Roxie (Wren) Maheu (ex_theredlig387) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-05-14 00:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | roxanne, todd hewitt |
Who: Wren and Rome
What: Misunderstandings
Where: Rainier
When: Say tonight-ish
Warnings: None
It was raining. It was always fucking raining in this city; the rain leaked lichen over the tree branches and soaked into the concrete. It kept sliding Rome’s hair into his eyes, and he was having a hard time trying to see the whore where she was crouched, behind the dumpster at the far end of the alley. His Noise, detectable thoughts in an unnatural, silent voice of rattled adrenaline and half-formed fears, made it through the roar of traffic on the road beyond, but only barely, and only because it was in the mind and not in the air. He’s gone, come out, he’s gone.
She wasn’t listening to him, though. He could tell, because in the black rain she was cringing and hiding, and he couldn’t tell whether or not she was hurt. Like any homeless person, Rome had cause to avoid authority, and unless she was dying, he didn’t want to call police or ambulance. Are you hurt? He tried to approach, but she only got more panicked, waving her arms. Should run, he thought, torn, but he didn’t.
Wren wasn’t dressed in kevlar, and she wasn’t wearing a mask. She was walking back from visiting a girl, one she’d met on the streets a few week before and whose pimp had put her in the hospital, and she barely noticed the rain. Her mind was everywhere, on ways to get the girl out once she was released, on the ongoing problem of money and housing, and the voice that came from behind the dumpster didn’t register until the final words. Should run.
She couldn’t see from where she was, and she edged closer as the storm intensified, thunder and lightning and it was hard to hear anything but the sound of rain hitting the dirty street. She recognized the girl before she looked at the man in front of the familiar figure waving her arms in distress. She hadn’t seen the young man approach, and she didn’t think he was innocent. She didn’t trust men, despite all appearances to the contrary, and when she saw a scene like this, it made her mind flash back to another alley, five years earlier.
“Get away from her,” she whispered, the order not audible over the rain. They were words said just to say something, to take up space as she tugged the balisong from her garter and swished it open, the blade glinting in the crash and glow of lightning.
Who? was the thought, not long enough to avoid the impression of sound. He turned to face her. He was not a short man (age was all relative, opinion depended on who you talked to if you wanted to decide if Rome was man or boy), on his way to six feet but not not near enough to satisfy him, probably about 5’7” or so. The black leather jacket shone in the rain, and it made him look larger than he was, because he couldn’t have tipped a scale past 140 even soaking wet, like he was now. Exposure gave his face a certain thinness that couldn’t be falsified, and he immediately backed away from her, because he looked for a weapon with expectation rather than examining her body first. Whoa, don’t want to fight!
There was too much rain for her to notice that his lips weren’t moving, and nothing he said cleared up the misunderstanding. “You shouldn’t have hurt her, then,” she said, but the thunder crashed and her voice didn’t carry to where he was. She didn’t register much about him - his height, his weight, his age. He was just a man who hurt girls, and it made her angry and she didn’t think. She threw the balisong at the fleshy part of his shoulder, knowing it wouldn’t do much injury. She was hoping it would run him off, if he didn’t manage to move in time, but that was all she was hoping for. She didn’t have any additional knives on her, and she’d given her comm to Misfit when Oracle didn’t get her one of her own. It was an attempt at distraction, nothing more.
I don’t want to hurt-- Most of Rome’s reactions were sharp emotions and staggered panic, and it was only the movements that tended to be punctuated by panicked thought. What’s she-- He didn’t understand what she was doing until it was too late, and he tried to move to the side, but he wasn’t that fast. Rome knew that people who didn’t carry knives shouldn’t get in knife-fights with people who did, and he was motivated by survival more than anything else. Unfortunately his dodge took him the wrong way, toward the girl rather than away, and with a rusty yell of pain and surprise, he backed away from his attacker as the knife clattered somewhere in the dark of the pavement behind him. Crazy bitch! He made no move toward her, no aggression, just wide eyes that moved to either side and then back at the sobbing girl in the shadow of the dumpster. She was covering her head.
She heard the knife clatter, and she knew her aim hadn’t been true. She’d been practicing with lighter knives lately, Jackson’s creations that sang and didn’t require much strength in her arms to stick. The clattering meant that any injury she’d done was insignificant, and she realized she was going to have to use the skills Luke had taught her to use. She still hadn’t fought anyone, not without a weapon, but he didn’t look very scary. He had moved toward the girl, who was crying louder, and that was all the encouragement Wren needed. She ran at him, full speed, fingers aimed for his eyes, heels ready to stomp on his feet, knee ready to go for his groin - if she could catch him.
Rome had been in plenty of brawls. None of them had been designed to kill him, just hurt him enough so that he wouldn’t fight or defend what he had or wanted. None of these experiences particularly prepared him for a skilled opponent, not that he knew whether or not the girl had skill; he would have reacted the same way regardless. He tried to avoid the charge, like any sane person, thoughts jangling with meaningless exclamations (look out!), and the first thing he did was protect vulnerable points: his head turned to keep his eyes out of reach and his knee came close against her. He shoved a shoulder into her lighter body in an attempt to push her away. What if she has another knife?! His hands came up and shoved again as the thought crashed between them, and the girl screamed.
She wasn’t very good at balance yet, and she teetered when he shoved, but she used it, like Luke had taught her, and she grabbed for whatever she could reach and pulled him with her, using the momentum of his shove to yank him off balance along with her. If he fell, he couldn’t hurt the screaming girl, and that was something, at least.
Down he went, in a puddle of new rain and foul-smelling wet from the dumpster, an inarticulate sound of very audible, normal pain escaping lungs and throat. The thoughts were constant. Get her off, get away, get help! He curled up into a ball to prevent serious damage from the additional knife he was now sure she had, and flailed out at her to dislodge whatever grip she might have.
She fell back, and she covered her face, and she told the girl near the dumpster to run, which didn’t make anything happen. “I’m not hurting you,” she told the man on the ground, who was yelling about needing help from her, which was just silly. “You were hurting her,” she added, crawling toward the other girl with a hiss at scraped knees on concrete. She grabbed the knife as she crawled, and she crouched in front of the girl. “What did he do to you?”
The girl was incoherent with shock and fear, now protecting herself from some imagined attack, smelling of blood and the alley, as they did. When he was not pursued and no one started kicking at him, Rome immediately rolled up onto his feet, holding his hand to his shoulder, which hurt like hellfire. He didn’t know it was bleeding yet, because everything was wet. What did she say? Me? I didn’t hurt anyone. Crazy bitch with a knife threw it at me! He staggered away from the two, trying to orient himself and find a direction to run in.
She was worried, now, about the girl, and she spun on him, because she still blamed him for whatever was happening. “What were you doing to her, then?” she demanded, sharper than her normally soft demeanor.
Saved her, didn’t I?! Rome snapped back, deciding in a split second not to run right away and instead putting the dumpster between them just in case she decided to go for that knife again. Made the guy run off, scared him off, but he hurt her and her mind went to pieces. God, the cops are going to think I did it, but I didn’t, I didn’t, don’t they have science to prove I didn’t?
She stood, and she turned, and the balisong glinted between her fingertips, blood dripping onto the pavement. “What do you mean?” she asked, and her voice was already losing that sharpness, that anger, and something like guilt was starting to seep into her words. The girl made a sound behind her, and she turned again, anxiety starting to make her movements jerkier and without grace. “She needs help.”
She won’t let me help her, she won’t let me in. My arm hurts, my shoulder hurts, did she cut through my jacket? Fuck! Rome stumbled back, wincing and scowling at the same time, face contorted and gleaming in the light of a passing car. Got the knife again. Fuck this--leave before cops come. She won’t let me in anyway...
“Let you in?” Wren asked, tucking the knife away and out of sight, looking the cellphone she wasn’t carrying. She patted down her stomach, her legs, and she made a frustrated sound as the girl behind her wailed louder. She moved forward, and she reached for Rome. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought you attacked her. Please, I need help carrying her. I don’t have a cellphone on me to call for help with.”
Rome backed away farther. The cops won’t believe me if I say I didn’t do anything. Rome didn’t trust Wren’s good intentions, not a bit. Yes you did. You meant it. She meant to hurt me exactly like she did, with that knife of hers, where did she hide it? High on adrenaline, fear and anger, or some mix of the three, Rome’s thoughts were a fast tangle of confusion and everything stuck together, connected in one long train.
Rome’s eyes rolled toward the end of the alley and escape, but the girl’s sounds brought his eyes back. He wavered, quite visibly, expression one of distaste but also reluctant pity. Rome took a breath in through his teeth, and looked from the girl back at the street--then again at the girl. This is so stupid. He took his hand off his shoulder, wincing, and edged back toward the girl, watching Wren warily.
Wren didn’t move away, but she didn’t move any closer either. There was still too much rain to tell he wasn’t talking, and she still didn’t trust him completely not to hurt the girl. “What are you doing?” she asked, “and who else meant to hurt you with a knife?” she asked, misunderstanding his thoughts.
Nobody’s tried to gut me lately except you, he returned, scathing, coming up close again, but not so close that she could stab him without him at least noticing before it happened. The rain washed his thin face clean, but he was all edges and doubt. He didn’t think much of her, either, but he reluctantly agreed on her precautions: Shit, if I looked like you, I’d carry a knife too. Looks made you a target in Rome’s world, and Wren was soft and pretty. He expected she knew that.
He edged past Wren, tense, to the girl’s side, and tried to get her attention. His teeth set against the cold rain sliding down his collar and back, but at least it distracted him from his shoulder. Hey, he’s gone now. He’s gone. With more of the same he tried to persuade the girl to come out from the shadow the dumpster. His success was moderate, and that was only because that the crying and the panic was cooling into shock.
She began to explain her reasoning, why she had thrown the knife, but then he was saying things about how she looked, and she straightened her shoulders. “I knocked you over,” she reminded him, because she had fought better than him. Belatedly, she realized she hadn’t seen his lips move, and that he wasn’t any older than her. “Hey, you didn’t-” but then he was talking to the girl, no, not talking, what? Thinking? She would have interrupted, but the girl was stilling a little, and so she didn’t. “Is she physically hurt?” she asked, unable to see past the fear and to injuries from where she was standing.
Can’t tell, Rome muttered, turning so his back was to the wall and no one could sneak up on him while he was concentrating on the girl. He asked her several times if she was hurt, but she didn’t respond. She’s freezing up. Shit, Rome said, swearing in his strange, silent tongue. Try to get her to say something, get her to trust me, otherwise she’s just going to close off and never come out again. He put his hands out so the girl could see them and then slowly tried to touch her, reaching through the rain for her face.
Wren had trouble chasing the changes in the situation, and it took her a minute to catch up to what he was saying - no, not saying - thinking. “I know her,” she said, crawling forward on wet hands and knees. “Cissy,” she said. “It’s okay. He’s trying to help you.” This close, she could see what she already knew - under the make-up, Cissy was younger than either of them, and she reached for one of her hands. “You can come home with me, if you just listen to-” She glanced at the boy, realizing that she didn’t know his name.
Rome didn’t hear the lead-in. He was trying to get Cissy’s attention, trying to get her to acknowledge him, because he needed that or he couldn’t help her. The times before, the other person had been equally distraught, but they had been more aware of him than Cissy was, and it wasn’t going to work unless she wanted him to help. Wren’s words seemed to sink in, however, and the girl reacted better to a friend than a stranger, reaching for Wren for help, and after curling close to her for shelter, she looked at Rome on her recommendation, very, very slowly, as the shock was making her eyes glaze over. I’m going to regret this, Rome thought.
He did it anyway. He put his fingers under the girl’s jaw, not pressing hard, not holding her, just touching her, and he didn’t know if he needed to, but whatever, it worked when it worked. For him, there was a sensation like a bone popping into place when the connection solidified. Cissy’s eyes went from glazed to blank, and so did Rome’s, though his body didn’t move. There was a ringing metaphorical silence as Rome’s thoughts went elsewhere, and the only sound was the rain on the pavement and the rushing of the cars. No one had heard any cries; no help was coming. The minutes dragged on.
The minutes worried Wren. She almost reached for him (twice), and she almost pulled Cissy away (three times), but when Cissy didn’t scream or cry, she just wrapped her arms around the younger girl and waited. She wasn’t big on prayer, and she didn’t believe in things anymore, not like her mother had, but she wanted whatever he was doing to work, and she closed her eyes and asked someone, somewhere to make it happen. In the quiet, she could smell his blood over the rain, and she felt guilty. “I didn’t know,” she said, seemingly random and over the patter of the water. “I thought you were hurting her.”
The first movement was slow, and it appeared in their expressions first. Cissy’s small face, stained with blue and red paint smeared by rain and tears, went from blank to utterly slack. She looked as if she was unconscious with her eyes open. In response, Rome frowned, and only ten seconds later Cissy closed her eyes, as if merely tired, and gently tipped sideways into Wren’s shoulder. Rome’s hands were left in the air where her head had been, and his fingers flexed for a moment in the nothingness before his eyes came open again. His expression seemed to sink into the shadows under his eyes, and his hands dropped, suddenly heavy.
When Cissy tipped, Wren looked over at Rome in a panic. He didn’t seem worried, and he didn’t seem scared, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t both of those things. “What-” she asked, the question abbreviated when his hands dropped, and now she was worried about both of them. “No,” she said, as if she was worried that something terrible was happening to him, that whatever he tried had failed. “No, no.” she repeated, reaching out for his shoulders and shaking them.
She caught him on the gash the knife had made and it woke him up out of Cissy’s horror and fear and helplessness. “Agh!” It was a normal, audible cry, torn right from the very back of his throat where things barely worked anymore. He jerked away automatically, though there was no answering Noise to the movement, and he fell off his knees and onto one side, still disoriented. Cissy gazed placidly at both of them, as if sedated.
“Wait,” she said to Cissy. “Just, wait-” She held out a hand to the girl, and she crawled forward when he fell to his side. “Who do I call?” she asked, leaning over him. Given the state of his clothing, she was afraid he would say there was nobody to call. “My name is Wren,” she said, really worried now, forgetting if she’d already said that, more worried than when she’d thrown the knife at him. This wasn’t anger anymore; it was fear that she had really hurt him, that she’d hurt someone innocent, someone who had just been trying to help. “Please, be okay,” she pleaded.
There was a pause. Rome was conscious, not in physical pain, and he quickly righted himself, brushing off dirt and refuse from his bloody sleeve. He made a gesture with his other hand toward the girl, but no thoughts or sounds escaped him, and he seemed to expect there would be, given that he made another, more erratic gesture toward the girl.
“What?” Wren asked, the gesticulation doing little to ease her concern. “Can you talk? … Or do whatever it is you were doing before?” she asked, because she didn’t think she’d imagined the fact that his lips didn’t move. Cissy started crying, but not in a desperate way, and Wren rubbed the girl’s shoulder and reassured her, again, that she was going to take her home. She had nowhere to put her long term, but she’d find something. She remembered, then, that his clothes looked rough, and she tipped her head. “Do you need somewhere to go, too?” she asked, because that would give her a chance to see how badly he was hurt, and to call for help if he needed it.
Another quick cut through the air toward the girl, and his mental voice, now discernibly different from sound, came back into tune, like an old radio turning on. ...to hospital. He rolled over and up, bringing his knees to his chest and putting his back against the wall, in an unconscious echo of Cissy only moments before. Make sure she’s not hurt. I can take care of myself. Go away. It wasn’t an angry command, more tired and cringing than anything else. Rome felt echoes of the girl’s thoughts, much of which centered around self-hatred and invitation when there had not been any.
She took that to mean the girl needed to go to the hospital, but she didn’t want leave him. “Come with us,” she said. “Or at least tell me who I can call for you,” she insisted. Admittedly, she was reluctant to take Cissy to a hospital, because hospitals were never safe places for girls like her. “Please,” she begged even as she tried to help Cissy to her feet.
Don’t want to move. Don’t want to go. No one to call--no phone. I could ask Drake to come? And do what? Maybe he’s busy. He might be angry I used my ability--he might not come. I don’t want to ask, I don’t want to move. Just go. He looked at Cissy, and Cissy looked at him, and then both of them looked away.
Drake. It was a name, even if she wasn’t familiar with it. But maybe someone else did know him, someone on the forums. She nodded, jerkily, and she wrapped her arm tighter around Cissy. “Okay, but if I can’t find Drake, I’m sending an ambulance or something,” she said, more to herself than to him, a mutter of indistinct sound beneath the rain. “Stay here?” she asked.
No ambulances! No calls. Don’t call anyone. I’ll get up in a minute. In a minute. Just go, okay? He was turning away from her, looking at his sleeve, pushing rain out of his eyes.
She didn’t argue, but that didn’t mean she was going to do what he said, either. She didn’t know his name, but that didn’t matter, either. She started to turn, to walk away with Cissy, intent on finding the first computer or cellphone she could get her hands on. But she paused after two steps, stopped and turn. “If you go back to where I live, I won’t call anyone,” she said, bargaining.
Suspicious, he looks up from the inspection of his palm, which is dirt and blood stained. Where’s that? Why’s she care, what’s she think is wrong with me? And then, with serious concern and almost anger on his face, Is she going to call him anyway just because I thought it?
“I won’t call if you come where it’s safe,” she said, “and I care because I hurt you, and I want to make sure you’re okay.” It wasn’t an unselfish reason to want to help him, appeasing her own guilt, but it was honest. She assumed he was a Creation, his ability being what it it was, but that didn’t fuel her desire to help. “Plus, it’ll be good for her to see you once we get back from the hospital,” she said, motioning toward Cissy. “Edison, the club.”
I’m fine, he thought/said, automatically, even if he wasn’t, because that was just what he did. The thought thing will go away, mostly. I think. I hope it does. I feel sick. The fragments were more like wisps, small, quiet bits of thoughts escaping as he turned his head away from her and sunk deeper into his wet collar. It’s cold here. Maybe I can stay at Christian’s. The gleam of his eyes appeared for just a second. She’s not going to want to see me. I don’t want to see her.
“Who is Christian?” she asked, not stopping to think that she might be better off pretending she hadn’t heard the name. “We won’t be back from the hospital for a while,” she said knowingly. “Edison is safe.” She glanced at Cissy, then, and she bit her lip. “I can take her somewhere else, if she isn’t scared,” she offered. She felt equally responsible for both of them, and it showed in her face when the lightening flashed behind her. Cissy squirmed, and Wren made a frustrated little sound, small and wet and young. “Just let me help somehow?” she asked, and it was almost begging. “I’ll give you anything you want.” Babbling.
I want you to take her and I want you to go away, Rome said, not angry, but vehement. His head still felt raw, and he still felt things that weren’t his, and it made his skin crawl and his stomach roll. He didn’t want anyone else there, and he really didn’t want anyone to touch him. I want to get better and then I want to get dry and I want people to leave me alone. It wasn’t entirely true, but it was true in that second, and that was all that mattered.
“The Edison,” she repeated. “Go in the back window. You can wash up. There’s a first aid kid under the sink.” One that might remind him too much of Cissy and her profession, but it would help him with that knife wound, she knew. “And there’s food, too, in the cupboard.” She wasn’t moving until he agreed, and so she stood there, knees bleeding and shifting her weight from foot to foot.
Rome was, at least, interested to know about a place he could get into that had food and first aid and a place to wash. She’s got food? No, she knows how to get in. Fine, fine. Later. Go away. He was getting a little harsher with the ‘go away’ the more he had to say it, but at least she wasn’t coming toward him.
“I won’t come home for two hours at least,” she said, starting to understand his reluctance. “Okay?”
He hesitated, but his arm hurt him as he shifted, and he thought, Ow. A second later he nodded a little, and gave Cissy a reluctant, strangely disgusted glance. Shouldn’t have... Then at Wren, almost sharply, Okay. Go away.
She caught the disgusted glance, and it made her frown. “Shouldn’t have what?” she asked, even though she knew she should take her victory and go, her guilt appeased. She had jumped to conclusions, of course, anger flaring again for the younger girl in a way it never did for herself.
GO AWAY! He shouted it at her, but without voice, so it was all thought, like being hit by a wave of sound, or light, or pressure, or all of it together. It’ wasn’t hard, not something that might knock anyone over, but it was most definitely a shout as compared to his previous thoughts.
She staggered, surprised and unaccustomed to the sensation of him yelling like that. She hugged Cissy closer to her side, and her eyes went a little damp. “It isn’t her fault,” she said, hurt seeping through the words like the rain seeping through their clothing. “I’ll let Drake and Christian know,” she said, and it wasn’t a threat. She knew he wouldn’t go to Edison, not after that scream, but he still needed help anyway. Turning, she whispered something at Cissy and began to lead her away slowly.
Encouraged by the retreat, Rome curled in on himself and waited for the rain to stop. He was already wet and the cold was a constant, so he just concentrated on his thoughts, which trailed after both of them as he tried to separate what he was thinking from who he was. ...not her fault, their, hers, mine, not my fault.
She paused, listened, and tugged Cissy closer. She’d find someone for him at the hospital, even if he didn’t want her to. She couldn’t tell what he meant, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Maybe it was something to do with his ability? She stopped at the edge of the sidewalk and looked back toward the dumpster, even as she hailed a cab, the huddled girl whimpering against her side.