Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-01-30 01:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, catwoman |
Who: Luke and Wren
What: Luke and crazyWren are reunited. (2/2)
Where: A monorail → their house.
When: Continuation of this.
Warnings/Rating: None.
They hadn’t talked about things like this in so long; leaving, running away, New York. Now, he knew, wasn’t the right time to change that, but out of everything she said this was the only part Luke understood. He’d run too, after all, run away from Thomas and New York and the people he’d killed, but he could never forget. Never forget her, never forget him, never forget them. “I know,” he said. “It never lasts. Running makes everything go away for a while, but it always comes back. It always catches up. Some things you want to forget, and some things you don’t, but remembering means all of it. You can’t pick and choose.” He sighed, because he’d thought, really thought, that he’d begun to come to terms with his past, but the instability of his present and uncertainty of his future made progress difficult. He felt like he was eternally one step away from falling off the wagon again, but sometimes that step seemed a lot farther away, and sometimes it seemed less appealing. “But I’m glad I didn’t forget,” he added. “I’m glad you didn’t either. If you had, you wouldn’t have wanted me back.” He tipped his head to the side when she said she didn’t want to lose, because that made less sense, and he felt like whatever understanding he’d had was quickly slipping away. “Lose what?”
He began to insist that no, they weren’t going to die, but then she mentioned Silver. Until then, he’d assumed that Tony was fine. He was this super-smart billionaire, after all; he figured he’d get himself a cure in time like superheroes always did and come out no worse for wear. Bruce, however, wasn’t surprised, and Luke sensed only a solemn sort of quiet when he probed a little deeper. Oh. “He’s not-- Tony was-- I didn’t know,” he admitted, once he managed to find words and hold fast. “I thought he’d make it.” Of course, she would take Silver’s death much, much harder than he would, but he forgot about that just then, distracted by her insistence that giving Gus away was better for him. “Just because Silver died doesn’t mean we’re going to,” he argued, quiet but firm. “We’re not dying. You can’t give up. What we can do for Gus is stay alive, like we have been, and be there for him. We always come back, Wren, but not coming back is what’s going to hurt him the most.” He failed to understand why she held her wrist up, and he almost asked, but he barely brushed his fingers over her skin before he became distracted, again. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “She doesn’t want Adam to be me. You’re right about her not letting go of the bad things, but it’s never had anything to do with me.” He was, admittedly, relieved when she didn’t push about Jack, because that particular topic carried with it the risk of turning ugly. The way she smiled at him when he called her perfect wasn’t her usual reaction, something which stung even though he knew it wasn’t her fault.
Despite their audience, he could have stayed like that for hours, just the two of them, tightly entwined with her half in his lap and him holding on like he was afraid she might drift away if he let go. He didn’t mind when her arms wound around his shoulders, because the tightness of her embrace was warm and solid, and very much real, against him. “You don’t have to be sorry,” he told her again, patiently waiting out her looped repetition. “I’m not that tired. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. This isn’t your fault, Wren.” He, too, worried about what might happen when reason and sanity returned to her, but she couldn’t stay like this. “I know it’s scary, but you’ll be okay, because I’ll make sure of it. I won’t let you crash,” he told her, his voice gone soothing as hers wobbled. Despite his own feelings towards Silver, he knew she’d cared about him; their relationship wouldn’t have bothered him so much otherwise. “No, no one else died.” She didn’t need to know about Dick, not now, and he wasn’t actually dead anymore. “I’m sorry, Wren. I know he was your friend.” He hugged her closer, but there was nothing he could do; Silver was gone, and he couldn’t change that. He couldn’t make death better. He’d never known how. All he could do was be there for her, and be patient, though he wondered how hard it was going to be, watching her mourn the man who’d been in love with her.
She shook her head when he mentioned her not wanting him back. "I always wanted you back, even before you were mine. I know people say love comes and goes. I know people say you can love more than one person in a lifetime. But maybe not me. Maybe I'm not like that. It didn't matter how far I ran, or how bad things got, I would have given anything just to see you," she confessed, and it wasn't a new sentiment. But it was earnest and heartfelt, and it was obvious she still saw that clearly, even with all the other jumbled thoughts in her mind lining up wrong. She stared at him for a few seconds when he tipped his head to the side, her unfocused grey gaze tracing the line of his jaw, before her gaze shifted back to make eye contact. "Lose this. Us. Everything. I have things to lose now, and I don't think I can handle losing them. It's better not to have them at all than to lose them. I think losing might make me crack in a million pieces. It scares me," she admitted, the sense of self-preservation one that was never, ever at the surface with her.
She was surprised he didn't know about Silver, and her expression said as much. "Pepper told me. Pepper told me, and then Justine wanted to go to a spa to feel better. How can she say that? She loved him, so how can she say that?" she asked, so much confusion on her face. She shook her head when he insisted that they weren't going to die just because Silver did. "We don't know that. It could have been you. It could have been me," she said, without any real understanding of how close it had come to being her, not really, not just then. "We can't keep doing it like this. We can't. They can't control everything, and they have to realize it isn't just them. They have to, Luke. I don't know how we make them do it, but they have to," she insisted, and she really didn't know how to make that happen. She could board a plane and fly away, but she was pretty sure Selina would be able to control her if she was gone long enough. "Puppets," she whispered, exhausted, and she didn't see a way around it anymore. "Bruce will go after whoever did this. He'll lose, and you'll be gone again," she added sadly. It didn't even sound crazy; it just sounded sad, and it sounded tired. "Evie and Will are getting married. They're having a baby. He proposed. They get to live. Why shouldn't Gus have that?" she asked, and now there were tears streaming from the corners of her eyes, and she didn't even bother trying to wipe them away. All she did when he mentioned Adam was shake her head. "No, she wants him to be like you," she clarified, of Adam. The admission came with a sad smile. "You're a little bit wonderful," she admitted tearily, another glimpse of her normal self in the tiny compliment.
"You're tired," she insisted. Even through everything she could tell that. "I worry about you. I worry about you more than I worry about anyone or anything. I worry about you from head to toe, and inside and out. I know being strong for me is hard, and I wish you didn't have to. I wish I was okay. Maybe it would have been better if whatever did this wouldn't have happened." She'd probably be dead like Silver was, and she wasn't really sure which was worse for the man she was wrapped around just then. The thought brought it back, the reality that Silver was dead, and she was quiet for a long span of minutes, his shirt getting damp through from tears as she cried against his shoulder, her own shoulder wracked with sobs. She didn't know how to explain that Silver had been the one thing she could trust in Las Vegas until he came along. Silver had been her only friendly face after she lost Gus, and she'd never dealt well with death, not since her maman had crawled home and died in front of her. So, she just cried, and she rocked against him, soothing herself with the movement. She didn't stir until the monorail stopped, and then she sat back and stood up, and she pulled on his fingers without warning. She forgot her shoes, and she forgot to tug her dress down over her thighs, but this exit was closer to home, and she just wanted to go there. No more moving things and people; she just wanted to crawl into a place with no windows and curl up with him. "Where the world can't come in," she told him, once they were on the landing. "No windows, just you, where the world can't come in. Just like my closet in Seattle," she explained, the clarification not very clarifying at all.
For a brief moment it felt like everything was normal again, because that right there, her confession of wanting him back, it was so very her and not at all reminiscent of the jumbled-up mess that came from the Lazarus Pit. Luke turned his head to keep from sobbing, exhaustion and worry spilling over at that hint of familiarity, and his breathing became uneven for a few seconds as he struggled to regain his composure before it could slip away altogether. “I know,” he said finally, managing a smile for her sake, but it faded when she admitted to what she was afraid of losing. “You won’t lose us, or this, or anything else. I’m not going anywhere, and nothing can take me away from you, not ever. It’s okay to be scared,” he added. “I’m scared too. But all those things we’re scared of, I won’t let them happen.” Though he didn’t realize it, and probably never would, his way of speaking like he could actually have control over such things through force of will alone was a trait he shared with Bruce. “I love you.” That was quieter, almost a whisper, and he tipped his head down to look at her after he said it. Not that he thought her feelings had changed, of course, but-- to hear her say it in return would help, even just a little, in reassuring him that the Pit hadn’t actually changed her.
The last he remembered, Tony hadn’t been too optimistic about living, but Bruce had no concrete evidence either way-- none that he’d shared, at least. The other man’s conversation with Pepper, for example, was almost like a distant dream, one he didn’t give much thought to considering recent events. “Pepper,” he repeated, the name only distantly familiar, but he recognized Justine as the young girl Wren had thought was in love with Silver. “I don’t know. Everyone grieves in their own way, Wren, whether she did love him or not.” Not everyone would completely fall apart like either of them would if the other died, he knew that. Their reactions to such a loss would be extreme. Even with Gus to think about, he couldn’t imagine wanting to go on without her. “But it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t you,” he insisted. “We’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again, okay? No matter what happens in Gotham, there needs to be real rules this time, ones they have to follow, or else we’ll just leave. They need incentive to think about the fact that we’re people too, and what they do affects us,” he said, even though he wasn’t sure how viable a threat leaving Vegas was. If things got bad enough, he was willing to take desperate measures, but he wasn’t sure if she was. “No, we’re not puppets. Bruce isn’t going after Ra’s, not now. He’s going to wait, and when he does go, it won’t be alone, and he won’t keep me for weeks and weeks. I won’t let him,” he promised. He didn’t say that he wouldn’t lose, though he wanted to; Bruce had no intention of going after Ra’s half-blind. But there was time for that, because now, he believed the man when he’d agreed to give him time here before making any plans. He took her hands in his when she started talking about Will and Evie, and he brushed her tears away. “We get to live too,” he told her. “Gus can have that with us. We don’t have to give him away, Wren. That’s not the answer.” As for MK, he simply shrugged, because he didn’t think her problems with Adam factored him in at all, but he did smile at the compliment. “Only a little bit, huh? Maybe I’ll catch up to you someday,” he teased.
He’d started shaking his head even before she finished speaking, never one to admit when he wasn’t okay even if it was blatantly obvious. “No, don’t. Listen, I’ll get some sleep, and I’ll be fine. The effects of the Pit will wear off soon, and then you’ll be fine too, which you wouldn’t be without it. I don’t like it, but not having it wouldn’t have made anything better, Wren, believe me,” he said, voice strained. Having her like this was vastly preferable to having her dead, and it was just temporary, so in the end, it would be okay. “Don’t worry about me.” Easier said than done, he knew, but compared to most others, he and Bruce had come out pretty well. They hadn’t been infected, hadn’t died, and hadn’t needed the Lazarus Pit either. He didn’t push her beyond that, and he let her cry, ignoring the stares they garnered, as though she was that much more repulsive because of her tears. Not once did he rush her, despite the fact that his shoulder was becoming soaked with tears; that was so inconsequential he barely even noticed. He just held her as she rocked against him, and he ran a hand soothingly up and down her back, waiting for the tide to slow. He wasn’t expecting her to stand so quickly when it did, but he let her tug him along without thinking even despite not knowing where she wanted to do. He didn’t care about her shoes, or even about her dress, and he shot the cluster of people one last hateful glare before following her off the monorail and out onto the landing.
Despite the disjointedness of her words, he understood. He understood, and he knew, and so he nodded in agreement.. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll go home, and it’ll just be you and me, nothing else. I promise.” Walking didn’t seem like a good idea, so he decided to flag down a cab, one hand still firmly in hers.
She tried to look when he turned his head. She tried to see why, even without understanding what she'd said or done to cause it. She heard the sob he swallowed away, though, the beginnings of it, and her fingers slid up into his messy thick hair and twisted weakly at the ends, as as if she could see then, as if she could hold him still long enough to understand. She began to shake her head when he insisted he wouldn't let her fears come true, because how could he control them? It was like trying to keep the world from turning. She would have insisted that he was wrong, would have told him all the reasons why, but his declaration stopped her short. It was almost a whisper, but she heard it. She heard it above the din of the train, and above the whispers of the passengers. When he tipped his head down to look at her, she just stared for a span of long seconds at first, and then she stretched against him and whispered in his ear. "Je t'aime," she whispered, before pressing a kiss that was all exhaustion and chapped lips just below his ear. "I love you so much it aches. I don't want to not see you for weeks. I don't remember, but I swear I can feel it." And maybe it was worse, not remembering. Maybe that made him less real, made Gus less real, made her less real, just ceasing to exist for that long.
She did nothing by halves, and she certainly couldn't imagine grieving that way. "I loved him," she said of Silver. "I wasn't in love with him, but I loved him," she explained, though they never talked about that. It would be like if Jack died, that kind of hurt, and she just shrugged her sick-thin shoulders and breathed in a shuddered breath that just shook her torso with the force of it. His concession on rules made her nod and sob helplessly, because she didn't believe it would happen, but she needed it too. Even not okay, even sitting on that monorail all confused, she knew that they both needed it. "Okay. Okay. We'll leave if they don't listen. Do you promise? Please?" she begged. She didn't think it would work, but it was something to cling to, something to hold tight to while the world tumbled. She looked down when he took her hands in his, as if the entire world was in that touch. "It's still better," she whispered about Gus staying with Evie and Will, but there wasn't the same conviction there, or the same force behind her words. Even still, it took her sluggish mind a second to catch up enough to understand the compliment. She looked up to say something, but his smile caught her attention and held it. "I'm afraid I'll forget what that looks like one day," she admitted, freeing one of her hands and running her thumbs over his lips. "I'm afraid you'll stop smiling." Because there had been less of them lately, smiles.
"It's my job to worry about you," she explained after he was done shaking his head and giving all the reasons why he was okay, why this was okay. "Someone has to, and you won't. You give and give and give of yourself as long as you have strength to. Someone has to look out for you, so that you don't break yourself into too many pieces for people," she explained, softly and without even a hint of a raised voice, but somehow with endless conviction. And then the tears began, and there was nothing until they exited the monorail, and until he found them taxi who didn't care about her bare feet. She curled up against him in the cool dark, and her voice was a tiny thing from near his ear, for only him to hear. "Someone else would make me go somewhere else. Someone else would make me go somewhere that wasn't safe. You don't. I love you for that," she said truthfully, because all she wanted was dark, cool and quiet. All she wanted was to sleep, and to forget. "Promise you won't leave?" she asked, still worried that Bruce would need to go through. That she would wake up and he would be gone again, and there would be no way at all for her to reach him. She was afraid of that despair, just then. Of him disappearing now, and she held him impossibly tight, as if to ground him in the moment, despite the city rushing by on the short ride to the house that hadn't been home for weeks.
That she loved him still, even after everything, was all Luke needed to hear. “I don’t want to not see you for weeks either,” he whispered, his fingers pressing into her skin through her dress as though that could somehow keep her there. “I remember. Even when I’m not really there, I remember. It feels like forever every time I come back, like I’ve missed so much. I don’t want that. Not when I already lost five years, and that was bad enough.” It had been hell, pure and simple, even on the days when everything went numb, because he just wasn’t cut out to be alone. He might claim he was, and he might deny that he couldn’t function as a solitary being, but he loved too much, felt too much, for that to be true.
Everything stopped when she said she’d loved Silver. Even when she clarified, it took a few seconds to sink in, and he was too jealous, too insecure, to not think the worst despite the circumstances. But he tried, he did, to accept just how much she’d cared about him and not worry about it. There were different kinds of love, after all. He was in love with her, but he loved Jack like a brother, loved Max in a vaguely parental sort of way... and Evie, he loved her in a platonic sense, and he’d loved-- no, he still did love Thomas like a father, however much he might lie to himself. The way Wren loved Silver didn’t have to be the same way he’d loved her. “Loved him how?” He had to ask. Of course he had to ask. Love was a heady word, and it was one she’d never used in relation to Silver before. Just then, he would have promised her anything, whether it was something he could follow through on or not, but he was determined to not let their lives be dictated by a slew of fictional characters through a magic door. He’d spent too much of his life letting other people tell him what to do, of being a puppet on a string, but he was done with that. He’d been done with that for a long, long time. “I promise that if they don’t listen, we’ll leave. Simple as that. We’ll take Gus and go somewhere far away, and never look back,” he vowed. And maybe leaving certain people behind might be a problem, but they could think about later, if it ever came to that. He shook his head again when she said it would be better, but she didn’t sound so sure anymore. That was good. “We can be better,” he said quietly. “We’re Gus’ parents. We’re a family. Families don’t give up. We’ll figure something out.” He’d already been deprived of his son for too long; he wasn’t going to lose him again because of all this. He smiled again when she said she was afraid he’d stop one day, and he tugged lightly on her wrists. “You can always make me smile,” he told her. “You and Gus. As long as you two are around, I’ll never stop.”
He couldn’t even find the words to argue with her, not coherently, because she was right. He gave, and gave, and gave, and he’d keep on doing it if there was no one there to stop him. If he ever ended up getting himself killed, it would be for someone else. But still, he didn’t like her taking on all that responsibility on her own. He should be responsible for himself too. “It’s not your job to look out for me,” he protested, albeit weakly. “I just-- I don’t want you worrying so much about me that you forget to worry about yourself.” That was as far as he got before they were out on the sidewalk, and then in the back of the first cab to actually stop for them, but it made enough sense, he thought, and so he left it at that. It was tempting to just fall asleep right then and there, but he forced himself to stay awake, focusing on the feel of her against his side in order to do so. “I’m not someone else,” he said, just as quiet. “I’d never take you anywhere you don’t want to be, or that’s unsafe. Wherever you go, I go.” He began to tell her that he was supposed to go meet Jack, because he wasn’t going to be at the house anymore, but then he thought better of it. He couldn’t leave her like this. No, he’d just wait until she was asleep, and maybe then Jack would stop by, since that way he wouldn't have to see Wren if he didn’t want to. “I promise I won’t leave. I’ll be there when you fall asleep, and I’ll be there when you wake up, and all the time in-between too.” Bruce could wait. He’d been in Gotham for weeks at end; he didn’t need to be there now.
All too eager to get out of the cab once it stopped, Luke tossed a wad of bills at the cabbie and gingerly coaxed her out, onto the sidewalk, and up the walkway to the front door. “It’s okay,” he said, as much for himself as it was for her. “We’re home now. It’s okay.” Inside, the house was still and quiet, and very much empty.
She hadn't thought about how it must be to know. How it must be to sense the passing of time from inside another person's mind, and to not be able to do anything about. "How much can you see?" she asked, the question possibly strange and vague, because she had no idea what it was like for other people, and she really hadn't thought about it very much. She and Selina were separate in a way almost everyone else wasn't; she knew that. But she'd never really stopped to consider the alternative, not when she'd spent so much time being angry about her own circumstances being different. But maybe it was better? Maybe she was spared all the times he'd almost died while in Gotham, and all the times she'd almost lost him. Maybe that was better. But then she was denied the opportunity to do anything about it either. Maybe there was no good way. "We'll get them to promise," she said, and if they did anything, if they accomplished any change after this, she was determined that it be that. No more weeks without existing. Not ever again.
She smiled a sad, knowing smile when he asked how she loved Silver, and her fingers touched his cheek for a moment, light and fleeting. "I loved him like Jack, and like Evie, and like MK," she explained. "You make the sun rise every single morning, and everything would be dark without you. For five years, everything was dark. The only good days were the ones when I was so sick that I thought you were there," she said earnestly, the subject matter one she normally tried to avoid since he'd had such a very bad reaction to what her life had been like when she'd been pregnant. But she didn't have a filter just then, and she wanted him to understand. "The way I love you is different from everyone else," she said honestly, and even with the confusion that perpetually clouded her gaze, there was relief when he promised they'd leave if Bruce and Selina didn't listen. "They'll listen," she said, a little bit of conviction in her voice. "Not everyone that goes comes back. They might not come back if we leave," she said knowingly, because that had happened to lots of people. There were no guarantees for Bruce and Selina if they went away for good, and that was a pretty good bargaining chip, maybe. It soothed her more than anything had since she'd found herself outside the hotel that morning. She began to argue about Gus, but she bit her tongue until it bled to stop the words. She wanted to say them, to point out that they were being selfish, to tear down his logic. But, at the same time, she didn't want to hurt him, and maybe that was even stronger than the craziness - just a little bit, at least.
She shook her head when he said it wasn't her job to look out for him. "It is," she insisted. "It is. It is. It is," and she finally broke the litany after the fourth repetition, in the still quiet of the cab, with the taxi driver looking at them with concern through the rear view mirror. "If I forget to worry about me, then you'll do it for me," she said knowingly, the statement entirely sane given their relationship. It might not make sense for anyone else, but it did for them. "Silver always said you were dangerous for me. I don't think he ever understood that you were the one thing that kept me safe," she said, curling even more tightly against him when he said he would go wherever she went. She believed him, and that was like a balm. The promises that followed had the same effect, and she didn't think (not for a moment) that he was lying to her. Instead, she just tugged on him when the cab stopped, barely waiting for him to toss the money at the cabbie, barely waiting for him to coax her out.
She looked around the still quiet living room with confusion, and she shot him a look that said maybe she wasn't sure where she was for a moment, but it only lasted for a second, and then she was walking toward the bedroom, carefully looking for monsters around the corners. She didn't look to see if he was following, and she grabbed the blankets and pillows off the bed and dragged them into the walk-in closet, shoving them far into the back, then going to the linen closet and pulling out everything there as well and doing the same.
“As much as he lets me see,” he said simply. Most of the time, Bruce didn’t actively try to keep him locked away, but there were times when everything went black and he couldn’t remember what had happened for long stretches of time. Like recently, for example. He’d only been aware for the first few days, and then once things got bad, like a light switch, Luke’s awareness had been turned off. He knew time was passing, knew he wasn’t where he should be, but he couldn’t see what Bruce saw, nor did he know what Bruce knew. It was sort of like resting for a long, long time, but not actually being able to sleep and let time speed by. “Sometimes I know everything he does, like I’m watching a movie. Sometimes I don’t. I know time is passing, but everything is dark and blurry and I can’t focus,” he explained, but it was difficult to really articulate what it was like. When he willingly gave Bruce his time, it wasn’t too bad. But when he wanted to get home and couldn’t, it felt like being trapped, and he hated that caged feeling. “They’ll promise,” he agreed. “We won’t give them a choice. It’s not an option. We have to.” Bruce was strong, but Luke knew that with the right motivation he could overpower him, and he’d cut him off from Gotham entirely if he or Selina refused. Having the Bat gave him leverage; he knew that, and he intended to use it if need be.
She said what the logical, sensible part of him knew she would, but still, there was audible relief in the way his shoulders relaxed and his expression changed. “Oh. I knew that,” he added, albeit sheepishly. “I just... like hearing it.” Which, he thought, everyone did. Otherwise, couples would never have to tell one another that they loved each other, right? Sure, they knew, and he knew, but hearing it was always nice. Hearing about what her life had been in his absence was never easy, and the guilt he felt for not being there would always linger, but he knew she wasn’t trying to make him feel guilty by telling him how she’d felt. “The way I love you is different too,” he told her. “It always has been. Always will be. I didn’t know I made the sun rise, though. That’s pretty impressive.” He smiled, a quiet thing, but no less genuine for it, and nodded at her conviction. “They won’t want to risk not coming back. And even if they do, there’s a chance they could end up in someone a lot worse than us,” he said. “They both have people and things in Gotham they don’t want to leave. And Bruce can’t stop me from leaving. I wouldn’t let Selina stop you either.” Neither of them could make them stay, and that was just the truth. He waited for more arguments about why Gus was better off with Evie and Will, but none came, and he breathed a silent sigh of relief.
He noticed the cab driver’s concern and shook his head, just enough to indicate that they were fine, that he shouldn’t worry about it, before attempting to soothe whatever had caused the repetition. “Okay. It’s okay. And of course I would,” he said, of him worrying about her in case she forgot. “I always worry about you.” He thought that thinking he was dangerous for her was pretty rich coming from Silver, the guy who’d dragged her into the whole CIA mess, and while he would never, ever say it aloud, a part of him was relieved that they no longer had to worry about being targeted because of him. He was pleased that she believed him, and he hadn’t lied, not really. He wasn’t going to leave her; inviting Jack over once she fell asleep wasn’t breaking any of his promises. He’d still be in the house, just not right there at her side, that was all. But she’d still be safe, and he’d still be there when she woke up. The only possible hiccup was that she might awaken while Jack was there, but surely, despite whatever she had said or he had said, it would be okay. Jack lived there, after all. It’d be fine.
The way she looked at him once they were inside, however brief it was, sent a fresh wave of concern crashing over him. He didn’t like that confusion, like she didn’t know where she was, and he followed behind carefully as she made her way to the bedroom. At first, he had no idea what she was doing, taking off the pillows and blankets and shoving them in the closet, but then it clicked. He just hadn’t realized she’d meant closet literally when she’d mentioned her closet back in Seattle. But if that was what she wanted, to sleep in there, then so be it. The quiet reminded him that he needed to pick up Finch, and it made him miss Gus, but he’d contact Evie after this and let her know that he’d come to get him as soon as Wren was okay. “Do you want to sleep in there?” He waited by the closet and asked once she’d returned, with even more blankets, careful to keep any hint of concern out of his expression.
She didn't think she liked how that sounded. She didn't think being stuck in someone's head, watching things you couldn't change, things that could affect the people you loved, sounded very good at all. She thought it sounded like a terrible nightmare, one that there wasn't any waking up from, and her frown said as much. Maybe they should talk to Bruce about that too, and his assertion that Bruce and Selina would listen made her warily hopeful. Maybe he was right. Maybe they would listen. Maybe they could get it right this time and, if not, they maybe they really could go, run away, be somewhere else where none of this existed. Maybe they could live, like Evie and Will. Maybe they could keep Gus. It was almost too much to hope for in her current state, and she shook her head fast, fast, fast, not wanting to think about it, not wanting to go down a path that might lead to disappointment yet again. "I want quiet," was all she said, and it could have referred to anything, really, but it was all she wanted for them just then - quiet.
But his sheepish little confession that he liked hearing that he was loved, that was something she didn't mind focusing on at all. It was the one good thing amid all the bad, and she gave him a sweet little smile and pressed chapped lips to his cheek. "Don't tease," she said against his skin, a small smile in her voice when he joked about the sun rising. "I won't tell you any more if you tease," she threatened, but it wasn't really a threat at all. "And you can laugh at me all you want, but it's true," she said, and even if she sound crazy, it didn't change how she felt. "It was dark for five years, she added, brushing her lips against his cheek for just a second longer, and then twist, twist, twisting her fingers with his as he assured the cab driver that everything was okay. She didn't know his thoughts about Silver, and she'd all but forgotten her argument with Jack, and she wouldn't have thought he was lying about staying if he talked to the other man in the house. Jack lived there, after all, didn't he? Because she didn't quite understand that he'd flounced, not yet. And it was likely a good thing, because she'd have trouble understanding why.
No, she was just glad to be home. Glad to be in their bedroom, where no bad things had happened, and where there were no bad memories. The house was still good like that, with nothing lurking in the corners, and no shadows in the closets. She situated the blankets and pillows way in the back of the closet, and then she reached back and undid the zipper of her dress and let it fall. She stepped out of it, thinner thanks to Selina's illness, and she padded into the cool darkness and curled up on the blankets there before answering his question. "Yes," she said simply, and she squinted as she tried to make him out in the doorway, the light through the blinds at his back casting a halo around him that she thought was fitting. "It's too quiet," she added a second later, because the house was never, ever quiet. It wasn't the loudness she wanted to escape from that was missing, no, it was dog nails on wood, and cat paws on blinds, and Gus giggling or babbling to himself like he did whenever he was awake, and the perpetual sound of cartoons in the background. "It's strange," she added, her tone surprised. She hadn't realized how accustomed she'd grown to the noise, and it was like something was paused without it. She didn't say that, though, because she knew it would worry him. "Lie down? Just a little?" She didn't really expect him to stay in the closet with her forever, even if she wanted him to.
He wasn’t sure what she meant, exactly, by quiet; maybe she was speaking generally, or maybe it had something to do with the leftover Lazarus Pit in her veins, but either way Luke figured agreement was the safest recourse. “We can have quiet,” he said, even though any quiet they did have was bound to be short-lived around here, but her smile made him smile in return, and he ducked his head a little when she kissed his cheek. For a second, just one, it felt like they were young again, and everything was fine, even though neither of those things were true. “I’m not laughing,” he protested. “I like knowing that you think I make the sun rise, and that’s me being serious, I swear, so you can’t not tell me more,” he added. He knew all about it being dark; he’d spent a lot of time in darkness, and there were moments when he thought he would never see light again, but he had, and he never wanted to go back to that. Not now, when he knew what he’d be losing for that to happen.
Despite not being fully able to understand how her thought process was working just then, he could sort of understand her desire to sleep in the closet, somewhere contained and safe, away from the outside world and everyone in it. But what she wanted didn’t need to make sense for him to give it to her; he never could deny her anything. He wasn’t expecting her to unzip her dress, and he tried not to stare, but it was impossible to ignore the change in her weight-- a result of the virus, no doubt. When she commented on the quiet, he nodded, because he noticed it too, and he didn’t like it. After getting so used to the sounds of pets and a child, the lack of noise seemed wrong somehow. “I know,” he admitted. “But it won’t be like this for much longer. Maybe we should enjoy it while it lasts.” It was a weak attempt at humor, which he realized, and he moved into the closet when she asked him to lie down. Of course, staying here forever wasn’t realistic, as much as he wished it was; he knew, too, that sooner or later he’d have to let Bruce cross, and go back to fixing things. But for now, he just wanted this, and he stretched himself out on the blankets beside her.
She made a soft sound about her not being able to withhold the information about sunrises and sunsets, but it was a much more peaceful sound than anything that had come before it in the conversation, and in the quiet dark of the closet everything seemed slower and safer. She almost contradicted him about the quiet not lasting longer, but she really didn't want to. Despite the fact that it felt right, she really didn't want to. She just watched him instead. She watched as he moved into the closet, and she smiled a soft smile that was nothing but adoring in the darkness. "You're so good to me. You let me curl up in the closet, and you don't make me lie in bed, and you're willing to curl up with me, even if it doesn't make sense to you," she said knowingly. She was perfectly aware that she wasn't being herself, but this wasn't so far off from something she might do on any given day, and she suspected he knew that too. She waited until he was settled on the blankets, and then she crawled to the door and closed it. Light still filtered around the corners, but it was only a sliver, and the whole of the world was shut outside, and it made her sigh in the stillness for a moment as she knelt back against her heels and tried to find him in the shadows. A second later, she crawled back to where he was, and she curled up next to him. And maybe it was his arms, and maybe it was the dark, but her mind quieted enough to make her breathing even out within seconds, and she curled closer as she mumbled something unintelligible in her sleep.
In his mind, he was only doing what anyone would do for the person they loved. He wasn’t going to make her do something she didn’t want to do, and if curling up with her in a closet would make her feel better, then he’d do it without hesitation, even if it was a strange request. “I love you,” he said simply, as though that explained everything, and watched as she closed the door and the space was consumed by darkness. In the still black, everything was quiet, which soothed him just as much as it unnerved him. He reached for her once she was close enough, arms wound tightly around her and head resting against hers. Relief came when her breathing evened out and sleep took her, but it wasn’t as easy for him, and he stared into the dark as she slept beside him.