Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-01-28 14:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, scarecrow |
Who: Luke & Thierry
What: Arden was a bad boy and Luke helps with damage control.
Where: Thierry's place.
When: Backdated to before plague plot and following this.
Warnings/Rating: Mild mentions of murder and a dead body?
For a moment, one brief, shining slice of time, life had been good. Yeah, the Christmas Eve hotel madness had sucked, but Luke really felt as though he and Wren had gotten past that, and afterward, things were just as he’d always wanted them to be. They were happy, the three of them, and a decent Christmas had done wonders for Gus’ mood. Maybe things weren’t perfect, but they were close enough, and he should have known better than to think their peaceful little bubble could have protected them for long.
In an instant, it had been pricked, throwing his whole world upside-down as so many other things had done in the past. MK moving in, and now Wren being forced to join the CIA because of Silver, because her association with him had put them all in danger just as he’d feared it would, made everything complicated, and the unfairness of it all was nearly enough to drive him insane. MK’s habits, and Wren’s jealousy, was bound to cause them problems sooner or later, and the prospect of Wren joining the same institution Max worked for terrified him. Whatever he might tell her, he feared that it would change her, feared that the cost of keeping their family safe would be losing her. And the worst part was that he couldn’t tell anyone. He couldn’t tell Jack, couldn’t tell Thierry, and the one person he could have asked had left the country for a month. Maybe it was unhealthy, being forced to keep it inside, all his fears and anger and doubts, but what choice did he have?
At the very least, though, he could talk to Thierry about MK, about the complications there, and maybe he could hint at the mess with Silver without actually saying anything. With the simple hope of being to alleviate some of the burden in mind, Luke set out on his way to Thierry’s, expecting nothing but a simple visit. He’d been to the shop countless times, but never to his house, and he drove around the neighborhood a couple of times before deciding he wasn’t about to walk up to the wrong house. Finch had been left with Gus, and so he showed up on his own, casually dressed, to knock on the door.
Thierry had been a resident of Las Vegas long enough to know that the city could dole out some weird things to you when you were least expecting it. Things had only gotten weirder with the addition of the hotel and all the problems that came along with it, but Thierry was quite positive that what happened in the past twenty-four hours exceeded everything that had occurred before. What was so strange about the past twenty-four hours was the simple fact that he could remember very little, save the last five or six hours, when he had awoken in his bed with no memory of getting there. Normally, this might not have been a problem had it not been for the simple fact that he was not alone in his bed.
She was a brunette, petite, dressed in fashions that were decidedly not modern-day, down to the seams on her stockings and the knee-length skirt. But the thing that was most striking about her were the purple bruises that rung her neck, the shape of the hands that had strangled her, and as the world narrowed to a pinpoint, Thierry realised the shape of those prints would match closely to the size of his own hands. “Oh my god,” he whispered as realisation began to dawn, and hurriedly, he pulled the blinds down in his bedroom, threw the covers up over the body, and locking the door behind him, he escaped to the living room.
He wasn’t entirely sure how much time had passed before the knock on the door came, and with it, his stomach turning over on itself. “Who’s there?” he called out as he approached the door, his skin pale, still dressed in what he had fallen asleep in, a button down and dress slacks, both wrinkled and showing signs of having been worn for many hours. Thierry could only imagine the sound of police from the other side of his door, and the thought made him want to be ill right there and then, but he held it down, his approach to the door wary and slow.
The prolonged silence which followed his knock wasn’t worrisome, exactly. Despite all the insanity and trouble in his life, Thierry was achingly normal, a solid spot in a maelstrom, and he figured the other man might have simply fallen asleep, or was otherwise occupied and therefore unable to immediately call out or answer the door. But when he did speak, asking who was there as if he didn’t know, well, that struck him as odd. If it had been a spontaneous visit, he could understand, but it wasn’t. This was pre-planned. Thierry knew he was coming. He couldn’t have forgotten, could he?
“Uh, it’s Luke,” he responded, deciding knocking again was unnecessary. “Is everything okay?”
At the sound of Luke’s voice, Thierry squeezed his eyes shut tightly, vowing his heartbeat to slow to a more regular beat. Was everything okay? No, things were decidedly not okay, and Thierry had no idea how to proceed from here. He didn’t respond back, not immediately, but soon the locks on his front door were thrown open and Thierry peered out. The stress and anxiety were etched thickly onto his face that afternoon, and with a paranoia that was distinctly uncharacteristic for the older man, he looked over Luke’s shoulder for anyone else who might be out there. “Come in, come in,” he finally said, once he had assured himself that Luke had come alone.
Once they were both inside, the door was locked again and Thierry pressed himself against it, reaching up a hand to rub his eyes. “No, Luke,” Thierry started, his voice tight. “Things are decidedly not okay, I’ve discovered.”
As soon as Thierry opened the door, Luke knew something was wrong. His heart sank, because his life had just been a series of bad things lately, digging him deeper and deeper into a whole there seemed to be no escape from, but he quickly pushed those feelings aside. This wasn’t about him and his self-pity. “Hi,” he said uncertainly, glancing over his shoulder to follow the other man’s gaze, but there was nothing there, only the empty street. After a moment of hesitation he nodded and followed him inside, with a growing sense of wariness as to what he might find inside.
He didn’t say anything, not at first. The door being locked, the way Thierry leaned against it, even the sound of his voice; they were all signs that something was wrong. Very wrong. “Alright,” he began slowly, keeping his voice calm. “Just tell me what’s wrong. It’ll be okay.”
How did someone begin to relate the tale of what Thierry had discovered in his own bed hours before? There were dozens of ways to start, but none of them were things he really wanted to say. So instead, Thierry simply pointed down the hall towards his bedroom, sliding down the floor to sit against the door, screwing the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Down the hall, last door on the right,” he said. “And please don’t call the cops on me.” The last words came out in a breath that was decidedly high-strung, so much unlike Thierry that it was hardly recognizable as his voice.
If it had been anyone other than Luke knocking on his door, it was quite likely that Thierry would have told them to leave. But he trusted this young man for reasons he couldn’t entirely put his finger on. Maybe he couldn’t help, but he could at least give him some advice on how to go about figuring this out. Because it was every day that someone found a body in their bed, after all.
The fact that Thierry didn’t come right out and tell him what was going on only worried him more. Bad things were always hard to talk about, Luke knew that better than anyone; the words just never seemed to translate well. He eyed him warily, beginning to turn when the other man indicated that whatever had upset him was at the end of the hallway, but the mention of cops made him pause. Oh, god, this was bad. Anything that would make him fear the police was not good, and the fact that he was in training to become one of them did not make the situation any better. Part of him wanted to leave right then, before he could see too much, but he couldn’t. How could he? Thierry was a friend, one of the few who cared, and he was obviously in a bad state. Were their positions reversed, he would have offered his help.
“Okay,” he said, swallowing heavily. “Okay. I won’t call the cops on you. Just-- stay right there. I’ll be back.” Down the hall he went, his fear as to what he would find behind the last door on the right mounting with each step, and he hesitated before turning the doorknob and going inside. He noticed the drawn blinds first, and then the covers, haphazardly thrown over something which created a lump on the bed. Despite knowing that there was no turning back once he made his choice, Luke took a deep breath, counted to five, and pulled the sheets back.
He’d steeled himself for the worst, and this? This was definitely the worst. Horror twisted his features, marred them, and he pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, trying not panic. She was dead, that much was clear, and his gaze took in the bruises around her neck, the glazed look in her eyes, and it brought him back to his vigilante days, when he’d seen girls like this all the time in seedy motel rooms and alleyways. He wondered what her name was, if she had family; but no, there wasn’t time for that now. Because he knew Thierry couldn’t have done this. Not on his own. Luke had gotten pretty good at judging character, and Thierry wasn’t some closet psychopath. He wasn’t violent. There had to be some explanation, and after covering the girl back up, he left the room and went back to where he’d left the other man. “You have to tell me what happened, Thierry,” he told him. “Whatever you remember. I can’t help you otherwise.”
Thierry wasn’t entirely sure how long Luke was gone before he returned to the living room, every minute blending into the next with the horror of what had happened. By the time Luke had returned, Thierry hadn’t budged from where he was sitting, but he had shifted, hands in front of him, studying his palms and fingers as though trying to figure out where they fit around the woman’s neck. Jerking at the sound of Luke’s voice, he lifted his head and attempted to focus on him despite the fact that the thin veneer of calm he had assumed was starting to crack and fall apart.
What happened? He didn’t know what had happened, couldn’t even begin to piece it together. “I’m not sure,” Thierry said honestly, his gaze flicking this way and that before he finally forced himself to settle on Luke once more. “It’s a blank in my memory since yesterday. I remember closing up yesterday afternoon. Uhm.” He paused, licking his lips. “Around three? Business was slow and I had a headache, so I thought I’d go home early for once. I don’t remember actually leaving though. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in bed with- with-” He couldn’t bring himself to say ‘her’ or ‘the body’, instead ducking his head to rub the heels of his hands against his eyes once more. “I didn’t do that, though. I wouldn’t do that. Ever,” he mumbled, words muffled by the angle of his head. Slowly, his hands swept back, clasping at the back of his neck and he let out a long, ragged breath. “She’s dead, isn’t she?” Thierry finally asked, looking back up through the messy toss of his bangs in Luke’s direction. “She’s dead, and I might have killed her.”
Years upon years of turning the outside in, numbing himself to the horror of the world, of the things he’d seen and done, gave Luke the ability to remain calm now. Thinking logically required a sort of detachment, which sent chills down his spine, but the simple truth was that this needed to be taken care of, and he knew how to take care of dead bodies. He’d be in jail, or dead, if he didn’t. He listened to Thierry’s version of events, limited as they were, and none of the disjointed tale came as a surprise. There were only a few options; he was lying, he’d been drunk or on some sort of drug, or this had something to do with the crazy doctor guy taking up space in his head. Personally, he was betting on the latter. A set-up by an outside party didn’t make sense, not unless he had some serious enemies he’d never mentioned.
“Look, I wish I could sugar coat this for you, but I can’t,” he said, trying to maintain a balance between breaking the truth gently and being blatantly honest. “Yeah, she’s dead. It looks like she was strangled to death. I-- this is bad, Thierry. Really bad.” He let out a long, heavy breath. “You can’t call the police.” That was what should have happened, because otherwise Luke was an accessory to murder, but then Thierry would go to jail; even if he pleaded temporary insanity, somehow, there was no getting out of this scott-free. “You can’t remember how she got here? If anyone saw you with her? I don’t--” He paused and winced, because it wasn’t right, saying she wouldn’t be missed since she was likely a prostitute, but... it was still true. “If someone reports her missing, you don’t want them to be able to tie her to you.”
“I didn’t tell you because I wanted it sugar coated,” Thierry said, lifting his gaze back to Luke before he closed his eyes, pressing his head back against the front door. He almost looked his age then, forty, the hair at his temples starting to gray, the lines at the corners of his eyes even more visible with the stress he was experimenting. He didn’t say anything as Luke spoke, simply trying to make some sense of what was going on. Of course they couldn’t call the cops, he knew that much. He’d be seeing the inside of a cell sooner than he’d like if it came to that. “No,” Thierry said, his eyes still closed, his voice tired. “I can’t remember how she got here. Where I met her at. If anyone saw her. I don’t- it’s a blank, Luke. All of it.” The gap in the time would have been distressing no matter what, but knowing only the skeleton of what had happened during it made it all that much worse. “It was him, wasn’t it? The doctor that Selina said was so dangerous.” Thierry opened his eyes then, head turning to the side as he looked down the hallway towards his room. “You should just leave, Luke. If I go to jail over this, then...” He didn’t want to do that, but this was too big, too much for anyone to help him with. He had no defense that would help him, not in the end. And dragging Luke into it... He couldn’t live with himself if he hurt the young man.
Everyone had their fatal flaw, and Luke’s was his hero complex. That need to help others, despite the cost to himself, had gotten him in a lot of trouble over the years, and when twisted and warped it had led him down a path he would never truly be able to leave behind. And here it was, once again rearing its ugly head, as he stood there and looked down at Thierry. The man needed his help, and how could he turn his back? Having no hint whatsoever as to what had occurred; who might have seen them, where he and the girl met, how they’d gotten back, wasn’t good, but luck might be on their side this time. Maybe. If this was Arden’s doing, he wouldn’t want Thierry in jail, would he? That would effectively trap him forever, cutting him off from unleashing havoc in his world and this one. No, this might just be a display of power, a way to frighten the man into submission, but the problem of a dead girl in his bed still remained.
“Probably was,” he admitted, “unless you know someone who’d want to set you up for murder.” Yes, he should leave, but he wasn’t going to. Even if it all fell apart in the end, Luke had to try. “I’m not just going to leave you here with this.” What he was going to suggest wasn’t something Thierry was going to like, and it wasn’t something he liked either, but it was practical. Getting rid of the body was key. Out in the desert, like Alexander, where no one had ever found him, even though the thought made him sick. He’d make up for this somehow, he promised himself. But that could wait. “We need to get rid of the body,” he said, and it was clear that wasn’t an easy thing for him to say. “You know that, don’t you?”
The thought that he had an enemy that would want to set him up for murder was so preposterous it was almost laughable, but nothing was very funny to him right then. “No, I don’t think so,” he answered, trying to hold onto that dead calm that had grabbed hold of him as he listened to Luke talk. When Luke’s plans came to light, Thierry dragged his gaze back to him, studying him for a long while. Did he know that? Perhaps. It’s what was done in the movies when a body was found, wasn’t it? They simply got rid of the body. Problem solved. The how was an entirely different thing, however. “Dare I ask how we go about doing this?” he asked, a slightly hysterical note in his voice. Just the other day, his biggest concern had been whether he was interested in a find that had surfaced in New York state last week, and now he was considering the different ways in which a body, a dead body in his bedroom, could be disposed of.
Luke hated the position this put him in. No matter what he did, or how he phrased what they needed to do, he was going to seem too familiar, too well-versed, in the process of disposing bodies. Thierry would wonder about it; maybe not now, but later, and the one person who treated him like he was still normal was going to look at him differently. But that was selfish, wasn’t it? This was about Thierry, about helping him, and he had to push his own insecurities aside. Getting the body out of here wasn’t going to be easy, but if everything went smoothly, the cops wouldn’t be knocking on either of their doors anytime soon. “Let me handle the details,” he told him, because it was clear he was much more capable of being the rational, level-headed one in the situation, even if it was all an act. “You just listen, and follow what I say, okay? Trust me. It’ll be fine. Neither of us can change what Arden did, so what matters now is making sure you don’t go to jail for it.” He tried to detach himself from the situation as he thought, already piecing together a plan. “I need a car, once we can ditch, that can’t be traced. You’ll have to wait here while I take care of that. Do you have gloves? Cleaning supplies? You need to scrub this place down after, Thierry, just in case.” He paused then, watching the other man’s reaction, to see if he was really capable of handling this.
Thierry took a deep breath, held it for the count of five, and then released, letting his trust fall onto this young man who had become important to him since the entire matter with the journals had popped up. Whatever Luke might have thought, it didn’t change the way Thierry felt about him; everyone had a side that wasn’t sanitized for the rest of the world, but that didn’t (normally) change who that person really was, and he had no doubt in his mind that despite everything, Luke was a good person. Another deep breath, held like the one before, and Thierry finally gave a nod of his head, as calm as he could be considering. “I’ve got gloves. Cleaning supplies. Should I start now?” Personally, Thierry felt that leaving this place behind would be a good solution afterwards, sterilized or not. He wasn’t entirely sure he could bring himself to sleep in that room again, not with the memory of the dead woman still clinging to his thoughts.
The fact that Thierry managed to remain calm, whether it was feigned or not, was a sliver of relief in the midst of a very bad situation. Luke was going to have enough difficulty cleaning this up without having a panicked, uncontrollable disaster on his hands, and as long as the other man did as he said this would go smoothly-- as much as it could, at least. “Gloves and cleaning supplies are good. Very good. Yeah, start now, but don’t touch the body, okay?” It was bad enough that he’d probably already had too much contact with the corpse as it was. He tried to pretend this was like getting rid of Alexander, but he couldn’t. Alex had deserved what was coming to him. He’d hurt girls like this. But her... she was innocent. A victim the old him would have avenged with a burning passion, but things were different now, and it wasn’t as black and white as things had been back then.
“You start cleaning up,” he repeated, backing towards the door. “I’m going to get a car. I’ll be back.”
It was easier not to think as Luke started to back towards the door, tasked with his own items to complete. Thierry refused to think of it was having to get rid of a body, because that was too real, too harsh for him to deal with right then when every sense, every nerve was raw and open. So instead he got up to his feet, slowly, rubbing his hands on the thighs of his pants. “I’ll be here,” he promised Luke, meeting his gaze for a brief moment before he had to look away, out of shame, guilt, that he was the one doing this to Luke right then. “And thank you, Luke. For- for helping me.” The older man drew in a breath, and for a moment, he felt and looked much older than his forty years; slumped shoulders, tired, old. And then it was gone and he was turning towards the kitchen, which was, thankfully, in the opposite direction of the bedroom. “I’ll get started. Just let yourself in when you return.” And he disappeared into the kitchen, cupboards opening as he pulled out his supply of cleaning items.
Maybe it was a flaw, that Luke would do just about anything for the people he cared about. It had really screwed him over with Thomas, after all, and one would have thought that he’d have learned his lesson by now, but he hadn’t. He could justify it by saying that Thierry was nothing like Thomas, or that if he covered his tracks well enough--which he intended to--no one would ever have to be the wiser, but the truth was he knew this was bad. He knew, too, that he wouldn’t be able to keep this to himself for long, but he was torn between keeping Thierry’s secret and not keeping secrets from the people in his life, namely Wren. Once things calmed down, he’d find a way to tell her, he promised himself, and he’d find a way to let Thierry know too. And, maybe, a deep, dark part of him was a little bitter, a faint sort of resentment for being dragged into something like this again (though, in the past, he’d come willingly), but it was barely even acknowledged. A larger, more dominant part of himself realized this wasn’t Thierry’s fault, and asking for help couldn’t have been easy.
“Don’t thank me,” he told him, a little too sharply before he caught himself and softened his tone. No, he couldn’t snap at Thierry. Control, Luke. “It’s fine. Really. You shouldn’t have to deal with this on your own.” It made him tired, and it made him sad, the knowledge of how badly the hotel could and would fuck them over, and how little control they had over it. Thierry deserved better; they all did. “Okay,” he said, watching as the other man turned towards the kitchen. “I won’t be long.”
And then he left, careful to ensure the sidewalk was empty before crossing the street and setting off to locate the right kind of transportation. He’d make up for this, he promised himself again. He’d make up for hiding the poor girl’s murder, somehow, a good deed for a bad, once all this was sorted out.