Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-07-25 16:06:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | batman, catwoman |
Who: Luke and Wren
What: Post-party angst. (1/3)
Where: Vegas.
When: After the party.
Warnings/Rating: None.
True to his word, Luke had sat down as per Wren’s instruction and didn’t move. He hadn’t wandered, hadn’t gotten lost in the crowd milling about on the sidewalks; he’d just stayed where he was, phone in his hand, and waited. The sun was bright, and for that he was glad. He didn’t want dark skies or grey. There had been enough darkness the night before, the sort that suffocated and consumed and could never, ever be lifted. He tried to blink as little as he could, wanting to see everything always so it wouldn’t be taken from him. Before, he’d never realized it, but now he understood just how much there was to see; people and buildings and the sky, yes, but little things too, like birds darting in between legs and litter being kicked about and even the way car exhaust swirled thick and dissipated as it rose in the air. Funny, really, how he took sight for granted. Not just sight, but life. Once upon a time he’d wanted nothing more than to end his life, but fear had always held him back. Now, having actually died and experienced the terror that came with it, he knew he wanted to live. Even if he wasn’t deserving of one, he wanted to keep his life.
He’d found a seat on a rounded cement bench a ways back from the sidewalk, with Caesars behind his right shoulder. Every few minutes, while he waited for Wren to come, he pressed his palms against his abdomen to ensure blood wasn’t seeping through his shirt from the gaping, jagged wound that consumed his chest. Had consumed his chest, that is. It was gone now, and the only thing he felt when he slipped his fingers beneath his shirt were the old scars from years past. He could feel his heart beating, and he knew he was breathing, but he’d make noises too, to draw attention, taking comfort in the way people glanced his way. If he’d been dead, they wouldn’t have been able to see him. Simple logic.
But no one really saw him, just like he’d told Wren. Like the poor woman he’d attacked the night before, who’d seen an innocent child, all these passersby just saw a man when they looked at him. A man in a rumpled shirt and khakis, with hair mussed by his own fingers and eyes that were too wide, too haunted, but just a man. They couldn’t see the blood that stained his hands. They couldn’t see the things he’d done, or the people he’d killed. They couldn’t see inside, and in a way they were just as blind as he’d been as that boy with bandages wound around his eyes. Sheep, they were, oblivious to the wolf within their midst. Maybe Wren was right, maybe he’d never hurt an innocent person. Maybe he’d never killed anyone who hadn’t first tainted themselves, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a killer. He was still bad. Bad, bad, bad, and he clamped his hands over his ears to stop the repetition.
He wanted to believe her. He did, so very badly, but it was hard. What Wren saw when she looked at him was so far from what he saw in himself that he honestly couldn’t understand it, couldn’t understand how to do the same. It scared him, because if she ever came to her senses she’d leave him, he knew she would, and he wouldn’t be able to handle that. He wouldn’t. Luke wrapped his arms around himself and tried to focus on breathing instead of that, because he’d had enough fear and pain to last him a lifetime and he couldn’t handle any more. She would come, and then everything would be okay, somehow. Seeing her would make things better.
It would have been easier if Wren didn't know, with certainty, that the hotel hadn't shown them lies. It hadn't been a big prank, and it hadn't been something twisted up to make it seem real. It had been real, and that meant she had to find a real way to make what had happened to Luke make sense, and she needed to do it before she met him on the strip. And, really, the only thing she had was what she'd told him. That his secret could have been that he saw himself that way. And maybe there was more to it than that. Maybe their secrets weren't things that they'd ever act on, but she couldn't explain that, not without going into her own secret, and she'd already decided she wasn't going to say anything about that. It was enough that she knew. It was enough that she understood. She would take precautions. She would find a way to make it okay, to make it safe. The attic was a start, and maybe after awhile she could move out, move somewhere where she could see them without running the risk of hurting them. But not now. Not when Luke was like this. Because she hadn't been exaggerating when she said she knew him. She'd memorized every tiny little thing about him when they were just children, and she'd known he was falling apart from the first note of his panicked voice. No, the priority was Luke right now. Whatever was going on with her, it could wait. She was good at that, at waiting.
She took a cab to the strip, despite the extravagance, but she didn't have the car, and she didn't want to waste time waiting on the bus. He'd told her he wouldn't move, but she didn't actually trust him not to wander off, not sounding like he had. It wasn't far, and she'd replace the money somehow. It didn't matter. She was nervous, worried, and she almost forgot to pay the fare.
Caesars brought back memories. She wondered if it was coincidence, him ending up back where it had all started. She wondered if he'd been happier then. She wondered if she should have left him alone, never brought Gus into his life, never made him face demons that chased him around every corner now. She couldn't remember if he'd smiled more then, when he'd worked at the hotel and hadn't had any responsibilities. Maybe Brielle would have come back, and he could have been happy with her. Brielle wouldn't be in jail, and Luke wouldn't be falling apart. But there wasn't anyway to turn back time. She knew that too.
She walked quickly, khaki shorts and a slim cream top that had seen better days. Her hair was blonde again, pale and long, and it made her feel better, safer, more removed from the realities of life. On days like these, she liked the feeling. On days when everything felt like it was falling to pieces, she really liked the feeling. She rubbed her palms against her thighs, the lingering feeling of a heavy axe and a box still there, present. Her throat hurt, but that didn't have anything to do with her, and while she actually knew what had happened to Selina (for once), she didn't really care about it very much.
She saw him from a good thirty feet away. He looked so young sitting there, palms pressed against his belly, and she stopped for just a second and watched him. His body language was something desperate and lost, and then he raised his hands to his ears and she had to close her eyes for a second. She decided something then, after realizing just how broken he was. She would go get that test she'd been needing to get, and she'd take care of whatever needed to be taken care of herself. He didn't need anything else on his plate. She wasn't sure he could handle anything else on his plate. She'd already pushed him too hard with memories of the past, and now this had happened. He didn't need anything else to deal with.
Finally, she moved. Quietly, as he wrapped his arms around himself, she sat down beside him. "Hi."
The sound of her voice was familiar in a way nothing from the night before had been. Had he still been blind, Luke would have been able to recognize her regardless, but he was glad that he wasn’t, that he could see. He turned to look at her, quiet perusal and only the faintest hint of surprise as he took in the sight of her blonde hair. One arm unwrapped itself from around his belly, and he reached out to run a few strands of her hair through his fingers without saying a word. Her hair color didn’t really matter to him, but if she was back to blonde then that had to mean she’d felt too vulnerable with the brown and that meant things weren’t good. He’d known they’d hit a rough patch, with the picture and her moving into Gus’ room, and he knew that, while he wasn’t okay, she wasn’t okay either. He hated himself all the more for not being able to deal with his own shit like a man and focusing on her, because she should be the priority, not him. He was supposed to put her first, not let himself fall apart so she was forced to pick up the pieces. Once, he’d been so good at pretending, but somewhere along the line it had stopped being easy to shove everything down and smile like he meant it.
Belatedly, he realized he’d let long moments pass with nothing but silence in response to her greeting. “Hi,” he echoed, pulling his hand back and letting her hair fall back into place. He looked at her for a few seconds longer, and maybe he should have tried to hold himself together, tape and glue and flimsy things, but he couldn’t do it. His arms went around her waist instead, and he buried his face in her shoulder, and he clung to her with a fierceness that came from fear and desperation and need all mixed together.
She honestly hadn't really expected him to even notice her hair. He didn't notice things like that, or he hadn't before, and she bit her lip as his fingers touched the blonde strands. Maybe she shouldn't have explained about the blonde, about how it made her feel, but she couldn't do anything about it now. And like the mattresses that she'd set up in the attic of the house, the haircolor made her feel safer somehow. She knew it didn't make sense, but she knew she didn't make sense most of the time. And, really, all that ever mattered was picking herself up and not looking at anything too closely. The night before was that way. She knew what she'd done, and she knew why she'd done it. She couldn't lie and tell herself it wasn't true, and she couldn't pretend it hadn't ever happened. But she didn't need to think about it very much. She didn't want to think about it very much. And sitting there, with his fingers in her hair, she wanted so very much to just be normal. For once, she wanted to be what he needed, instead of something broken and not quite right. She didn't want to have her own nightmares from the night before to relive. She wanted to be able to make things better for him, and she wasn't sure she knew how anymore.
The long silence didn't faze her. She was comprised of long silences and quiet moments that went too long, that made people uncomfortable. She filled in pauses because other people expected her to, not because she felt the need to add words where nothing was. "Hi," she echoed, knowing it was her turn to say something else. But she didn't know what just yet. She reached out a hand to touch his cheek, but his arms were around her waist before she managed to finish bridging the gap, and it was unthinking to slide her arms over his shoulders and cling back with her own selfish terror. It took her a second, a few deep breaths, and a kiss to the side of his neck before she managed to remember that he was the one who needed consoling. She tugged back a little, and she cupped his cheeks and tried to make him look at her. "Bonjour," she repeated, and she had to close her eyes for a moment to erase the thought of him dead, of him being dead, of her having killed him. She blinked, and she gave him a smile that was unsteady and unsure, but no less adoring than it had always been. "You didn't move."
He didn’t mind that she returned the embrace with a tightness of her own. In fact, he welcomed her arms around his shoulders; they were added reassurance that she was there and she was real and she didn’t think he was some bad, horrible thing even if that was the truth. Honestly, if she hadn’t tugged back he probably could have stayed the way he was for a while, breathing in her scent with his arms wound around her to keep her against him. But she did tug back, and she cupped his cheeks, and he only resisted for a moment or two before hesitantly lifting his gaze to meet hers. It wasn’t easy, but he managed to return her smile with one of his own, equally unsure and unsteady but no less lacking in raw, honest emotion. No matter how much of a mess he was, his feelings for her were a constant throughout it all.
“No,” he agreed, when she said he didn’t move. “If I’d moved, you wouldn’t have been able to find me. And you asked me not to.” That was reason enough, really. She hadn’t wanted him to move, so he hadn’t moved. "I wanted you to find me," he added, simple and honest.
She smelled like dust from the attic, and she smelled like the jasmine tea she'd had once she'd gotten back to the house, shaking fingers and realization. She was sure palms as she cupped his cheeks, despite the fact that she didn't feel sure about anything at all. She was concern, as she looked at him, because she was having a hard time remembering when he'd been unsure around her. It had been a while. Seattle, maybe. New York, maybe. Or maybe here, in Las Vegas, at first. But no, that had been anger. It had been easier when he was angrier at her, somehow.
His words, his explanation for not moving, were so simple, so childlike, and that made her stomach drop. She'd known he wasn't okay. She could tell from his very first utterance on the phone that he wasn't okay. But this went beyond that. It went beyond that, and she didn't know where to find the strength to be okay with it, not when she kept having her own fears of the night before. She'd tried to close her eyes once she'd gotten the mattresses set up, and all she'd seen behind her eyelids was him, dead, chopped apart, her face splattered with his blood.
She brushed her thumb against his lips as he spoke, and she knew she shouldn't touch him like that. She knew it would be harder if she let herself touch him, but she couldn't help it, not just then. "I found you," she replied, equally simple, and she looked back at the hotel. "Why here?" she asked. It wasn't the elephant in the room, but it was a way to get him talking. She knew they'd get there eventually, to the things he'd been saying about himself on the phone. But this was an easy start, and she thought maybe he needed an easy start just them. One of her hands dropped to his shoulder, and the other brushed hair away from his temple.
The concern in her expression was impossible to miss, but he didn't know how to make himself be okay. He'd never actually known how, but at least he'd been able to pretend once. Pretending was almost as good, sometimes, especially since he'd been able to convince himself and everyone else of his own lies; now, he couldn't even seem to manage that. He almost apologized for it, but the feel of her thumb brushing against his lips silenced him, and he parted them, just a little, in response.
This time, his smile was less unsure, warm and fond. "You found me," he echoed in agreement. When she asked why here, he shrugged, fingers pressing into her back as he shifted closer. "I don't know. I was just walking and walking, and I ended up here." For a moment, it didn't seem as though he would say anything else, but then his tone turned wistful as he looked back at the hotel. "I used to watch you, you know. Once I found out you were staying here, and before we got back together. I'd watch you come and go from your room, and I'd watch you in the lobby, and I'd watch you drive away and come back hours later. I know it sounds creepy," he admitted, "but I couldn't stop. I didn't think I'd ever have you back then. I thought I'd always be watching from far away," he sighed. "I'm glad I was wrong, even though I don't deserve you."
Maybe she'd always known he was pretending. Maybe she'd always known him well enough to know that, and maybe she'd pretended right alongside him. He hadn't ever really dealt with the things she'd done while they'd been apart, but she hadn't really pushed him about what he'd done, either. It had been easier to just not talk about it. Easier for him, if not for her, and she'd known that too. After that one conversation in the park, she'd left it alone. She'd never asked him if he felt the kind of hunger that Jack had described to her once, the desire to rip people apart to feel okay. She hadn't wanted to think of Luke that way, and she'd never really asked. She knew, with every single fiber of her being, that if he'd broken apart that way it had been because he'd been too good to deal with the things that she and Thomas had put him through.
Her fingers slid through his hair as he spoke, and they came to rest at the nape of his neck. She didn't bother looking at the hotel again when he did. She just kept looking at him, and she smiled a wistful smile. "I left the room a lot more than I needed to, especially when I knew you were working," she admitted. "You never sound creepy," she added, because he didn't. She knew, on some level, that they'd fallen into something dangerous with all their mutual statements about not letting each other go. His were verbal statements, but the hotel had shown her that she was much, much more dangerous when it came to this one particular thing. But she'd always been so much darker than him, and she wasn't really surprised. "I thought you hated me so much that you'd never want to touch me again, and I would have given anything for just that one thing." She shook her head, then, and turned his cheek back toward her and waited until she had his attention before continuing. "You deserve everything, Luke. You're a good man. You're a good father, and you're a good husband, and you're a good person."
Pretending had been, until recently, how he’d managed to survive. In the dark days while they were apart it was fear that kept him alive; the one thing stronger than his own self-hatred had been the fear of death, and that was why despite some close calls and the scars that spoke volumes, he’d never actually taken that final step. But when Wren had come back into his life, along with Gus, he’d needed to reconcile the things he’d done with the life he wanted but didn’t deserve, and so he pretended. He didn’t talk about the past. He barely even acknowledged it, because on some days he almost forgot it had happened at all. Her past was hard to deal with, but he could. He could, if he tried, face it and accept it without wanting to take a blade to his skin. But his was harder. His was worse. He’d done things he hadn’t even told her about, things he kept locked away inside himself and never disturbed. He should have known, really, that he couldn’t hide from himself. The hotel had just reminded him of what he was. It had reminded him that he couldn’t run from it, and that no matter how he tried to atone for his sins they would always be a part of him. The problem was that he didn’t know how to face that, how to be okay with it. He had to be, somehow, because he didn’t have very many other options, but it seemed an impossible feat to accomplish.
Maybe it didn’t fix everything, her being here, but it helped. The feel of her fingers in his hair was soothing, and his breathing evened out as a result. “Really?” He smiled a little when she admitted that she’d intentionally left her room more often, but shook his head when she said he didn’t sound creepy. “I followed you around without letting you see me, Wren. I was like a cross between a puppy and a stalker.” He knew how it would look to an outsider. He knew some might think how they felt about each other went beyond love and into obsession. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t, but she was one of the few good things in his life and he would never, could never, doubt that. “I didn’t hate you,” he said, turning his gaze away from the hotel and back to her. “I never hated you.” That was easy. Listening to her convictions that he just couldn’t share was harder, and it was difficult to stay still when she called him good and he thought he was anything but. “I’m not any of those things,” he said, sad-quiet. “I try to believe I am, but then I think of the things I’ve done and I-- I can’t. It doesn’t seem right. I’m not right. And no matter what I do, I’m always going to be bad. Even if I never hurt anyone else, that’s who I am. I just-- I don’t know how to be okay with that.”
She didn't know precisely what he was thinking, but she could have come pretty close if she tried to guess. She didn't realize there were things he hadn't told her, but then she hadn't asked for specifics. She'd been as bad as he'd been about her past, and she was only now realizing it. But it wasn't out of any need to think him better than he was. In her mind, she knew what he'd done. He'd killed people. He'd killed a lot of people. He said he'd liked it once, killing, and she assumed he'd meant that in the same way she'd liked to hurt the men she'd targeted in Seattle. She'd wanted them to pay for the things they'd done, but she hadn't missed hurting them once she'd stopped. These days, she could still imagine doing it. She could still imagine killing someone, too, but only to protect him or Gus. She had blood on her hands, but she'd only ever killed to protect him. Twice, and she didn't have any guilt about it. She didn't lose sleep over it. She knew that made him a better person than her. But she'd always known that.
She nodded when he asked if she'd really left her room more than she'd needed to, and that little smile of his made her breathe a little more easily. "I followed you everywhere in Seattle, before you noticed me. I would follow you on patrol, and I'd watch you whenever you were anywhere near me. I saved all the newspaper clippings from when you got adopted. I was worse than you," she reminded him. "I stalked you when you'd never even been mine, and I machinated until you noticed me." She knew he didn't see it that way, but she had. She could have stayed quietly in the background, but she hadn't. And she'd taken his virginity, taken advantage of him, and there wasn't any rewriting that.
She was willing, now, to maybe believe that he hadn't hated her. She'd hated herself when she'd run into him again. She still hated herself, most days. But not holding a grudge, that was just part of who he was. She wasn't that kind. She'd never been that kind. She was self-sacrificing with other people because she was broken, not because she was good. It was different with him. She'd do anything for him. "You are those things," she insisted, though she didn't expect him to agree with her. She waited until he was done, and she scooted a little bit closer. Her fingers were on his jaw, and her voice was whisper quiet, her words for no one but him. "Is Jack bad? Do you think Jack is a bad person?" she asked him. "Am I a whore? I was one once, am I still one now?" she asked, because she thought it would be easier to take the responses she expected from him and turn them around on him.
It was no secret that he’d been painfully oblivious to Wren’s feelings for him in Seattle, and even now, he had trouble understanding how he could have been so blind to what was right there in front of him for months and months. “I’m glad you stalked me,” he told her. “I’m glad you followed me around, and I’m glad you didn’t stop. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Wren. I’m just sorry I didn’t realize that sooner. I was stupid. You didn’t machinate anything,” he insisted, quiet but stubborn. Never in a million years would he agree that she’d taken advantage of him. Nothing she’d done had been something he didn’t want, and it had just taken him longer than her to realize how he really felt. Now, he couldn’t imagine not loving her.
He began to shake his head, to say that no, he wasn’t, but then she was closer than she’d been before and her fingers were warm and tactile on his jaw. Maybe he should have seen through what she was trying to do, and normally he would have, but he wasn’t thinking clearly enough to stop himself from answering honestly. “No, I don’t think Jack is a bad person,” he said, whisper-quiet. “What he’s done doesn’t make him--” But then she asked if she was a whore, and he shook his head more insistently, brows furrowed, and tugged on the hem of her shirt. “No,” he hissed. “You’re not a whore. You’ve never been a whore. Don’t say that.” He would have continued, but then understanding clicked in, and he sighed. “It’s different with me. I don’t like myself all that much most days, so it’s hard to believe good things. The bad things are easier, somehow.” Which didn’t make much sense, but he couldn’t figure out a better way to explain it.
She wanted to tell him that he was wrong. She wanted to explain to him that they had no way of knowing what his life might have been like if he'd met someone else, someone good, someone clean. She was the best thing in a very messed up life, and she'd had a big part in making his life messed up. But she was too worried to argue with him. She was too worried about the look in his eyes, about how young he was acting, about how he'd sounded on the phone. She didn't know how to put him back together, not without touching him, and she was scared to do that like she normally would. She'd already tainted him; she didn't want to kill him, too. "You weren't stupid," she told him softly, because that was safe. "You were sweet and pretty, and all I could think about was you."
She knew he'd immediately tell her that Jack wasn't a bad person, and she knew he'd argue that she wasn't a whore. She didn't actually agree with him about herself, but she knew it would work as a point, and that was really all that mattered to her just then. She slid her fingers down to here his were wound in the hem of her shirt, and she closed her hands over his. "It's not different. You just see it differently, because it's you. You won't ever convince me I'm not a whore, just like I won't convince you of this. But I want to believe you, because I think you see me clearer than I see myself sometimes. And if that's true, if I believe you, then you have to believe me." She gave him a soft-sad smile. "I know the bad things are easier to believe. They always, always are. But it doesn't mean they're true." She paused, and she looked around. The crowd here scared her, because she didn't want them overhearing anything he said if she started asking questions, and she only hesitated a second before standing and tugging him to his feet. "I can get someone to give us a comp room for a little bit. Come with me?"
In his mind, there were a number of things that had led him down the dark, twisted road he’d embarked upon to get where he was now, and Wren was definitely not one of them. Thomas and his impossible standards were high on the list, but he blamed the other adults in their lives, too, the ones who should have known better than to push teenagers into things far too old for them. He blamed himself too, of course, but not her, never her, and had she argued he would have just argued with her right back. “You were sweet and pretty,” he countered. “I was just a stupid boy.” He didn’t say it like it was a bad thing, just simple fact.
He knew it didn’t make sense, really, that he could so emphatically insist that she wasn’t a whore while being unable to believe that he wasn’t a horrible human being. But she did the same, seeing the best in him but not herself, and so he could understand, sort of, at least to a certain degree. “I’ll never think you’re a whore,” he said, still quiet but less agitated. “I’ll never, ever agree that you are, or that you were.” His expression softened and turned uncertain when she said he had to believe her if she believed him, because he wanted to, he did, but he didn’t feel like he should. “I want to believe you. I do. But I feel like... like it’s not right, because of all the people I’ve hurt. Even if they were bad, I still-- I still killed them. Why should I get to believe I’m a good person? I don’t feel like I deserve to,” he said sadly. And that was the root of it, really; he didn’t feel like he deserved much of anything. He stood without hesitation when she tugged him to his feet, and he nodded when she asked him to come with her. “Okay.” He didn’t try to argue, didn’t try to resist. He capitulated easily; wherever she went, he’d follow.
"You were wonderful," she insisted. "You still are." Even now, when the reality existed that he might like killing people, she still couldn't bring herself to think he was anything but perfect. Wanting to do something and not doing it was so much harder than not wanting to do it at all, and she didn't think he actually wanted to hurt anyone. She still remembered how hard it had been for him to come back from killing Alexander, how he'd had such a hard time reconciling himself with what he'd done. She thought Alexander deserved it. She was glad he was dead. But Luke had made himself sick with guilt over it, and that proved to her that he was wrong about himself. Whatever he thought he was, he was wrong about it.
"But I was, and maybe I still am. I still feel like I am. And I could go back to it, if we needed the money," she told him. She knew he wouldn't like the parallel, but it was an important one to draw. She knew he was thinking that he missed it, that he could go back to doing what he'd done. So could she, and she wasn't going to let him absolve her while blaming himself. "Jack could go back to it too. I think he wants to," she added, because she trusted him to see the good in Jack before he saw the good in himself.
She didn't respond to his comment about not deserving to be a good person, not right away. Instead, she just kept her fingers twined with his, and she found an old acquaintance at the desk. A key later, they had a room for a few hours, and she led him through the familiar halls and paths to the door. It felt like going back in time almost, except things were very different now. Now, she was scared that she wouldn't be able to talk him out of this new belief that he wasn't good, and that terrified her. Even knowing that she was going to have to learn to give him up in some way, she couldn't stand the idea of him actually believing he was a bad person. She'd do anything to change that.
She closed the door quietly, and then she leaned back against it, letting go of his fingers. "You feel guilty because you are a good person. Luke, sometimes we don't do good things, but that doesn't make us bad people. You aren't bad." It was hard, including herself in that number, but she was willing to do it this once. She was willing to do anything this once, if he'd just believe her.
Of course she would say he was wonderful. Luke was almost certain that there was nothing he could do to ever sway her opinion of him, just like there was nothing she could do to sway his opinion of her. Maybe he did feel guilty for some of the things he’d done, but that wasn’t necessarily because he felt regret for taking a life. His guilt over Alexander’s death had come mostly from his twin brother, because he’d had to live with the knowledge that, while he’d protected countless women from a monster by killing him, he’d also taken away someone’s sibling and left their life in tatters. There was always a trade-off; someone was always affected by his actions. That was what he felt guilt for, not for the men who murdered and raped and hurt innocent people with the expectation that they could get away with it. “I know you think I’m wonderful,” he told her, because he did know that even though he didn’t think the same of himself.
He didn’t like that she continued to call herself a whore, which was evident in his expression, in the lines around his eyes and mouth that appeared when he was upset about something. “You’re not,” he insisted, more vehemently this time. “You’re not, and you wouldn’t go back to it because you’re better than that, Wren.” He knew he could go back to killing people again. It didn’t mean that he would, but he could. It wouldn’t take much. But he didn’t want to; believing he was a horrible human being aside, he didn’t actually want to go back to that again. As for Jack, he shook his head. “No, he doesn’t. He’s better than that too. Why--” He broke off and shook his head again, because asking why she was saying these things was pointless. He knew why. She was trying to prove a point, he understood that much, but he still didn’t like her using herself as an example to do so. He went quiet after that, following her obediently through the once-familiar halls, and he didn’t miss it. Maybe, in some ways, things had been simpler back then, but he’d hated his job and Wren had felt out of reach, all wealth and expensive things, even more so than usual. Simpler, maybe, but not better. He wouldn’t say things had been better all those months ago.
Even once they were inside the room and the door was closed, he didn’t say anything. Not right away. He listened, and he thought about good people doing bad things and where the line was. He wondered how many bad things it took to turn a good person bad, and he wondered if, conversely, bad people could do good things too. It was all so very complicated, and it made his head hurt. “What makes someone bad, then?” The question was an honest one, and he looked at her as though he might actually listen to how she responded, like he might try to believe. “How can I do bad things, and still be good?”
He was right. There was nothing he'd be able to do to change her mind about him. She knew him too well, and she thought maybe she knew him better than he knew himself. And maybe things did exist inside him that she didn't know about, and maybe those things were darker than she imagined, but nothing would shake her belief that whatever darkness lived inside him was outweighed by the good. He risked his life every single day to help people, and that wasn't something bad people did. She knew there were bad cops. She'd known so many of them herself, starting with the man who'd come for her when her maman had died, but he wasn't one of those cops. She would go to her grave defending him, logical or not. No, he wouldn't be able to sway her. No matter what he said to her, what he confessed, she wouldn't change her mind.
She knew what the lines around his eyes meant, what his expression meant, but she was making a point. She didn't know how else to make him believe her. "I would go back to it if I needed to, and it wouldn't bother me," she told him. It might be a bit of an exaggeration, but she was sure she could find that numbness again, if she needed to, that disassociation. But that wasn't the point here, and she shook her head as he defended Jack. "Why do Jack and I get to be good people, but you don't?" she asked. Because she knew Jack enjoyed killing. She knew Jack didn't just kill because it needed to be done. They both knew that. "If you can say Jack is good, then why can't I say you are?" she asked him.
His question, the honesty in it, surprised her a little. She flicked at the door handle while she looked at him. She understood that how she answered mattered, but she'd never been very good at explaining things without touching him. She flicked the handle one more time, then she crossed the room and stopped in front of him. She looked at him for a few long seconds, close and grey eyes direct and honest. The previous evening had been stark reality for her, and some of it still lingered in her gaze. Eventually, slowly, she slid her hand around the nape of his neck, and she stretched up and brushed her lips against his. A brush back and forth and fingertips a soft pressure that climbed and tangled in his hair. When she spoke, it was against his cheek, quiet. "Wanting to hurt people because it gives them pleasure, when they haven't done anything wrong, makes them bad. Wanting bad things to happen to people without any reason other than it being exciting, that makes someone bad. Alexander was bad." Because Alexander had been the epitome of cruelty, of evil. "Taking advantage of someone innocent in order to hurt them, that's bad." She could go on for ages. She'd known bad men, so very many of them. "I know what bad people look like, Luke. They walked through my maman's door every day. I know, and you aren't one of those men." As for how he could do bad things and still be good, she shook her head. "You didn't do anything bad. You didn't do anything the justice system wouldn't have done itself, if it wasn't so messed up."
It was so easy for him to defend the people he cared about, yet so hard to articulate why he could see the good in them when he couldn’t see it in himself. The more he tried to explain, the more frustrated he became, and he knew his logic was flawed. He knew that when he couldn’t answer why she and Jack were good people, but he wasn’t. With her, he could argue that she hadn’t done anything remotely close to what he had, but Jack... Jack had done worse things, yet even still he would never condemn him for them. “You’re different,” he argued, or tried to. “You’re different, and Jack-- it’s not his fault, what happened with his wife messed him up. He has a problem.” He shook his head when she asked why he could say Jack was good, but she couldn’t say he was, and it was a helpless thing, because he didn’t know what to say and he didn’t know how to believe her. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s-- maybe it’s because I hate myself, but I don’t hate you, and I don’t hate him. I don’t know.” The repetition was telling in that she was wearing him down, even though it pushed him closer to desperation than it did acceptance.
He stood still, and he didn’t move. He waited for her to come to him, and he looked down at her, trying to read her gaze beyond what was on the surface. When her hand slid around his neck he shuffled closer, and he closed his eyes when her lips brushed against his. He leaned into her, hands coming to rest on her hips, and he listened. “Maybe I’m a different kind of bad,” he whispered, once she was finished. “Maybe I’m just the kind of bad that wants to hurt other bad things. Maybe that’s it.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out slowly. “No, Wren. I was nothing like the justice system. I was never, ever that.”
"I'm not different," she insisted, her words tumbling over his. "Jack isn't different. Thomas messed you up. I messed you up. If you're excusing Jack because of those things, then you have to excuse yourself too." Her voice didn't get louder, but there was a firmness to it, a certainty, and it carried with it the sense of refusing to give up. She could keep this up forever, until she had no voice, until he had no voice, and beyond that still. And it came as no surprise when he said he hated himself. The hurt that flashed through her eyes when he said the words was raw and unhidden, but she wasn't surprised. She knew what that felt like, and she didn't want it for him. She shook her head, but it was barely movement at all. "Don't hate yourself," she said, and it was almost a plea. "You're too good for that. I love you too much for that. You're too giving, too sweet for that." He'd always been those things to her. He would always be those things to her.
"You're not a different kind of bad," she told him, lips brushing against his jaw and feet shuffling just the tiniest bit closer. "You're not any kind of bad. It's normal to want to hurt bad people, Luke. If you go to any trial, you'll see families wanting to hurt the people who killed and raped their innocent loved ones. If you go to executions for men that are truly bad, you'll see a gallery of people who actually want to sit there and watch someone die. It's normal." And maybe what he'd done was beyond that, but it was the same thing, and he'd only done the things he'd done because he'd been broken. He'd been so very broken in Seattle, and New York had only made it so much worse. Her fingers slid up to his cheeks, and she caressed them soothingly. Her touches were tiny things, all affection and no attempt at seduction. Her fingers slid to the sides of his neck, they traced a line along his throat, they climbed up again and found his lips. "You made mistakes, and they're eating you up inside. That's enough penance, Luke. You've paid enough for something that wasn't even your fault. Let it go," she pleaded. She didn't expect him to agree, but she needed to make the plea. "Let it go, because you're the kind of man that risks his life every single day to keep people safe, and you're the kind of man that never, ever loses patience with his son, and you're the kind of man that can see the good in anyone. You're good." She stretched against him, and she kissed his cheek. "You're so good," she whispered, lingering with her lips against his skin.
“You did not mess me up,” he argued, his voice rising before he managed to rein it back in. He wasn’t angry and yelling, but he was stubborn and loud, and it took a few seconds to get his volume back down to normal. “Thomas did, yeah, but not you. Never you. Don’t say that.” As for excusing Jack but not himself, he didn’t know what else to say. She wouldn’t accept his disjointed explanations and he wasn’t capable of changing an opinion he’d held for five years, maybe a little more, in a matter of minutes. He just shook his head, helpless, but at least he didn’t try arguing again. The pain that flashed in her gaze when he said he hated himself made him wince, and he tried to make it better without knowing how, moving closer and sliding his hands around her waist to the small of her back. “I’m sorry,” he said sadly. He was sorry it hurt her, how he felt about himself. He was sorry he was putting her through all this in the first place. She wouldn’t talk about herself, about what had happened to her last night, which probably meant it was bad and here he was, making her deal with his messed-up self.
He started to shake his head when she said he wasn’t any kind of bad, but then he stopped. “It’s normal to want to hurt them, Wren. It’s not normal to actually do it,” he began, but then her fingers slid up to his cheeks and he leaned into her touch, whatever else he’d intended on saying forgotten in lieu of the contact. His breath hitched when her fingers traveled across his throat, and he parted his lips against them, just a little, warm breath and quiet sounds that stopped just short of becoming words. He wanted to believe her. He wanted so very badly to believe that he'd suffered enough, that who he was now and what he did could redeem himself, somehow, outweighing past sins. "I don't know how," he whimpered. "I don't know how to let go. You make me feel like-- like it might be true, like maybe I'm not so bad after all, but it's so hard." He turned his head to look at her, and one hand slid up to cup her jaw, fingers splayed. "If I say it, if I say that I'm not bad, will you say that you're not bad either?" He kissed her before she could respond, open-mouthed and quick, and then spoke again. "Please?"
He could scream all he wanted. He could rant, he could rail, and none of it would scare her. The stubbornness in his voice made something like hope flutter its wings within her chest. If he could get angry, if he could sound that stubborn, then maybe there was a chance things would be okay. Maybe, like she'd told MK, things could get better. She didn't actually agree with him, didn't say that she hadn't messed him up, because neither of them could really know that. She would always assume that he could have done better without her. With a girl who hadn't left him alone when Thomas was pushing him past the breaking point, with a girl who hadn't left their child to be abused for years. There were things she couldn't forgive herself for, no matter what he said. The sad tone of his voice made her shake her head. "No, don't apologize to me. You haven't done anything to apologize for," she assured him. "It just hurts me to see you hurting. Do you understand? Like it would hurt you if I was hurting. It's not anything you ever, ever have to apologize to me for."
"You took it too far," she told him, because she knew absolving him entirely would make him discount anything she said. And, too, she thought he had taken it too far, even if she understood why. "You took it too far, but it hurt you as much as it hurt anyone they left behind. That matters. This hurt you. Doing what you did, it hurt you." Because she knew that. Her voice was certainty, sure things and utter conviction. "You killed a little bit of yourself every time you hurt someone. I know that. You've already paid for what you did. You're doing penance for it every single day." Because he was. She didn't have any dreams of him becoming a detective, or working a desk, because she knew he was doing what he was doing for a reason. She understood that, because she understood him. Her hand slid beneath the hem of his shirt, and her found the scars on his side that he'd caused himself. She traced those scars. "You already hurt yourself enough, Luke."
When he kissed her, she kissed him back with a desperate little whimper. "I'm not bad. I'm dangerous."