetual exhaustion despite her attempts to help him. Of course, it wouldn't do.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"shopping's hard," he uttered.

"Well, of course it's hard when you treat your body so terribly. And especially when you think so hard about everything. You buy those bran flakes like you're defusing a bomb, for God's sake. Everything's life and death with you. What could be so hard about grocery shopping?"

"expensive. too many choices. lights gimme a headache."

She bent down to pick up a Ferrero Rocher assortment box from his basket and raised a brow.

"Expensive, huh. A value meal, these Rochers."

"w-well...they're good," he said quietly, pouting slightly. She snorted at this ridiculously endearing display.

"Okay, fine. But all these frozen dinners..."

"quick. got coupons."

"Don't you know how to cook?" she said, arms crossed.

"just simple things. lots of decisions. no time."

She cupped his cheek, feeling the weight of his head in her hand.

"We've got lots of time now. You can relax, I'll look for some fresher options. Let's walk," she said, placing a few of the frozen dinners back. While so close to him in such bright lighting, the doctor noticed his pupils dilating rather than constricting.

"What do you see, Pet?" she asked curiously. The detective stared straight into her eyes with a gaze so hollow that it would've unsettled her had she not known better.

"good."

"Good?" she said with a small laugh. "What, can't you manage one of your SAT words?"

A single index finger made its way toward her chest, gently poking her breastbone.

"good," he insisted quietly. For once, she was speechless. Her brows furrowed, lips parted, head hung in disbelief.

Maria Angelos had never thought of herself as a good person. She was not the worst person she knew, maybe even not an altogether bad person all things considered, but nobody of particular goodness. Most of her patients would argue otherwise--that she cared about them, worked diligently to help them--and perhaps, in a way, they were right. Nonetheless, an oddly-placed sense of duty was not to be mistaken for altruism.

The doctor was well aware of the rather...interesting calibration of her moral compass. Her actions in life were self-serving, overly ambitious, cutthroat when it came down to it. Those were qualities to which she owed her success, upon which she'd built her livelihood. They made her powerful, enabled her to thrive where she otherwise would've withered and faltered. For them, she was thankful.

But she had never once deluded herself into thinking they were good. Though neither was this sleepy, swaying man before her stupid; he had not once given her the impression that he was a faulty judge of character. He'd had her pegged in every other regard.

Perhaps it was possible that she'd done such thorough work on this mind that he'd truly begun to develop some flavor of what the lay called Stockholm Syndrome. That'd been part of her plan, though, hadn't it? For some reason it now sat poorly with her.

She cleared her throat.

"You can't actually...think that," she muttered, somewhat disarmed. "Why?"

"you keep helping me, madam....caring for me....s'all you do."

"Helping and caring for people doesn't make me a good person."

"no," he murmured, tilting his head. His gaze for some reason well and truly perturbed her now, his normally warm brown eyes black and vacant. "but helping and caring for me does."

"...U-um," she stuttered, genuinely thrown off. "Well, I'll have to disagree, but it's awfully kind of you to say. Come. Let's get you taken care of."

"yes, madam."

Good. Good. Good. That one word had begun to eat at her as she shopped. Admittedly, she had indeed been taking care of him, far better than she had any of her other playthings. Hell, grocery shopping for one of them was a first. Maybe he sensed that on some level. Of course, nurturing someone who needed it naturally brought two people closer, that was all. This impromptu shopping trip was merely a calculated decision in a long line of calculated decisions, building a precarious and crucial bond that required all her effort if she wanted to escape the clutches of the law. If the one responsible for her fate came to rely on her not only emotionally and sexually, but even in matters domestic and mundane, if he came to associate her manipulations with authentic kindness and care, then all that meant was that her degree in psychiatric medicine was at least worth the paper on which it was printed. It was only natural that in his conditioned confusion he'd eventually start crossing wires and seeing her as good. That was why he'd said that.

Because she was most certainly not a nurturer. The role of the nurturer typically foisted upon women was one in which she explicitly never cared to put herself. Not as a young girl, not as a student, not as a medical resident, and certainly not as a successful doctor with a successful practice. In a clinical capacity she assisted, she facilitated; with her playthings, she played.

But she'd be completely lying to herself, she realized, if she said she found no real pleasure in helping this odd mess of a man who'd ambled through her office door, no spark of joy in nurturing him for his own sake, no personal reward in replacing his frozen dinners with salads. She supposed it helped that her efforts were at least clearly appreciated. Fine then, they'd born fruit, and with fruit came some degree of personal investment. That was that.

Though there was, too, the fact that she'd never had a plaything quite like him. Her thoughts flitted back to the way he'd gazed through her. She'd seen the gazes of dozens of toys in the throes of her trances. No subconscious so clearly, so obviously sought the confines of her control despite themselves, none so obviously needed it, yet none seemed to stare straight into her soul quite like he had. She had him precisely where she wanted him.

So why was she so beside herself?

Slowly, she turned to look at the man behind her now leaning against the shelf, basket in one hand, free hand pocketed. The poor thing looked entirely too happy to hand the reins of peanut butter picking to someone else.

"Chunky okay?" she asked, looking at the offensive jar with disdain.

"what's wrong with chunky? s'pretty good," he said lightly. She chuckled.

"Yeah? Exactly how much sleep did you get last night?"

"'bout four hours."

"No wonder you're okaying chunky, that's not nearly enough. Have you learned nothing?"

"s'usually enough for me."

"Mhm. And have you eaten?"

"not much. stomach hurt today."

No wonder. Man was barely eating, to boot.

"Is that so? Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to prescribe you a sick day," she said clinically, invoking her medical authority. His expression darkened.

"don't take sick days, madam," he said with an intense frown. She stared at him, aghast.

"Ever? Not even when you're actually sick?"

"always some kinda sick."

"So take a sick day," she pressed. Even under her influence, the man shook his head stubbornly. To her surprise, she found herself insisting in complete earnest. What on Earth did she care if he took a sick day?

"Listen to me, Michael, seriously," she said, voice low. "I am a doctor. Don't be a hero about this. There's no Purple Heart for belly aches endured or hours of sleep skipped. If you're in pain, you are allowed to lie down and recuperate. It's what humans have done for millennia and it's why we're here now. You are tired. Sick. You need rest. Wouldn't that do your mind some good? A much-earned rest?"

"...mm..." he groused, feeling his obstinacy eroding as the tides of her words lapped at his mind. Not an entirely nonsensical suggestion. Dreading falling behind at work, particularly on that oh-so-vexing Walter case, he'd planned on making an early start of tomorrow. But even he could admit he was of little use to anyone in such a state.

"On call this weekend?" she asked.

"no, madam."

"Paid sick leave?"

"too much."

"Excellent. You will take a sick day tomorrow. Doctor's orders. Really, madam's orders."

She could tell by the twitches of his lips that he was struggling, really grappling with such a taboo suggestion. But those final two words seemed to have finally hammered the message into his stubborn little mind.

"...s'pose it wouldn't hurt."

"Of course not. In fact, it'll only help. Now, did you drive here?"

"took the bus. car's in the shop."

"Perfect. Why don't you come with me, Pet?" she whispered, making sure they were alone, then slipping an arm around his waist and tiptoeing into him, giving his neck a long, slow kiss. She decided she rather enjoyed his natural scent. "I think you've got a lot of questioning to do, isn't that right?"

"lotta...questioning to do..." he uttered, the low hum of his throat vibrating against her lips as he spoke.

"Beautiful. Awaken," she said, the detective blinking rapidly as he rose to regular consciousness and oriented himself. She took his hand in hers. "Come along."

"Yeah, I'm...hey, where's my Lean Cuisine?"

***

Before he could protest, Doctor Angelos took the detective's basket of groceries, loading them onto the conveyor belt. He opened his mouth in protest, but she motioned otherwise.