Comfort and Violation

Comfort and Violation
Rachael

The fax machine in the corner of the precinct clicked to life, rattling out a page like it was coughing up a lung. I glanced over from my desk, rubbing at my temple with the back of my hand. The hum of fluorescents, the constant shuffle of paper, even Jake’s tapping pen two doors down all throbbed inside my skull. Still, I pushed up, left the office, and yanked the warm sheet off the tray.
“Toxicology,” I muttered under my breath.
I dropped back into my chair and spread the report out. My eyes tracked the lines of text, neat black ink that might as well have been stamped straight into my headache.

Roman leaned down over my shoulder, and his cologne hit me first, woodsy, clean, threaded with something sharp like cedar smoke. It unsettled me more than it should’ve, because it was grounding. Solid. Safe. That was dangerous in its own way.

“Midazolam,” I read aloud, tracing the line with my pen. “Fast-acting. High doses depress breathing until—” I didn’t finish.
Roman filled the silence. “Until she stopped.” His voice was calm, clinical. “Like I said, controlled. Predictable.”
I scribbled the name into my notebook, circling it twice. “Not the kind of thing you buy off the shelf,” I muttered.

“Not unless you know exactly where to look,” Roman said, still close enough that the warmth of him pressed against the edge of my focus more than the report did.
Before I could snap back, Marty’s voice carried from his office. “Don’t drown yourselves in it tonight. Mayor’s already barking, and I need a summary by morning. Go home, both of you.”
Roman gave a lazy salute. I shoved the paper into a folder and stood, head buzzing. I didn’t argue.

The drive was quiet. Roman didn’t fill the silence, and that was almost worse than his usual smooth commentary. My head throbbed in time with the wipers until the familiar sag of my front porch came into view.
Inside, the air smelled like beer and old takeout. Roman stepped in behind me, pulling out his phone, his bag dropping beside the couch like he’d claimed it, “Pizza or Chinese?”

“Pizza. Double pepperoni.” I unclipped my badge, dropped it and my gun on the counter, and reached for the cabinet. Two pills rattled into my palm. I swallowed them dry before twisting the cap off a beer from the refrigerator.
Roman’s voice cut, sharp as glass. “That's how you balance it? Pills and booze?”
I froze, bottle halfway to my mouth. “Headache.”
I froze, bottle halfway to my mouth. “Headache.”

“Mm.” He plucked the beer from my hand, set it down, and slid a glass of water toward me instead. “You want to be useless tomorrow? Because that’s how.”
I glared, every muscle taut. “You’re not my keeper.”
“Then prove it,” he said, tone easy but firm. “Drink the water.”
The words weren’t a challenge—they were a dare. My pride bristled, but I took it, downing the glass in one pull. The water was lukewarm, unsatisfying.
“Good girl,” he murmured, already dialing for the pizza.
The words clung to my skin long after.

I tore into the pizza like a starving animal. Grease slicked my fingers, cheese stretching in strings until I snapped them with my teeth. Roman didn’t say anything at first, just sat back with his beer and watched me demolish slice after slice.
“You act like you haven’t eaten in a week,” he finally said.
“Didn’t have time today.” I reached for another piece. “Not unusual.”
His brow lifted. “That’s a habit, not an accident. You’re good at starving yourself of things you need.”
I froze mid-bite, glaring at him. “You don’t know me well enough to say that.”
He smirked, but there was something sharper underneath it. “Then tell me. What don’t I know?”

I dropped the slice back into the box, appetite souring. The alcohol in my veins with my own sedative loosened my tongue, the exhaustion stripped down the walls, and maybe I was just sick of pretending. “Fine. You want something real? I got married once. After a few weeks. We eloped. It was stupid....no love, no sense. Just a drunk mistake.”
Roman’s expression didn’t shift. He let me keep going.
“He drank a lot and thought fists settled more than words ever could. The whole thing was chaos. Bruises and apologies that didn’t mean shit. Took me longer than I want to admit to walk away.” I swallowed, staring at the dark grease blotches spreading across the cardboard. “And when I did, I made sure it stuck. Restraining order. End of story.”

Silence stretched. The hum of the fridge filled the kitchen.
Roman leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “That’s not weakness, Sinclair. That’s survival.”
I shook my head, grabbing the abandoned slice just to give my hands something to do. “No. It was stupidity. I should’ve seen it coming.”
Silence pressed in, broken only by the buzz of the refrigerator. I hated how raw the words felt hanging in the air, like I’d peeled my skin back just to show him the ugliest scar.

Roman didn’t look away. He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, gaze steady and unflinching. “You know what I hear in that story?” he said finally.
I grabbed the crust of my slice, chewing just to have something to do with my mouth. “That I’m an idiot.”
He shook his head slowly. “I hear someone who survived. Who walked away when it mattered. Not everyone does.”
My jaw tightened. I didn’t want his pity.

“It’s not pity,” he added, like he’d read it on my face. His tone softened, but there was steel underneath. “It’s respect. You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
I snorted, though the sound came out shaky. “Respect? For running?”
“For knowing when to run. For not letting a man like that finish you.” He leaned a little closer, eyes catching the dim kitchen light. “That takes more strength than you want to admit.”

I shifted under the weight of his voice, stomach knotting in a way that wasn’t hunger.
Roman took a pull from his beer. “You don’t have to tell me the rest,” he said. “But you should know I’m not him. I don’t drink to swing fists, and I don’t stick around to watch someone I care about fall apart. I don’t do useless.”

The words slid under my skin, too pointed to dismiss, too calm to be anything but deliberate. He was careful with them, handing them over like a lifeline and a warning at the same time.
For a moment, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to shove him out the door or believe him.
I stayed quiet after that, picking at the crust in my hands until it tore apart in little flakes. Roman leaned back, comfortable as ever, like he hadn’t just dismantled one of my most guarded secrets.
When the pizza was down to scraps and my stomach felt heavy enough to drag me under, I pushed the box aside and muttered, “I need sleep.”
He nodded, grabbing his jacket but not putting it on. “Couch is fine for me. I’ll keep out of your way.”

Roman gave me that crooked half-grin, the one that felt too knowing, and then stretched out across the couch like he owned it. I left him to his beer and went down the hall.
My bedroom was dim, the lamp I always left on casting a pale glow over the walls. I peeled off my uniform shirt, tossed it over the chair, and sank onto the edge of the bed. The bedside table rattled as I dug through bottles, looking for something else to take.
To keep the nightmares away.
I popped an Ambien and for a second, the silence was enough to trick me into thinking I might actually rest.

I dug through the nightstand drawer until my fingers closed around the orange pill bottle. The plastic rattled as I tapped one Ambien into my palm. It was routine by now—swallow, wash down with the last of my beer, pray for dreamless sleep.
But when I set the bottle back down, I froze.

Beside it sat a piece of chocolate. Neat, wrapped in foil, the same brand I used to stash in my patrol car for long shifts. The same kind I’d only ever bought once at the corner store across town.
My stomach dropped. I hadn’t bought chocolate in weeks.
I stared at it, pulse kicking hard. It looked harmless...just a piece of candy, but the fact that it was here, waiting on my nightstand like a gift… no one could’ve known it mattered to me. No one except me.

The house was quiet, the low hum of the fridge carrying down the hall. Roman shifted on the couch, a muffled cough, the creak of old springs. Normal sounds. But that chocolate on the nightstand wasn’t normal.
I snatched it up, shoved it deep into the drawer, and slammed it shut. My hands shook as I slid under the covers, trying to convince myself I was overtired, drunk, imagining things.
But I knew better.
Someone had been in here. Someone who knew me well enough to leave my favorite thing.