Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-10-25 16:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, catwoman |
Who: Luke and Wren
What: (1/2) The aftermath of the party, where Luke was a very bad boy
Where: The safehouse
When: morning after
Warnings/Rating: Nope
Luke had no idea what the hell Bruce had been up to the night before, but judging by the amount of bruises, particularly the ones on his neck, and that distinctive ache in his groin, he suspected it hadn’t been anything good. But he didn’t push, and he let the other man be, not wanting to delve into the disaster that was lurking within his mind just then. No, not when he had his own problems to deal with, and he was so nervous his hands kept shaking at random intervals as he hailed a cab and gave directions to the safehouse.
He felt guilty, even though he knew he hadn’t done anything really wrong, and it wasn’t cheating, not like it would have been if he’d had sex with the first woman, but it was still wrong on principle. He knew that. He was sorry for it, and he regretted it, but most of his concern came from how Wren would react. She would read too much into it, and maybe she wouldn’t understand that it had been fuelled by the envy he’d become, the desire to take everything he could without rhyme or reason, rather than any real attraction. And the pain he’d caused, the pain he’d enjoyed, that left its mark too, and he hunched over in the back of the cab when the driver started giving him funny looks for wincing every time he moved. Fucking hotel. Fucking Bruce, and whatever he’d become. Fucking everything. Part of him wondered if Wren had done anything, like what he’d done, but wrath probably wasn’t likely to hook up with anyone, was it? Unless it was some kind of messed up violent thing, like his, but he didn’t want to think about that. He just wanted to forget and move on, but he knew Wren. It wouldn’t be that easy for her. Brielle had taken so, so long for her to come to terms with; what if this made things like that all over again?
All he could do was hope for the best, though that hope was pretty damn slim, and he hesitated for a few moments before paying the driver and leaving the cab, tugging absently on the collar of his shirt. The bruises on his chest and shoulders were hidden, but the ones on his neck, leftover from the lion’s teeth and the vampire’s fingers, were visible, and he lamented his decision to not stop by the apartment first and change as he made his way to the front door. Again, he hesitated, wondering what the hell he was going to do if she was in a less-than-stable state, where news that he’d sort of made out with a random woman would just make things worse, but there was no turning back now.
A deep breath, just one, and then he knocked.
Wren spent the first few minutes after her conversation with Luke trying to convince herself that she was fearing shadows. Envy wasn't bad. At the most, it might have made him hurt people, right? That's all. It wasn't so bad, not when no one died for real. At least that's what she told herself about her own actions, which she was going to make amends for on the journals while she waited. But it was okay. He wouldn't hate her for what she did, and she would understand what he did, and it would all be fine. Even if she couldn't exactly understand that overwhelming desire to kill herself, the one that had won at the end. Even if she hadn't realized how much anger she had until she'd felt it all well up inside her like that. She couldn't even pretend that the hotel had done anything to her. She was pretty sure there was nothing from the night before that she didn't want normally, but just maybe it was shoved away where no one could see. And it was probably the same for Luke, right? She already knew he was angry about things, and they were both jealous. If it only augmented what was there already, then it would be fine with Luke too. There was nothing bad there to bring to light that she didn't already know. But she was still worried, and she remembered all the times her maman had told her to trust her instinct; she didn't want to.
While she waited, she called the babysitter again, and she made up a reason why Gus would need to stay longer. This sitter had a son Gus' age, and the woman assured her that Gus was fine. At least they'd known Bruce and Selina had intended to go to this party in advance, and they'd been able to make sure Gus was safe beforehand. But what if they hadn't known? And what if, like the times before, injuries carried over as more than bruises. They would all be dead or in jail, and the very thought made her hug herself tighter. She had to resist the urge to start rocking again, to lose herself in the soothing motion that she'd adopted in the cab. The memory of the cowboy with his fingers shoved inside her made her stomach turn over, and she made it to the bathroom just in time.
No, it would be okay. She would calm down, and it would be okay. But she didn't feel okay, and she washed her mouth and her face, and then she just sat down on the bathroom floor and hugged her knees to her chest in the hopes that the room would stop spinning. Luke had a key, she knew, and he could let himself in. She hummed to herself, an old French lullaby that made her feel small, and she gave in to that desire to rock back and forth, back and forth. She had changed out of the dress she'd worn to the hotel when she'd arrived at the safehouse, planning on getting some painting done to calm her, but the paint and rollers sat untouched. The boyshorts and tank top she wore did nothing to hide her bruises, even sitting on the floor like she was. The one around her neck was a dark, angry circle. No fingerprints, and something that spoke of twisting and snapping rather than strangling. Beneath the the white of her tanktop, the garish bruise from stomach to back was angry and red, reaching upward from her body's weight on the blade, and the bruise at her arm was a bright spark against pale skin. And the self-inflicted bruises on her wrists finished it all off, up and down and leaving no doubt was to what their intention had been.
She didn't hear his knock. And she didn't move.
Luke waited about two minutes for Wren to answer the door before allowing himself to panic. All sorts of horrific scenarios flooded his mind; maybe she was in some sort of catatonic state, maybe her injuries had carried over, maybe she was cutting herself in the bathroom while the water ran. Wrath could be really, really bad, right? Maybe she hadn’t been able to cope with what she’d done.
Desperation made him clumsy, and it took him two tries to get the damn key in the lock before he succeeded, and practically shoved the door open once it was unlocked. “Wren?” He wasted no time in calling out for her, bracing himself for the worst, and rounded the corner to an empty room. Fuck. Fuck. “Wren?” He called out again, more urgency in his voice this time, and only came to an abrupt halt when he saw a light coming from the bathroom. Right. Okay. Bathrooms didn’t necessarily equal bad. Still, he moved quickly, and pushed the door open with a mixture of relief and apprehension. “I used my key, I hope that’s--” He began to speak, but stopped short once his gaze fell upon her, sitting on the bathroom floor, rocking back and forth and humming like someone in a fucking mental hospital. First he saw the bruise around her neck, and then the one on her arm, but it was the bruises on her wrists that made his breath catch in his throat, and even though he knew she was okay, knew whatever had happened wasn’t really her, that didn’t make it hurt any less. She’d obviously gone through hell, and what had he been doing? Setting people on fire and making out with strange women because he was a greedy, jealous son of a bitch who was going to choke to death on his bitterness one of these days.
“Jesus, Wren,” he breathed, falling to his knees beside her and taking her wrists in his hands, trying to keep them steady, before lifting his gaze and bringing the fingers of one hand to the marks around her neck. “What the fuck happened?”
She didn't hear him call out about using his key. She didn't even know he was there until he was on his knees beside her. The humming stopped, and she lifted her head as he touched her neck. She didn't answer though, not right away. Instead, she looked him over in silence, noting the marks on his neck. She slid her wrist from his grasp, and she touched her fingers to his cheek. She was afraid to ask, because that niggling doubt that always lived in her belly just wouldn't be quiet. It was like she'd told the last man she'd hurt, the one with the cards and the fedora, not all pain was physical, and she was afraid whatever might come from his mouth. Her fingers slid there, to his lips, and maybe all of the silence was an indication that she wasn't really okay, if the bruising hadn't given it away.
She still said nothing, just dragging her fingertips back and forth along the seam of his mouth in quiet silence. Then, after a second longer of that, she sat forward and freed her other wrist. It came without warning, the tug to his shirt. She knew she was hiding injuries, and she wanted to see if he was as well. Maybe it went back to those memories, to the injuries she hadn't noticed when she should have. Maybe it seemed a little mad, all that silence and her fingers shoving up at the hem of his shirt with a desperation that wasn't at all sexual. It was a needful shove of fabric, and she lifted her grey gaze and met his gaze as she did it. There was a request there, one that was unspoken, and she continued tugging on the fabric as she tried to find her voice.
She had to clear her throats a few times, and it obviously hurt to form words, but she managed, even though they were whisper soft things coated in sandpaper. "I'll tell you, if you tell me. Everything, though. Promise? You have to promise. Promise me?" It was begging, plain and simple, and once she started she was having trouble stopping. She knew she had to, though. That she had to pull herself together and be okay. She could do that. She'd done it a million times before. "I'm okay," she added belatedly. "I'll be okay. I'm always okay." Which wasn't a lie. She shattered and she broke, but she was okay in the end. Better than him, usually, in her own broken way. Worry showed on her face then, real worry for him. "Everything? Promise?" She'd even go first. She'd even take him at his word, if he just promised. Her fingers stayed on his lips, as if she could feel his response through her fingertips.
The silence worried him even more than the bruises, if such a thing was possible. All he wanted was for her to say something, anything, but she just looked at him, and Luke couldn’t seem to bring himself to speak and shatter the quiet. It killed him that he was going to have to hurt her, even though honesty was better than the alternative, and he hated that he always seemed to do this, albeit unintentionally, reminiscent of the self-hatred the fiery thing he’d been the night before had felt. He tried for a smile when her fingers slid from his cheek to his lips, but it was a weak, trembling thing, and he knew that whatever she might say, she wasn’t okay. If she was okay, really okay, she wouldn’t have been so quiet for so long. It was unnerving, almost, the lack of words to accompany her actions.
He had no idea what her intentions were when she freed her other wrist, not until she started tugging on his shirt, and he met her gaze with a flicker of understanding. Instead of speaking, he simply nodded, and gently nudged her hands away so he could pull the shirt over his head and off. Lines of bruises marred his chest and shoulders; the lion had clawed Bruce pretty badly, but the women he’d burned had claws of their own, and they’d all left their mark. Beneath the waistband of his jeans, more bruises lurked, a result of the doll and her knife, but those were hidden, and they weren’t his anyway. He didn’t even want to know what Bruce had done to earn those.
Honesty had always been his intention, because he’d learned his lesson with Brielle, and so it was a simple promise to make. “I’ll tell you everything,” he told her. “I promise. I was always going to.” Maybe she wasn’t in the best state for the truth right now, but he couldn’t leave it until later. That was what he’d done with Brielle, and later had never come. Better to do it now, to be fully honest, than try to hide anything, and at least it hadn’t been about attraction, or wanting someone else. It made him feel sick, thinking about it, about wanting to hurt someone that badly-- someone who hadn’t even done anything to him, someone he wanted to consume entirely in some twisted form of revenge. He was pulled from his thoughts when she said she was okay, that she’d always be okay, and his gaze was almost sad as he looked at her. Their kind of okay, he knew, wasn’t really okay at all, and he wished things could be different. “I’m not really okay,” he admitted, “and I don’t think you are either. But everything, I promise. Do you... do you want to go first, or do you want me to?”
She was glad he didn't argue with her about the shirt, and she reluctantly slid her fingers away from his lips to let him pull the fabric over his head. Her gaze immediately dropped to his shoulders, then his chest, then his stomach, and she said nothing at all as she looked at him. Eventually, she scooted a little closer, knees sliding against the floor's tile as she edged nearer and nearer. Her fingers found all those marks, those bruises, and her fingertips traced them with careful and slow precision. "What if these had stayed?" she asked of the injuries, her voice hoarse in the room's quiet. "What if this time, they had stayed?" she asked fearfully. She was sure she would be dead, and she was sure he would be too. Her fingers found his scars, the ones belonging to him from years before now, and her hand rested there on his skin. The bruised insides of her wrists stood out in frighteningly sharp relief as her hands stilled on his skin, and she was scared.
His promise that he would tell her the truth drew her attention away from the fact that they could (should) both be dead. It sounded ominous, his promise to tell her everything, and she hoped so very much that she was just being paranoid like he always thought she was. Maybe her conversation with MK was putting thoughts into her head that shouldn't be there, and maybe there was nothing bad at all. His admission of not being okay tore that hope away, and she held his gaze for a moment without answering. One of her hands moved from his side and up, until she was cupping his jaw with her fingers. She leaned in, and she leaned up, and she kissed his lower lip and sucked it between her own lips for a moment, a lingering withdrawal that tasted of fear as she rocked back to sitting again.
Despite her mental determination to go first, she was glad he was offering to do it instead. She had typed about what had happened on the journals, but saying it was different, and she wasn't sure if she could manage it. Too, she was so worried about what he was going to say that she knew she'd just rush through it so that he could get to whatever happened to him. She swallowed hard, fingers pressing against his throat with something that was part whimper, part whine, and entirely thoughtless. "You, please? I won't- I won't be able to focus if I'm waiting for you to talk," she admitted, voicing that fear that had only been reinforced by her conversation with MK.
The bruises were still tender, and he gritted his teeth as she traced her fingers over them despite the caution in her touch lessening the ache. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened if they’d stayed, because he was just as certain as she was that the two of them would both be dead or very close to it, though had it not been for the bruises around his throat indicating something fatal, a quick trip to the hospital might have saved him from bleeding out. Then again, maybe not. “If they’d stayed,” he said finally, after a long stretch of silence, “we’d both be in the hospital or worse.” The possibility scared him, but it still didn’t feel real, actually being able to die. If injuries ever carried over, he was pretty sure everyone would be dead, and that kind of mass death wouldn’t go unnoticed. No, it seemed much more in style with the universe to torture them without actually killing any of them.
He knew, from the way she looked at him without saying a word, that what he was going to say was exactly what she feared. That was what made lying so tempting, the knowledge that she would be hurt, no matter how he worded it, but he told himself that in the end lying would just hurt her even more, and he didn’t have any choices here that would change what happened. If their positions had been reversed, he knew he would have his doubts, his insecurities, but he would try to work past them. He knew he would. He wouldn’t let one stupid party destroy them, and he hoped beyond hope that she wouldn’t either. When she leaned up, kissing and sucking on his lower lip, he found her free hand with his and squeezed, an attempt at reassurance, despite what he was going to say. It hadn’t changed anything. He didn’t want the woman, whoever she was, and nothing he’d found or done that night had been able to satisfy the want, because the one thing he truly wanted hadn’t been there at all.
“Okay,” he said, without hesitation, that combination of whimper and whine making him willing enough to do whatever she asked just then. “Okay. I’ll go first. Just-- listen, okay? Listen, and then say whatever you want, whatever you’re feeling, after.” He tugged on her fingers, looking down for a moment, but he didn’t want to appear guilty, in case she took it the wrong way, and so after a few seconds he forced himself to lift his gaze to meet hers. “I was Envy, like I said,” he began, hoping he didn’t end up messing this up completely. “I was on fire. The flames, they were part of me, but at the same time they weren’t. I--I burned, and I wanted others to burn with me. It didn’t matter who. I hated them all. I wanted to take from them what I thought had been taken from me, and-- I killed someone. I burned them alive, and I liked it.” He paused then, and took a breath, trying to forget how it had felt, her skin cracking and bubbling beneath his hands, the smell of burning flesh, how angry he’d been. “I almost burned someone else too, but she got away before I could kill her. She-- I think she wanted something too, and she let me burn her, but she changed her mind once it got bad. The thing is, I-- we--” Fuck, he didn’t even know how to say it. “We kissed, Wren. The one I didn’t kill. Made out, hooked up, whatever you want to call it, but we didn’t have sex,” he added, because that was important. “I know that doesn’t make it right, but I don’t want-- It didn’t happen because I wanted her, or because of any sort of attraction. I wanted-- what I was, because it wasn’t really me, it wanted to... eat her, sort of. Or the fire did. Consume is a better word, maybe. I just wanted to take and take and take, her pain, her suffering, her life... it didn’t matter. I know it might not make sense, but kissing her, it fed into that. It was like I was hungry, or something, fuck, and the fire was everywhere, even inside her...” He shook his head, trailing off with a sudden heave of breath. It was something he couldn’t explain properly, how he’d felt, how kissing the woman had brought him closer to devouring her, and it made him sound like some sort of fucking psychopath. Which maybe he was.
He could have gone on, kept rambling in an attempt to explain what the thing he’d been had wanted, but he didn’t. Instead he waited, bracing for the worst.
His agreement that they both would have been in the hospital or worse, had the bruises remained, made her shiver. That validation, as inescapable as it was, only made her wonder how numbered their days were. Between Gotham and the other things the hotel did, was it just a matter of time? Maybe it was the bruising on her wrists, but it didn't scare her as much as it should, which did scare her. She bit her lip, and she thoughtfully ran her thumb over the inside of one wrist.
It was the reassuring squeeze to her fingers, combined with the fact that he didn't chase the kiss, that made her realize that he was going to say precisely what she feared he was going to say. That tug to her fingers and the way he ducked his head, it made her want to stop him right there, to not let him say anything, to not let him confess. She knew it wouldn't help anything though, stopping him now. She knew, she knew, she knew, and no matter what he said, the damage was done. She was jealous and paranoid, and she saw shadows everywhere, and she was never more aware of how little she trusted men in general than she was just then, with her own words from the previous evening still fresh in her mind. She nodded belatedly, her agreement that she wouldn't interrupt, and in the span of those seconds she envisioned a million terrible things, a million terrible reactions. Her conversation with MK, just seconds old, fed into it all. Hadn't MK admitted she'd cheated on Adam because she wanted to feel something he didn't give her? She sighed as he began to talk. Staying quiet, right. She had promised to stay quiet.
But she almost interrupted him when he began, because it was like listening to an echo she'd read on a page. She might have slipped back a little, scooted on the tile without thinking, her hand in his gone cold and clammy. She was quiet for a very, very long time once he finished rambling, that unsettling silence taking over the bathroom again. "We were still ourselves last night, Luke," she said finally, voice hoarse with something more than the soreness from having her neck snapped. "It was still us." She tugged her fingers back, and she pressed them against the bruises at her inner wrist without thinking, just as she'd done with her thumb earlier. "Someone I talked to said they just wanted to feel, that they were hungry too." She shook her head, having trouble finding the words. "Envy is about being jealous and wanting things other people have, right?" It was a question, but not really, and she was entirely too eerily calm. But then she'd already known, hadn't she? Not who, no, not who. But the rest. She'd known.
Any hope that she might understand vanished when she slipped back, that tiny, unintentional movement hurting more than all the bruises combined. Luke hardly expected her to hug him and tell him it didn’t matter, but he’d thought... thought what? That she trusted him? That she would believe him when he told her he didn’t want anyone else, that regardless of what anyone else thought, the previous night’s occurrences didn’t mean he was unhappy with her? She didn’t believe any of that on a good day. There was certainly no reason for her to believe it now. He just kept hurting her, in one way or another, and maybe she would never trust him. Maybe he would always have to keep fighting to keep them together, and he would if he had to, but like he’d once told Max, he would only keep fighting so long as she still wanted him.
“No,” he said, something like hurt flashing in his gaze when she pulled her fingers back before he covered it up. “No, we weren’t. Not completely. You don’t know what it was like for everyone else, Wren. You don’t know what it was like for me. That anger, that wanting what people had and wanting them to suffer just for having it, maybe that’s me, but what I was last night... it’s not who I am now. I never would have done those things if I’d been in full control,” he insisted. He didn’t need a hotel to tell him who he was, what he wanted, and he didn’t need her telling him the same either. He didn’t make the connection between whoever she’d spoken to and the first woman, but he shook his head, because it hadn’t been about wanting to feel, not with him. “I didn’t want to feel. I already felt too much. I thought if I made other people feel how I felt, if I made them burn, it would take away some of the want. If I couldn’t be like them, if I couldn’t have what they had, then I could make sure they didn’t have it any more either,” he explained, or attempted to. “I--I guess that’s what envy is. But I’m trying to tell you what it was like for me. I’m sure it wasn’t the same for everyone who was Envy, and I’m not going to let a journal tell me what I am, or what I want,” he said, unable to keep back a frown.
“I’m telling you this because I want to be honest. I want you to know what happened, and I want you to know it doesn’t mean I don’t want you, or that I’m... fucking unfulfilled or something. I burned someone alive, for fuck’s sake,” he said, and he almost reached for her, his fingers stilling on the tile floor between them. “It’s like the other crazy shit that’s happened. I love you, and this... this doesn’t change that.” He gave a half shrug, because really, there was nothing else he could say that made it any clearer than that. He could repeat himself over and over, but it would still be the same.
Part of her knew that he deserved someone whole, someone who could look at this and not feel hurt about it, someone confident enough not to look for the why. No, not part of her, all of her. But she was as helpless to fight her own nature as a rock buffeted by the wind. It was a result of how she'd grown up, and she was trying so hard to fight all those fears, only to have them creep up when she wasn't expecting them. She'd let her guard down when she moved in with him, and that slip of napkin that Gus had found only fanned the flames higher. But she did still want him. God, if she didn't then this wouldn't hurt like it did, like it was going to tear her apart from the inside and never, ever quit. She rocked a little, instinctively hugging her knees to her bruised stomach.
"I wouldn't do the things I did either. I know that control and will changes it. I wouldn't do those things now, the ones I did, but it doesn't make them any less part of me." Her voice went sad and soft through the hoarseness. "It was still what I wanted at the time, what I did. Just because I wouldn't do it now doesn't change that." Still, there was that unhealthily calm tone. No tears and no yelling, just that bone deep sense of loss that hurt too much for anything but being still and quiet. "I understand all of the burning, and the desire to hurt, and none of that surprises me. I know you, Luke. I do. I know you're angry. But I don't understand why that would-" she paused, unable to find the right words to minimize it, not when it felt like a dagger beneath her skin to even think about it. "I don't understand why that would make you-"
She sighed, unwinding one arm from her knees and using it to push herself up. She swayed against the counter a second before she began pacing in the tiny space. The garish bruises at her stomach and back became visible with the movement, but it was the act of moving that helped her talk. Staying still, it made it harder. Back and forth, and it was just like the rocking from earlier in the tight and confined space. "What does it mean then?" she finally asked, looking up mid-pace. "If it doesn't mean that, then what does it mean?" Her expression softened then, something hurt and sore. "I know you love me." She did know that. She didn't think this changed that. It changed something, maybe, but not that. "Maybe I'm just not enough for you," she added, an echo of what she'd said to MK about Adam, but no, no, no, she wasn't going to think about that. She wasn't.
He hated that eerie calmness, and he wished she would yell at him, scream at him, or even hit him-- anything to show that she felt something. This was too much like resignation, and he didn’t want that, because if she gave up on him... he might as well have nothing. She had her fears, but he had his too, and most were about her moving on, finding someone else, someone who didn’t hurt her. Someone good. Someone she could trust, like she didn’t trust him, and believe, like she didn’t believe him. He’d always thought she deserved better, but he loved her too much to let her go, and it was hard, convincing himself that he wasn’t making her life worse by being with her.
“I don’t know what you did,” he said, because he had no idea, “but I know that whatever it was, you’re more than that. Control and will are part of it, but we weren’t ourselves last night, Wren. We were sins or whatever the hotel made us into, and maybe it came from part of us, but that doesn’t mean it was us.” He wished she could understand as easily as Jack had, and maybe if her past had been different, if she hadn’t had reason to hate men so much, this might not have been what it was now. But things weren’t different, and it was what it was, so he’d simply have to do all he could; be honest, and keep trying. “It makes a difference, though, don’t you see? Yeah, at the time I wanted everything everyone else had, and I’d do anything to get it, but that was the fire-- the envy. I wasn’t me, because I didn’t have the things I have now to remind me that I don’t need to burn people alive or take from them. The fact that you wouldn’t do what you did then, and neither would I, it does matter,” he told her, and he believed it. He had to, because he knew he would never, ever willfully go out and be with another woman in any way, even if it was just a kiss. He would never cheat on her, even if she thought he would. “I know,” he admitted, a moment later. “I know it’s hard to understand, but the envy-- I couldn’t control it. I wanted what the woman had, not her, and it was just... hunger. I wasn’t thinking about it, I just did. It wasn’t about lust or desire, it was about taking everything, however I could, and... it wasn’t exactly rational. That’s why it’s hard to explain.” There was really no thought process to attempt to explain, because the flames had been primal, basic, and motivated more by want and hatred and jealousy than any cognitive thoughts.
When she stood and began to pace, effectively severing any potential contact between them, he felt as though she’d just slapped him. He looked down, only catching glimpses of more bruises, ones he wished he could make go away, and it was her question that caught his attention and made him glance up. “Why does it have to mean anything?” She sounded like Max, with her determination to read into everything. Was chalking it up to insanity really such a bad thing? Why the hell did they have to dwell on it? “It means the hotel fucked with us again. It means I’m jealous, and I’m bitter, and all of that got blown way out of proportion. If I didn’t want you, Wren, or if I wanted someone else, I wouldn’t be here.” There was something like hope in his gaze when she said she knew he loved her, because that had to count for something, didn’t it? But that hope flickered when she continued, and he got to his feet then, an instinctive movement, one he wasn’t actually fully aware of until he was standing. “No,” he insisted. “You’re more than enough. If it was a normal party, and I’d hooked up with someone, then yeah, there’d be a problem. I wouldn’t blame you if you dumped my ass right then and there. But it wasn’t like that. I--I want a lot of things. Things I’ll never have, things I might have someday, but another woman isn’t one of them.” He leaned against the counter, ignoring the pain that came with the motion. “I know this makes it hard to believe me, but I’m never not going to be here. Yell at me if you want. Hit me, even. Get angry. If anyone’s not enough, it’s me. Not you.”
"But I want to," she said of his insistence that she wouldn't do whatever she had done the night before. Maybe that's why she saw it differently, because she was so self-aware when it came to how completely broken she was. She had realized it the first time she wielded a crop, that it was just another version of her butterfly knives when she was younger. She understood that too much to pretend. "I want to do what I did last night. I want to do it all the time, Luke." She looked down, aware she hadn't actually told him. Maybe he would understand if she did. Maybe it would make sense. "I hurt three men. I cut them," she said, her gaze dropping to his groin. "One said I wasn't innocent so I deserved to die. One didn't say much of anything at all; he just- his fingers-" She stopped herself there, her stomach threatening to turn over again, and she reached for the edge of the toilet bowl, but managed to calm herself enough to go on. "The third didn't really do anything at all wrong, but I was sure he'd cheated, so-" She shrugged the tiniest bit. "I cut them, and they killed me." She said it all in a very dead monotone, carefully keeping all the emotion that had caused the rocking and the humming at bay, because she knew he'd stop being honest with her if she crumbled in front of him.
She was aware that what she'd done hadn't been so different from her activities in Seattle. More violent, more sexual in nature, but so close. "I wasn't even real. I was some doll off a shelf that anyone could play with when they wanted to." She looked at him, because he knew her well enough not to be able to deny how much that all fit. It was so hard to believe what he was saying because of that, because of her own experience. And still, there was so little emotion in anything she was saying, as if it was nothing at all. "I wouldn't do what I did, but I know I want to deep down. I know you wouldn't- You wouldn't intentionally cheat on me, but if you want- If there's more that you want then we have to talk about it, Luke. We can't just ignore it and blame the hotel and pretend it didn't mean anything. Maybe you don't want someone else, but maybe there's something more-"
And then he was on his feet, insisting, and she took a shaky breath as he leaned back against the counter. She wanted to stay calm during this. She didn't want to fall apart, and she didn't want to scream, and she didn't want to break down and cry all over him. It's what she yearned to do, oh, so badly. But she didn't want to. She took a step closer to him, almost, almost close enough to touch him where he was. She wanted to just duck her head beneath his chin and rest her hands on his bare hips. She wanted it all to go away, all the nightmares from the night before with all the truth they brought alongside them. "No, Luke," was her quiet response to his assurance that he was the one who wasn't enough. Didn't this all prove that? "I'm not angry at you. It would be easier if I was angry. This isn't- You didn't make a choice to feel whatever you felt last night, and I don't think any of us could control the things we wanted. Maybe some people could, but I haven't talked to any of them. I don't think you tried to hurt me, and I don't think you made some choice. Not last night." She almost mentioned the cocktail napkin, but it seemed like a symptom of whatever this was, and so she didn't; it would only make things worse. "I don't want-" Her voice broke, a crack in that calm facade. "I can't lose you. I tried living like that, and I don't- I don't want- I can't-" She took a deep, deep breath, one that made her whimper with the pain in her neck, and she dropped down to sit at the edge of the tub, head in her hands and elbows on her bare knees. "Maybe it just needs to be different," she said with a barely suppressed sob.
Knowing that she wanted to do what she’d done last night all the time, even outside of whatever the hotel had turned her into, didn’t mean much and Luke remained unclear on what exactly that was. So he waited, using the counter to support his weight when each movement sent a new ache through his bruised limbs. He was momentarily confused when she said she’d cut three men, but then her gaze dropped to his groin, and he realized what she’d meant with a jolt of understanding and a faintly uncomfortable prickle down his spine when he thought of the bruises she couldn’t see. There were a number of reasons for the pain, though, that had nothing to do with Bruce being castrated by a very angry version of his girlfriend. Anything could have happened. With the other man not being particularly forthcoming, he decided not to jump to conclusions, and left it alone. He had no idea what to say, and he took an aborted step forward when she mentioned the cowboy and his fingers, anger appearing in his expression along with concern for an instant before he managed to hide it. “They killed you?” That explained the bruises, at least aside from the ones on her wrists, and he began to understand why she was having so much trouble believing that what he’d been last night wasn’t a representation of what he actually wanted. Her being a doll, that just made all the pieces fall together, and he met her gaze in a silent acknowledgement of such.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “So... what you did, it’s something you want to do, even though you wouldn’t now. I can understand that. But it wasn’t the same for me, Wren. I don’t want to find anyone else. It wasn’t-- look, I probably would’ve made out with a guy, if I’d happened to come across one. The envy-- the fire-- it wasn’t looking for a person,” he explained. “It just wanted, and it took, and it wasn’t about anything physical. Look, I’m bitter. I look at people with normal lives, people who don’t have a dozen murders hanging over their head and dead parents and a guy who fucked them up because he pretended to be a father when he had no right to be, and I want that, but I don’t just want it for myself. I want it for us.” He let out a long exhale, rubbing absently at the bruises around his neck. “Things should have been different for us. It’s not fair, how they ended up, and if anything, that’s what the stupid hotel brought out last night. It just got all twisted and warped.”
It took a great deal of willpower to keep from touching her when she moved forward, but instead he shuffled closer, just a little, enough to indicate that he wanted closeness without forcing it on her. To him, all this proved was that she deserved someone who wouldn’t do this to her, intentional or not, and he couldn’t see how she would think she wasn’t enough at all. “I think it’d be easier if you were angry too,” he admitted, because anger was something tangible, something he could deal with. “I didn’t try to hurt you, Wren. I’d never hurt you, not intentionally, and I-- I didn’t choose to do anything I did last night. If I’d been able to make choices, none of it would have happened.” He stopped abruptly, that not last night like being doused in cold water. It sounded like... like she was saying that there was something beyond last night, an instance when he had made a choice. “Not last night,” he repeated, regarding her with apparent confusion. He tried to remember if there was anything he might have done, something he might have said, but lately he’d been forgetting things, something he chalked up to exhaustion because of Bruce running himself ragged through the door, and the problem was that drinks with Cailin hadn’t been a big deal to him. He knew she was just a friend, knew it meant nothing, and he’d forgotten that she didn’t necessarily know that in the process. So he came up blank. “What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t--” But then her voice broke, and whatever he’d intended to say was lost when she sat on the edge of the tub with her head in her hands. He looked at her for a few seconds before sitting on the floor next to where she sat, one elbow on the tub’s edge as he tilted his head up at her. “You’re not going to lose me,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to lose you either, you know. I can’t live without you.” Very carefully, the fingers of his free hand brushed her ankle and moved upward, the touch light against her skin. “Maybe what needs to be different?”
"The first two killed me," she explained, watching his movements and wanting to reach out and soothe the obvious aches of his bruises. But she stayed where she was just then, rooted to the ground with the same kind of ache that kept her voice steady and monotone. "The third one killed himself on my knife, and I- I just wanted it all to stop, so I killed myself. I didn't wake up that time." And maybe for her that said a lot, maybe it was an indication of so many things going on below the surface, but she didn't want to think about it, and she shook her head, shooing the thought away with the movement, in favor of watching him as he began to speak. It was hard not to wince when he talked about how angry he was, how bitter he was. She liked to still remember him as that happy boy she'd met in Seattle, even though she knew better. But knowing didn't make hearing him talk about how unhappy he was any easier, and more than anything she just wanted to reach for the hand that was rubbing the bruises around his neck and pull him close. She had never expected anything from her life, and her anger wasn't the same as his. She understood that, and she'd understood that heading into this horrible hotel thing, but it was starker when he said it like that, harsher, and it made it so very obvious that they spent most of their time pretending things were okay when they so weren't. And maybe he would argue that too, but she knew better.
She stayed quiet until he sat on the floor, and she looked down at the hand on her ankle without saying anything at first. Her breath was still uneven from her outburst, but that was the only sound in the small bathroom for a few minutes. She closed her eyes, just letting that simple touch wash over her for a second longer before she cleared her throat with a soft whine. "Gus found a woman's number in your work pants," she said, and if anything the monotone became worse, more dead, more nothing. "From when you said you were working late." Which had nothing to do with this, or maybe it had everything to do with this. She thought back to what he'd just said, about the fire wanting, about not making a choice the evening before, about not wanting to find anyone else. "You're right," she added, "it's not fair how things turned out for you." Because she'd thought that forever, and she'd known that from the beginning. His life could have been so different, and she wouldn't have been part of it if it had gone the way it should have.
She tried to find the words to give meaning to what she had said about things needing to be different, but she had absolutely no way to say it without him getting upset with her. She knew that too, and so that quiet returned. She wanted to stand, to pace, but she didn't want to break that tiny sliver of contact, so she stayed where she was. "I don't think you want to leave me, Luke, and I don't think you don't want me," she began, and maybe that was a bad beginning, maybe it sounded like the start to a but, and that was because it was precisely that. Her voice warbled, cracked, and she tried not to think about whose arms he had been in the night before. "But maybe I'm not enough. Maybe this isn't enough for you." She didn't take a breath, didn't give him a chance to interrupt, because she needed to just say it, even if he got angry. "You didn't really get a choice in any of this. In Gus, in me living with you, in this life, and maybe it just isn't enough." It would explain not telling her about Brielle too, wouldn't it? She knew him well enough by now to know he didn't want to cut her off, which was something she wouldn't have had the confidence to think before, but that didn't mean he was happy. He wasn't happy. "Maybe more freedom would make you not want other things as much, not be jealous of what other people had." She took a deep breath, something that rattled in her chest and made her stomach hurt. "I talked to the person you were with last night."
All the bruises in the world were nothing compared to the ache that came with her admission that she’d killed herself. He closed his eyes, swallowing heavily despite the pain it caused, because if he didn’t, he wasn’t going to be able to keep down the bile that rose in his throat when he imagined her slitting her own wrists and dying. “Fuck,” he whispered, a hoarse sound under his breath, and he rubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand. Maybe he should have watched his words, about how angry he was, about the bitterness, but he could never tell how much honesty he should give. He either gave too much, or not enough, and he wished he didn’t feel like everything he said with her was wrong.
The last thing he was expecting her to say was that, and his fingers stilled against her skin as he looked up at her, momentarily puzzled. He’d forgotten entirely about Cailin giving him her number, and it took a few seconds for recognition to sink in, but there was no alarm, no guilt, nothing to indicate that there was reason for either of those things. Not telling her had been an oversight, but nothing had happened. If she could go antique shopping with Silver, why couldn’t he have a drink with a friend? “Her name is Cailin,” he said, without looking away. “I think I might’ve mentioned her back in New York. We met at school. I haven’t seen her since then, and she just showed up in Vegas recently. I was supposed to be working late, but I got off early, and we had a drink. She just gave me her number on a napkin because there was nothing else around.” His fingers tightened around her ankle, just a little, and he tugged, not liking the monotone she adopted. “Don’t. Don’t sound like that. I’m not having an affair, and I’m not sneaking around behind your back. I just-- she’s just a friend, and I didn’t think anything of it. I forgot I even had her number,” he admitted, because that much was true. He didn’t think that his forgetfulness was the result of something else, because he had no idea about Crane’s serum, or Bruce’s hallucinations. “It’s not just about things being unfair for me, Wren. Things didn’t turn out fair for you either. I’d rather have a life with you than without you, even if it meant I never ended up killing anybody, or going through what I did with Thomas.”
He knew there was a but coming as soon as she began to speak, and he winced in preparation of what would follow her I don’t thinks. The last thing he wanted was to get angry, but it became a challenge as she went on, because he hated it when she did that, when she assumed she knew what he felt, what he did or didn’t want. But he let her speak, let her get it out, and he took a deep, deep breath once she gave him an opening to say his part. “I don’t understand how you could think that,” he said, and it was entirely honest; he didn’t. “I don’t-- you think you forced me into this? I had a choice, Wren. When you told me about Gus, I could’ve told you I didn’t want anything to do with him. I could’ve told you I didn’t want anything to do with you. I didn’t have to do anything,” he said, and while he hadn’t reached anger, there was definite heat in his tone. "I want you, and I want Gus. Don't ever think that wasn't my choice, because it was. It's more than enough, more than I'll ever deserve, and you can think what you want, but that doesn't make it any less true, and I don't need more freedom, because you're not trapping me. I'm not with you against my will, damn it." He stood then, his legs practically touching hers, and tugged on one of her hands to press her fingers against the scars that marred his abdomen. "Because I didn't have you," he said simply, "I wanted to die. I did this to myself. But I don't want to anymore, and I haven't killed anyone since Alexander. That's you. When you left, you thought you were freeing me, right? But you weren't. Don't do it again, please. I can't-- I just can't." He ran out of breath near the end and had to stop, inhaling sharply, and his expression became one of genuine surprise when she'd spoken to who he was with. If he hadn't known who it was, how could she? "You did?"
She didn't know what that whispered fuck was for, because she wasn't thinking about the fact that killing herself might bother him, not when he thought the night before wasn't anything tied to what they wanted in any way. Instead, she tried to remember Cailin's name, but it was a blurry thing from a time when things were bad, and she didn't remember any specifics about Cailin at all. She did notice that there wasn't any of his normal guilty tells, no looking away, no looking down, no tripping himself up on his words. She wanted to ask why he hadn't mentioned her being in town, just like he hadn't mentioned Sophie, but maybe normal couples didn't tell each other things like that. "Oh." She so often felt at a disadvantage when it came to dating, because she was cobbling it together as she went along. Maybe he wasn't supposed to tell her if he met women at bars. She didn't like the feeling of uncertainty that settled in her belly just then, and she wrapped her arms around her waist, as if that would make it go away. "No, Luke. You've always deserved better things," she told him truthfully, and she stretched out one of her hands and almost touched his cheek, her fingers falling away just before they came into contact with his skin. "You're not the one who wants to hurt people. That's me. You're good, better, and you always have been," she said with that endless conviction she always had when it came to him.
She shook her head when he said that he could have said he wanted nothing to do with her, with Gus. "You would never do that." She knew him. He was the kind of man who would never, ever abandon his family. Thomas might have messed him up, but Luke had good parents who came before, and he would never walk away from that kind of responsibility, even if he wanted to. "You wouldn't be able to live with yourself, Luke," and that was something she had realized way, way back in New York, when she thought she was going to saddle him with a nightmare if she stayed. The heat in his voice managed to cut through a little of the monotone in her own. "I didn't say-" she began, but then he was standing and tugging on her hands, pressing her fingers against those scars on his abdomen that she had memorized since learning about them.
She was entirely still for a second, just the press of those fingers against his skin, but her expression told a different story. Gone was the calmness, that fake eerie quiet, and a moment later she stood, not moving her hand from where he'd pressed it. She was smaller than him, but she wasn't scared to crowd him back toward the counter. She knew they were both bruised and sore, that it would hurt him as much as it would hurt her, that shove, but she pushed anyway. Body, and hand against those scars, until he met with the counter at his back. "I never said I was leaving. I never said I was running. I want to, because this hurts, but I'm not. I never said you didn't want Gus and I in your life. I said maybe it isn't enough for you. That doesn't mean I'm-" Her voice broke, climbed, and the words were rushed loud things now, things that made her think about Jack's concerns about her fighting around Gus. And maybe he was right too. She took a deep breath, a fruitless effort to calm her voice. "I'm not giving you up. I never said that. God, please, I never- I never said that. But other couples do it, have more space or freedom or whatever. Maybe if you had that, then you wouldn't have- You wouldn't feel like you needed-" She stamped her foot without thinking, frustrated at her own inability to get the words right, and the pressure of her fingers against his stomach would leave their own bruises behind. "Maybe not forever," she added hopefully. Maybe he wouldn't need it forever. What had he said that he liked about Sophie? That she was fun? So was MK, right? Maybe with time she could be more like that, more-
But that surprise on his features just made her nod. She But that surprise on his features just made her nod. She could have kept it to herself. Maybe they would have never made the connection without her putting it together for them. She could almost hear her maman's voice telling her she was making a mistake, but she had always been so bad at heeding that voice. "She just called it cheating, though."
He wasn't sure what to make of that oh, and he regarded her uncertainly for a moment before saying anything. "I should have mentioned that we met up. I just didn't think much of it, but that's not fair to you," he admitted. "I need to get better at the little things." His relationships before Wren had been in high school, where everyone knew everything, and they shared similar circles of friends, and he'd taken full disclosure for granted since then. He shook his head when she said he didn't want to hurt people, because she was wrong; he did. "You're always going to think I'm better than I am," he told her, with a sad, fond sort of smile. "And I'm never going to agree, because I think the same about you."
She was right in her belief that he never would have abandoned Gus, but that still didn't mean he'd been forced into it, and he bristled at what he viewed as an implication that he had. "I had a choice," he repeated. "I chose you, and I chose Gus. I chose us, so just-- stop, please? We can argue about this forever, but you're wrong." That was the long and short of it, and he met her gaze unflinchingly as her fingers pressed against his scars, almost challenging her to claim otherwise. He didn't expect the shove, and it was painful, but he let her crowd him back until his back met the counter with a hiss of air at the impact. "And I told you that it is enough," he countered fiercely. "I'll keep telling you that until you believe me, however long it takes. I'm not giving you up either, not even a little, but I don't understand what you mean by space. I don't know what you want." He was just as frustrated as her, though he preferred this to the empty monotone of moments ago. The feel of her fingers just made the bruises ache more, but he didn't push her away. "Do you not want to live together? Do you want to spend time apart? What, damn it?" His voice rose to a near plea, desperate to understand.
That word, cheating, made him feel sick, and it made him wonder if she believed whatever this woman said over him. "I don't know what it was like for her. I just know what it was like for me, and I wish it'd never happened," he said with a helpless sort of shrug. "If I'd been myself, it wouldn't have. How did you find out who she was?" He didn't ask who, because frankly, he had little interest in knowing, and he didn't make the connection either.
"Maybe you didn't have to mention it," she countered, frustration at herself making it into her voice. "I don't know what the rules are, Luke. I've told you that. I don't know how it works. I only know how it makes me feel when Gus asks me what the cocktail napkin in your pocket is. Or when someone pops up on the journals and says you're sleeping with his sister, who I've never, ever heard of before. But maybe I'm just paranoid, and I don't know the rules, okay? I've never done this before with anyone but you." That shake of his head and the fond smile that accompanied it made her shake her head. "Stop that. I don't think you're better than you are. I know you're better than you think you are."
His bristling didn't make her back up, and maybe she should have realized then that the calm shock of the morning after was boiling over into something different, but she didn't realize anything at all, nothing beyond him, beyond this conversation. That challenge in his eyes was met with her own stormy grey version. "It isn't enough, or last night wouldn't have happened," she insisted, "and I don't want anything. No, that's not true. I want- I want things to be normal, and for things to be okay. I want to not be scared, and I want to not be angry, and I want to not feel like you're keeping things from me all the time. I never said I didn't want to live with you, and I never said I wanted time apart," she insisted, and her fingers moved from those scars to settle in a fist against his chest, which she tried not to pummel him with. "This isn't about me. It isn't about what I want, it's about what you need," she insisted, and she did let her fist fall then. It wasn't a particularly hard hit, but it began a volley of upset blows that increased in speed as that thin wire of control snapped. "I'm saying-" she said as the blows fell, "that maybe we should be open or whatever they call it- until you- that way I won't wonder if-" She couldn't even finish the sentence, and she groaned in frustration.
"For her it was about things missing in her relationship," she added, and she hit a little harder then, because why did it have to be the only person she actually trusted around him? Why? "Her boyfriend said he knew she'd cheat on him, which is such a terrible thing to say, and now I feel like I'm being just like him, and-" She cut herself off, because nothing was going to make it better. She was crying by then, completely unaware of when the tears had started falling, and she tried to calm what was quickly becoming a mess of uneven breathing and hitched sobs. "Someone normal wouldn't react like this," she admitted in a whisper, and it was an apology. "I don't want to run you off- I don't- I don't want to."
She made it sound like he was some relationship expert, when in truth he didn't know anything about rules or how things were supposed to work. He'd just figured it was different for everyone, and if they found something that worked for them, then sticking with it made sense. "There are no rules. I think we make our own. If it hurts you when I don't mention things, then I'll start paying more attention to it. When things are wrong, you fix them," he said, and he knew it sounded more simple in theory, but if there was one thing he did know, it was that relationships took time and effort to last. "I forgot about the napkin. Gus shouldn't have found it," he admitted. "I should've just told you. I wasn't trying to hide anything, because there's nothing to hide. And if you're talking about Sophie's brother, he's a fucking idiot. I'm not sleeping with her, and I never have. I know you don't trust me, not really, but I'd hope you wouldn't take the word of a stranger over mine." There might have been a hint of hurt there, but he did a fair job of covering it up, and he just looked at her when she told him to stop. "No, you don't, because I'm not."
There it was again, her telling him how things were, why what'd happened the night before happened, and yeah, it pissed him off. "You don't know that," he snapped, frustration finally bubbling over into anger. "I think I know what's enough for me and what's not, Wren, so stop trying to tell me I'm wrong. You think I don't want all those things too? I'm not keeping anything from you, damn it, and you're not the only one who gets jealous, or worries about this shit." His voice rose, and it was probably a good thing they were alone and here instead of at the apartment. "I don't feel like I deserve you, which means I'm fucking terrified of losing you, in case you didn't know. But all I can do is trust you. I know it's not as easy for you, but I'm just asking you to try. Just that." He began to tell her that she was insisting on what she didn't say rather than what she did say, and he knew what he needed, thank you very much, but then her fists started falling against his chest, and it hurt, and it was so unexpected that he reacted without thinking, his volume practically reaching the level of a yell. "I don't want a fucking open relationship, and I sure as hell don't need one! That's the last thing I want. Jesus, Wren, do you think I'm going to go off and fuck other women if you give me permission? Is that it? Is that what you think of me?" He barely felt her blows, too blinded by hurt and anger to even care. "You don't have to wonder anything. You're the only woman I want, the only one I need, and I'm not having an open anything. Fuck that. Those go both ways, you know, and I can't-- I'd want to kill anyone you slept with, I swear I would," he told her, and it was clear he was beginning to ramble, even if he wasn't aware of it. "Stop telling me what I need. Stop telling me what I want. Please, at least try to listen to what I'm telling you." It was a request bordering on a plea, and his voice was hoarse by the end, all that telling having taken a toll on his bruised throat.
"Just because it was like that for her doesn't mean it was like that for me," he began, but her tears seemingly came from nowhere, and he hadn't been lying when he said he hated to see her cry. He softened when she didn't want to run him off, and after a moment's hesitation wrapped his arms around her and tugged her against him. "You won't," he reassured her. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."