Who: Wren, Silver and Jack What: Scooping up the drunk girl Where: Safehouse When: Recently Warnings/Rating: None
Wren couldn't remember ever being as drunk as she was then. It was the most lucid of her thoughts as she sat on the floor in the mostly empty safehouse. There were bunk beds in the rooms, all without sheets, blankets or pillows. The refrigerator was bare, and the air conditioning was unnecessarily cooling the place to 60+ degrees. Wren had gotten warm when she'd come back from her run for vodka, and she had forgotten to turn the AC down once the interior of the space became frigid. The door was unlocked, the way Luke had left it when he'd gone, and she sat in the middle of the floor covered in bruises from the party.
At her throat, contortion marks were dark splotches against pale skin, and the white tank-top she wore was thin and sheer enough to show the ghastly bruises at her stomach and back, where she'd been run through with the sword. The bruise on her arm was hardly noticeable, and the bruises from slitting her wrists were the darkest of all, black splotches on thin skin. The boyshorts she wore were grey, and her feet were filthy from going down the block in bare feet to buy the booze.
She rocked silently in the dark, her Wayne Industries cellphone off to the side of the floor, near the empty bottle of vodka that had tipped over there. There were buckets of paint dotting the floor, tarps balled up in the corner, and brushes scattered from when she'd tripped on them. But the main thing was the darkness, as if no one was home, no indication of anything at all until the pale girl in the center of the wide, empty space came into view.
Jack made it to the house faster than he should have. He shaved off half the trip time to the house by speeding and cutting corners on the motorcycle. It was hard to tell from a series of texts, but Wren definitely seemed to be well past blackout drunk. Alcohol poisoning wasn't unlikely, considering that she seemed to have gone at the drinking with self-loathing and something like punishment in mind as much as numbing.
Jack didn't like that Silver had picked this moment to come over to see Wren, not after what Max had told him about his feelings for Wren, and his ties to the CIA. He was a risk to her to begin with, but that coupled with feelings for her might make a dangerous mix while she was this drunk. He wasn't about to just leave her alone with him. Jack would have come to see her anyway, but the potential threat Silver posed just upped the incentive. The other man had better have been bluffing or joking when he said he would bring something to drink, for his own sake.
Parking the bike in front of the house, Jack kicked the stand down and pushed through the unlocked front door. He didn't have to call out for her - there she was when he came in, sitting on the floor. The rocking was what registered with him first and chilled him, and then he saw the bruises covering her skin. It made him think of Max, the bruise that had been a remnant of her own injuries at the party.
Jack knelt down in front of her, and gingerly picked up the bottle of vodka. "Wren," he said. All dark, and her here on the floor, rocking back and forth, by herself. Not a good sign. "How long have you been drinking?" The nearly empty bottle of vodka did have him worried for her, now.
At this point Silver was assessing risks rather emotionally, which is why he was wearing a very loose shirt about five shades darker than what he typically wore in the desert evening. He wasn’t actually planning on shooting anyone, but he wanted to have the option open to him, and his experience at the party had made him surprisingly open to experiencing options. He hadn’t been wrath then, probably because the party was before Wren’s call, and not after. He was certainly personifying it now, and even more so because he wasn’t doing a damn thing to prevent it.
Silver didn’t have any trouble finding the safehouse, and he didn’t even blink twice at the state of the place. Silver glanced once at the bike, identified the plate, and went around past it after putting his hand down along the edge of the seat to assess the cooling metal and the length of its presence in front of the house. Flicking heat off the tips of his fingers, Silver strode through the gate and into the house.
Deliberately making his presence known in the doorframe with a heavy step, Silver glanced sideways at the bottles and then moved immediately toward Wren, waiting for her answer.
Wren had no idea how long she'd been drinking. She had no idea how long it had been since Luke left. The receipt on the kitchen counter would indicate that the vodka had been purchased an hour earlier, and the condensation on the windows indicated the AC had been on frigid for at least that long. She was about to tell Jack (it was Jack, right?) that she didn't know, but the heavy steps at the door had her looking over in time to see Silver's frame in the doorway.
"Silver, 's Jack. Jack, 's Silver," she informed the two men, motioning incorrectly at each of them with the greeting. She very much resembled that broken doll from the party as she sat there, eyes swollen with tears and lips dry-blood bitten from worrying them with her teeth. She scratched at her head, making her already mussed blonde hair go even more tousled, and she sighed loudly enough to make her chest rise and fall visibly. Her eyelids were heavy, and she only managed to keep them half open as she motioned Silver in further. "Did you bring more?" she asked plaintively. She just wanted to forget, and right then she could remember everything.
Silver inclined his head at Jack, tipping it to one side about three-quarters of an inch in acknowledgment of the introduction, eyes glinting cool in the dark. Honestly, Jack could have looked like Michael the angel come to earth, and Silver would have given him that assessment in just the same way. Silver moved around the other man and then around Wren, speaking to her smoothly, in a recognizably respectful voice. “I forgot it. Let’s get you up first, you’re going to get cold here on the floor.” Making sure she didn’t roll frightened eyes at him, he put out an arm behind her shoulderblades to lift her up and away from the remnants.
Wren trusted Silver, just like she trusted Jack. There was no fear from the party, not the kind of fear that would make her shy away from anyone. In fact, it was very much the opposite then. She was drunk enough to be completely trusting, completely compliant when Silver lifted her. If anything, she had trouble making her knees lock enough to remain upright, and the room swam in circles around her. "Why'd you f'get?" she asked, trying to look back at Silver. "The room's moving. Make it stop?" she asked, but there was no demand in the request, nothing but hoarse words from her pained throat and the willingness to accept whatever was done in the end. It was cold, she realized. Or maybe he'd just said it. Or maybe Jack had said it. "D'you two know each other?" she asked, forgetting, and she rubbed the back of one hand over her swollen eyes. "Did you bring more?" she asked, forgetting already that Silver had forgotten.
Jack looked up as soon as the heavy footfalls sounded in the door, and returned that searching gaze with one of his own. He hadn't expected Silver to look like an ex-CIA agent or a potential danger, since he wouldn't have been much good at his job if he did.
The room was frigid, and Jack quickly assessed the things they'd need to do. She should probably get some water, and get into bed - face down, of course. The thermostat needed to be turned back up, and then someone ought to stay and keep an eye on her. That might be where they ran into problems.
Jack let go of Wren begrudgingly as Silver pulled her up. "We don't," Jack said, keeping an eye on Wren. She could barely even stand. "He didn't, but I'll get you something." Water, namely. He carried the vodka to the kitchen, emptying it into the sink once he was out of Wren's sight, and filling it a short way with water before heading back. Silver had earned himself a point or two by proving he wasn't the sort of man to bring a girl in Wren's state even more to drink, but that didn't wipe away his suspicion, not by a long shot.
“We’ve met now,” Silver reassured Wren, in the same voice that betrayed nothing but calm confidence. “We might write pen pal notes to each other later.” He had to let the anger out somehow, and he decided to try Tony’s way for a little while, as neither of the people in the room with him deserved it. Where Tony laughed and sold it, however, Silver just said it and moved on. He helped Wren to her feet with one solid arm halfway up her spine and another at her elbow, but when she wavered on her feet, he bent both knees and easily swept her up to his second arm was under her knees.
He didn’t have trouble doing it, and he looked to Jack as he distributed Wren’s weight and stepped over a bottle. “Blanket?” he said, at a slightly diminished tone. “Water. Maybe tea, if they have it.” He glanced around the bare safehouse with obvious disapproval. Safehouses were supposed to blend in, to his mind. But then again, Silver was supposed to blend in too, and he wasn’t just at the moment; he was in the process of making enemies and making a nuisance of himself in business that shouldn’t of been his. Holding Wren’s weight without great trouble, he looked around for a bed.
The safehouse, previously a small assisted living facility, was empty of nearly everything. The bunkbeds that had been assembled in the rooms had no bedding, no blankets or pillows, and the refrigerator was equally empty. There was some leftover organic peanut butter and all-fruit jam, along with some wheat crackers a bottle of vitaminwater, but that was all.
Wren, oblivious to this hunt for tea and bedding, just sighed a heavy, sleepy sigh, and she complained as she settled more comfortably into Silver's arms. "Room's-till spinning," she informed him, because it was. Her stomach was empty enough that there was no real danger of her being sick, but she didn't like the feeling, which only worsened when she closed her eyes. She whimpered at the feel of his arm against the bruise along her spine, and she reluctantly dragged open red-rimmed grey again, in the hopes that the world would simply stop. "Jack d'nt write notes. He likes poems," she informed Silver belatedly, letting her head rest on his shoulder. "He's Luke's friend." She pointed in the general direction she thought Jack was located, and she she dragged in a teary breath. "G'way."
Jack had picked up a glass for the water on the way, and he checked the closets for a blanket. The too-dry jab from Silver earned him a quick glance, because it wasn't exactly the sort of thing he expected to hear from someone who had entered the room with that stoic demeanor. Strange.
There was no sign of a blanket anywhere, so Jack searched for and fixed the thermostat. They could at least get the temperature back to normal. "No blankets," Jack said. "And no bedding. The place is mostly empty. Can't say I'm sure she should stay here - it's basically empty." He looked down at Wren, his expression softening. It was hard to see her like this, and the drunken dismissal on the grounds of being Luke's friend stung a little. "I'm your friend too, Wren." She likely wouldn't even remember this tomorrow, but it needed to be said. He looked back to Silver. "Do you have a car? Either we get her a room somewhere or she can stay at my place." Max wouldn't like that, but it was a special case, and he didn't much care. “It’s that, or one of us brings some things back for her.” He wasn’t going to leave Wren to pass out on the cold floor through the night.
Upon discovering that there was nowhere soft to set Wren down, no blankets to wrap her in, and only tap water, Silver’s stoic demeanor grew even firmer and darker. There wasn’t any need to be in a place like this. What was the point if you didn’t stock it well? Wren still in his arms, Silver tried to shift the crook of his arm away from anything that forced an audible sound of dismay without actually setting her down, aware that she would fall right over.
Silver shook his head at Jack, who had won additional points for the apparently authentic claim of being her friend as well as Luke’s. (What was the score now?) “I have a car. She can stay at my place, you can’t get her to yours on a bike. Here’s no good, no one to keep an eye out.” On her, he meant, or for Luke before he caused more damage, perhaps. “Bring the water, she can lie down in back with you.” Silver’s implication that Jack should come had two purposes: one, he would be satisfied that Silver was not taking advantage of her condition, which is what Silver himself would think in Jack’s place, and finally two, he would inform Luke where Wren was, at that she was being cared for, so that Luke could show up and grovel or, perhaps, get shot, depending on Silver’s mood at the time.
But of course, Silver respected Wren’s wishes even when they were foolish. He looked down into Wren’s face, trying not to inhale fumes. “Are you alright staying with me instead of on the floor?” If she didn’t want to go, they’d have to make do here.
The safehouse wasn't anywhere near open yet. Had it been, Silver and Jack would have found a very different kind of environment. As it was, it was just an empty shell that she'd bought with the intention of making something of it, of making a difference. Had she been sober, she would have protested Silver's opinion of everything, but she wasn't, and so there was none of that at all.
Wren had no real opinion on the matter, eyes closed now that she'd found Silver's shoulder to use as a pillow. It would have been nice if the room stopped spinning, but at least it wasn't cold anymore and the bruises had stopped screaming once she'd gotten used to the pressure against them. She was too far gone to realize leaving with Silver might be a bad idea, and she didn't understand the nuances behind inviting Jack. "S'thing to drink there?" she asked with a sleepy sigh, because that was all that mattered as she wound her arms around Silver's neck loosely to keep the world from tilting as much as it was. "S'op moving s-so much," she added, but that was it. Otherwise, it was all wet sniffles and the occasional drunken sob, as if she wasn't quite aware that she'd stopped crying already. Her breathing went shallow and even, too much alcohol and the onset of sleep.
The offer to have her stay at Silver's first raised Jack's suspicions, and then immediately ameliorated them. Silver guessed right that the offer for Jack to stay with her and keep an eye on her was a reassuring offer, and he nodded. "I can do that," he said. Wren ought to have the opportunity to spend the night somewhere comfortable, somewhere that they could keep an eye on her. Perhaps he'd been too quick to jump to conclusions with Silver. He hadn't entirely earned his trust, but Jack felt markedly less worried about what Silver might do. Jack set the glass he'd picked up down, and took the vodka bottle full of water, though he wasn't sure it was needed anymore. "I'll follow you on the bike," he said. Wren's small, occasional dry sobs hurt to hear. She needed sleep, and after that, time to herself. Luke's wrongs might have been unintentional and at least partially against his will, but it was a little harder to sympathize with him right now, looking at her.
Silver stopped thinking about Luke the moment Wren’s sad little hiccup reached his ears, and he gently curled his arms to bring her closer into the shelter of his chest, an automatic gesture that was all shield and sympathy. At least they’d be able to make sure she sobered up in one piece, and hopefully stayed that way. Silver was pretty sure that Luke was going to come crawling back, and he hadn’t decided what to do when that eventuality came. Perhaps it was even more of a good thing that Jack would be there--no one would be hurt. At least, nothing permanent. He didn’t say anything more about the trip, not wanting to confuse her, and he just made a quiet, reassuring sound as she dozed off. He tipped his head in a wordless indication to Jack that they should leave, and then he eased Wren out the door and toward the familiar dark sedan.