Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-05-04 00:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman, poison ivy, red hood |
Who: Jack and Brielle + Wren
What: Tending to Brielle's wounds
Where: Passages → Caesars
When: Backdated to after the Paris party
Warnings/Rating: Nope
Jack had never met Wren’s cousin, but that hardly mattered. He knew to look for a hurt girl in Passages, and while it seemed some days like those were becoming pandemic, he could assume there was only one of them at the hotel right now.
He went to the building as soon as Wren told him where she was. Jack had managed to get ahold of two vehicles since he’d come to Las Vegas, by virtue of working for a mechanic and knowing who to talk to. The motorcycle, an old off-brand Japanese model that he was currently in the process of putting some speed into, wasn’t going to cut it if he needed to take the girl with him. So he brought the car instead, a beat up two-door with a smooth engine lodged in its old body.
He parked the car outside the hotel and took the steps two at a time. Now, the only real problem was that he had no idea where the girl was going to be. He’d just have to try every hallway, if necessary. He made his way into the dilapidated lobby. As ever, he wore mostly dark colors, desert sun be damned. He made no attempt to hide the scar on his face, or his shattered left eye, and, conscious of the sight he made to people who didn’t know him, he looked for the girl as cautiously as he did quickly. He didn’t know her name, so he couldn’t call it. He could only check the halls.
A broken swan rested at the paramount of the stairs, dead center, between the third and fourth floors. Knees drawn up and arms tucked in. Her face was cast against her knees, and in this weeping origami pose, she seemed all the smaller. Brielle's halo was tangled black briar with outgrown, forgotten highlights obscuring her hidden face. The dress was nice, or it had been once. Crisp, white resort wear. The kind of dress that was carefully crafted to blow just so in a beachfront breeze, punctuated with dark buttons all the way down to the modest knee. There'd once been a sash that went about the waist, but she'd lost it somewhere. The missing sash wasn't the full extent of the dress' problems now, though. There were smears of black and blood on the fabric. Her knees were scraped and her feet were bare. Symphony fingers clutched her left arm, where blood oozed at a (thankfully) slow pace between them.
Jack saw her as he came around the corner on the third floor. There was no mistaking her, not with the blood dripping from between her fingers. He saw her, and at the same time, he knew her. He’d been worried about this, since Wren had told him her cousin had been shot in the arm. He was shot through with spikes of guilt, jagged and intense, along with the worry. She had to be Ivy. She couldn’t be anyone else, and Jason might very well have killed this girl along with her if his shots had hit true. She had no part in their fight, and while Jason was currently glowering, unresponsive, Jack resolved not to let something like this happen again. He would keep a tighter leash on him. Whatever Ivy had done, this girl didn’t deserve to be punished for it.
But more important right now than his own guilt was getting her some medical attention. His gait slowed as he neared her. “Hello?” he said. Was she even conscious? “I’m Jack,” he said, carefully, not wanting to startle her too badly. He looked a little like a ghost lost in the abandoned house might, with his scar and his dark clothes and wild black hair. “Your cousin sent me.”
She glanced up with the haunted eyes of a fawn in the middle of hunting season. As if his voice and proximity spooked her more than his scar. She was dark hair and darker eyes, pale from shock more so than blood loss. It didn't seem like an entirely normal occurrence, getting shot. The wound hurt more than she'd of expected, like somebody carved a stripe out of her skin with a red hot poker. What would happen to her? Would she have to go to a hospital? She knew that wasn't possible, they'd want to enter her social security number and send up all kinds of red flags to whatever private investigators her husband had hired in her absence. Of course, those worries were put on hold with the appearance of Jack.
Brielle leaned back, but realizing that the stairs offered very little escape that way, she clambered to her feet. She clutched the railing with blood slick hand and crept back a step, eyes going wide and a little wild. "Where's Wren?" Distrust was evident, because she'd been under the impression that Wren was coming, not sending a complete stranger. What if Wren hadn't sent him at all? What if somebody else had? What if David found her? She crept back another stair, and her attention flicked from Jack to the lobby below. Expecting the Devil himself to stroll in smiling at any moment. "Stay away from me."
Jack didn't come any closer to her, holding his hands out, attempting to placate her fear from a distance instead. "I'm a friend of Wren's," he said. "She's brought me in to stay at the suite as security for a while, after what happened the other day. She asked me to come get you and bring you back so you could get stitched up. She said you were shot?" he said, brow going up, looking to where the blood was dripping scarlet from her fingertips. There was no denying that, at least. Brielle looked frightened, and even if Wren hadn’t sent him, she was just the sort of girl in trouble he would have been drawn to. The hunted look of a scared girl had been the easiest way to draw him in for years, reliably flipping a switch that made him want to come to their aid. "I'm here to help," he said. He understood that she was afraid of him, but, at the same time, he needed to convince her to trust him as quickly as possible so they could get her medical attention before a minor gunshot wound became a major one.
Hope was tangible for the most hummingbird heartache of a moment, bringing those brown eyes wide. Brielle wanted to believe him, that he was here to help. He seemed to know details, like how she'd been shot. He knew Wren's name.. or did he? He'd said cousin initially, hadn't he? Brielle was the one who mentioned Wren first. She drew a shallow breath and shrank back another step, nearly reaching the fourth floor.. although very aware that this direction left her nowhere to go. "How do I know that?" Her voice didn't hold the demand of interrogation, but rather the aching disbelief of an abused child who'd just been told there were no monsters in the closet. What was there left to believe in? No man had ever been there to help. Even that doctor, the one that put her in the taxi with him, he'd been a liar and a monster.
“I can call her, if you like,” he said. “Or I can throw you my phone, if you don’t want to come down here. Otherwise, I can only give you my word.” He searched for another detail. What could he possibly tell her that would convince her? He didn’t know much about her, nor did he know enough about Wren’s childhood to cite something she might know. “I met Wren when she was living in Seattle five years ago,” he said. “And regardless of whether or not you trust me, you know you need help. Wren asked me to come find you so that we wouldn’t need to call an ambulance and possibly draw attention to everyone in the suite.” His mind clicked on the incident with the fear gas, one thing Wren had told him about. “I know you all were gassed, and I know you’re likely still afraid. But I’m here to make sure you get back safely. Wren’s put in security measures to keep anything like that from happening again.”
Near the fourth floor, she clung with reluctance. The fear gassing had once made her entirely unmanageable, but this paranoia was all Brielle. All logical fear of very real things. She wasn't necessarily concerned about the man responsible for the gassing, or anyone else in Vegas. She was only concerned about New York and any connection that could string her back there. When Jack mentioned not wanting to call an ambulance, Brielle straightened impressively despite her slight injuries. She'd been a dancer once upon a time, it made her bones long and her posture steady while somehow resembling the constellation of a delicate willow. "No doctors. I can't go to a hospital." It was in her eyes, wild nymph in a fox trap eyes - she'd run first, if he tried to make her.
“You don’t have to,” Jack said. She’d straightened, at least, which meant she was paying attention, and seemed to be closer to agreeing. If he could assure her of this, maybe it would be enough. “Wren indicated she’d stitch you up, and if she isn’t there, I know my way around a needle and thread.” The amount of wounds he’d needed to stitch closed on himself wasn’t worth trying to count. She made for a surprisingly strong, slim figure up there on the landing, but that couldn’t last, and he was feeling the teeth of how long they’d been talking and she’d been losing more blood. “Please,” he said. “I don’t know what else I can say, except that you’re still bleeding, and we need to put a stop to it.”
He seemed concerned, but even that was impossible to trust. Pale fingers found Brielle's mouth, nails curling for a bite between teeth(three of which were implants, after having been knocked out a few years ago.) The autumn mulch of her eyes gave a quick drop to assess the streaked red of her arm, and although the sight made her waver in her feet, Brielle didn't imagine it was so serious. She'd lived through enough horrors, to die by a poorly aimed bullet would be too ironic. Her attention lifted to him again while she still clung to the railing above. "Promise you won't hurt me." There was a gentle naivete in the question, or maybe it just desperate hope.. she trusted him to tell the truth.
He couldn’t help but be struck by her naivete. How could he have let this girl be hurt on his watch? He was responsible for what happened to her now, fragile as she was, scared as she was. “I promise,” Jack said, hand creeping toward his heart, an antiquated gesture for antiquated sensibilities, inherited from too much poetry, read to fill the gaps in his world. “I won’t lay a single finger on you without your permission.”
Brielle studied his expression in the deciphering of foreign text. There was honest intention in his eyes, even if she didn't wholly want to believe it was real. All of this hesitation held more purpose than just this softspoken inquisition. Brielle imagined that if Wren was on her way, she'd of arrived by now. But she hadn't. It was still only the one man at the base of her stairs. The patient rescue. It was true that Brielle couldn't stall forever. She doubted that she would bleed to death, although the wound had not yet ceased it's scarlet weeping.. but she knew that open wounds invited infection. "... Okay." She was blood smeared angel skin and fading bruises from all of her fighting while captive in the backseat of Alex's cab. Haunted eyes, dark chocolate hazel. Very slowly, skittish as a colt, Brielle descended the stairs.
Jack didn't sigh with relief, but he did drop his hand and watch Brielle come slowly down the stairs. He gave her a good berth of space, but stayed close enough that if she started to get disoriented from blood loss, she could grab him for support. He'd stay true to his word, and not take hold of her unless she actually passed out. At least she seemed like she hadn't lost too much, at least not yet. Maybe the injury wasn't as bad as he'd assumed.
"I'm sorry if I frightened you," he said, waiting for her to reach the landing before walking with her to the next flight of stairs. "That wasn't my intention."
"It's not you." She was polite discretion with eyes that couldn't seem to find anything but the floor. She was scraped knees and cruised calves, bare feet that once ran frantic across molten asphalt days before. Dark hair curtained her downcast face like a veil of safety, although she gave continual glances of honey and green from the corners of her eyes. Eternal distrust, forever the desire to run or perhaps just wilt at the first sign of trouble. This man, Jack, he did not reach for her even when she arrived upon the same landing as him. The cement knot in her heart loosened a bit, but not entirely. "I'm sorry, I just.." The words drifted away on a dying dove's last breath kind of wind, because she didn't know what to say. It seemed ridiculous to be so afraid of people, of men, but then again.. she had been shot, so maybe not. Brielle had trouble deciphering what was normal anymore. Having a supernatural villain in her head didn't help matters. "I don't know."
"You were shot," Jack said, with a shrug, and turning to offer her a small smile, as reassuring as he could make it. "You have a right to be afraid. It's a scary thing." Being shot didn't scare him, no, but the first time he'd been shot he'd barely felt it. He’d been so far over the edge of sanity that nothing had felt the way it should have. Everything had been pain, then. The bullet had just been a drop in the bucket.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Jack held the door for her. "I brought my car," he said, anticipating how she might react in advance, this time. Best to assure her of his intentions first rather than startle her by not just calling a taxi. "I thought it would be best for you to not be seen by a cab driver who might ask questions." This was normal, in his world, finding ways to circumvent questions, and, more importantly, true answers to those questions.
She hesitated near the door, giving Jack a glance of assessment for the briefest of moments. She saw the scar, of course, but it didn't frighten her. A three-piece Armani suit with engraved cufflinks would have worried her more. Her husband was always pressed ties and award winning smiles, so a ninja wielding a katana probably would have worried Brielle less. She didn't say anything about the car, but rather cast a curious turn of eyes beyond the door to look for it, and to look for any casual passersby. The good thing about Passages was that it didn't boast a lick of foot traffic, save for those that were actually coming or going. "You've.. known Wren a long time?" She didn't even look at him when she asked, just kept her eyes on the ground. Strange obedience inherited a long time ago. Now that the adrenaline was waning, Brielle found that her steps felt heavy. The pain in her arm burned sharp as ever, but there were aches along her body that were not foreign at all. She knew what bruises felt like, she knew what it felt like to fall down stairs or into walls. It was nothing new, but it also did nothing to assist in Jack's illusion of safety. Brielle crossed her arms in a cinch of comfort around herself.
The car, black with chipped paint but new locks, was parked just down the street. Jack opened the door for her, and very nearly reached to help her in before remembering his promise to her. He pulled back, watching as she stared at the ground. She seemed so skittish. He supposed it went to starkly show how unlike their alters some people were. It wasn’t the bullet that made her afraid, since she’d been willing to flee with the wound. No, it was something deeper than that. “We’ve only recently begun talking again, because of all...this,” he said, gesturing vaguely to the hotel behind him. “But I’ve known her for about six or seven years, give or take.”
Jack slid into the driver’s seat, gunned the ignition, and pulled smoothly out. He obeyed traffic laws, but bent them as far as he could without attracting attention. Getting her back fast was what mattered now, and the car, though it looked like a beater from the outside, purred.
The static paranoia hiccup of her heart should have pounded on now that she was seated beside him in the car, but it actually seemed to slow. Maybe the wounded muscle just didn't feel like competing with the roar of the engine as Jack fired the black beauty up. Brielle fastened her seatbelt, of course, but her fingers trembled with difficulty. It took her a couple of tries, but she secured it eventually. Consciously, she turned her knees away from him. Scrapes and bruises mottled lean skin, although as they began to drive, her scraped knuckles drew the dingy hem of her dress down to the midst of her calves. Everything she owned was too modest by Las Vegas standards, but David had never allowed her to wear anything less.. buying new clothes after her escape seemed inconsequential. "I wish I knew her better," Brielle finally said. Her voice was poet sorrow beignets with Creole French sugar dusting the edges. "She came to me after Seattle.. I should have helped her more than I did," she sighed with eyes drifting out the window.
The scrapes and bruises caught his attention now that he had an opportunity to glance over at her at stoplights, casting a faint scarlet glow through the fading day, as did the hand that carefully pulled her hem down to a safe level. As they drove, he reached behind him to the back seat and picked up a black jacket, well worn but not much worn since arriving in Vegas, the simple black leather a little too heavy most days. He offered it to her as he turned the corner. “Here,” he said. He figured she could draw it across her lap if she wanted to cover the bruises, and it would be best to make sure she stayed warm. If she hadn’t gone into shock yet, she probably wasn’t going to, but better safe. “What kind of help was she looking for?” He knew very little of what Wren had done after Seattle, and he wondered what she’d sought from this fragile, quiet girl.
The littlest movement, like how he reached into the backseat, made her flinch. Brielle crammed closed against the window on instinct. With the jacket extended into her hands, she seemed uncertain of what to do with it for a moment before she shrugged her arms into it. The left went into its sleeve carefully, with a garbled wincing sound of pain when the soft leather scraped her wound. But she recovered in an admirable moment of silence, which was mostly attributed to uncertainty over how to answer his question. She didn't want to gossip, after all. "I helped her come to Las Vegas, that's all.." A lull in words as Brielle shrank into her seat, feeling cold despite the jacket.. and so tired all of a sudden. Maybe that's why the words came out so honest, such sleepy drabble. "She didn't know I was running here.. shouldn't have surprised her.."
Jack pulled up to Caesar's as Brielle was talking, and swung around to park close to the suite. He pretended he didn't see her cram herself into the corner away from him, and didn't so much as brush her fingers when he handed the jacket over. "Running?" he asked, looking over to her. She was starting to look drowsy, which wasn't a good sign. He put the car swiftly into park, and got out before bothering to wait for an answer to his own question. He walked around to her door, and opened it carefully, making sure first she wasn't leaning so much against it that she would just tumble out when he did so. "Are you alright to walk?" he asked. The suite was close, but if she needed a hand, all she had to do was ask for it.
It was that Maheu pride that had Brielle pulling herself out of the car without request for assistance, two hands on the door's metal frame for support. White knuckled. She was grateful that Jack didn't probe further into her mention of running, it was a slip of the tongue that she shouldn't have made. He worked for her cousin, after all, and she didn't want Wren worrying about things more than she already had to. Brielle had no place else to go just yet - she couldn't afford to be unnecessary trouble. The money she'd gained from hocking her wedding ring all those months ago was long gone.. but thinking about all that was more overwhelming than her arm. Instinctively, she glanced down at the jacket, then back up to Jack with wide eyes. "The blood, I'll ruin it.." Her hazel eyes were too worried for such a small thing, they were apologetic and worried in a way that didn't warrant an article of clothing that he probably had replicas of. They pled, Don't be mad..
There was something so raw and intensely worried in her eyes for something so small that it made Jack pause. Someone, somewhere along the line had put this fear into her, of that he had no doubt. “It’s fine,” he assured her. “It’s just a jacket. It wouldn’t be very good of me to care more about a piece of clothing than about your life,” he said. He got the feeling that someone she’d known hadn’t felt that way, or that perhaps she didn’t, and it saddened him. She seemed like a sweet girl. It always baffled him, the way people could mistreat others at their most vulnerable, most damaged moments. He offered her his hand for support - she could ignore it if she wanted, but her grip on the doorframe had been so tight that he had to try.
Getting out of the car, there was a moment where Brielle eyed the offering of his hand. She suspected that Jack was truly here to help her, she doubted that he would have brought her this far if he had other intentions. Teething a pale lip, Brielle reached out and took his hand. She gripped it tightly, that first step on bare feet was surprisingly unsteady. She hadn't anticipated that, and it influenced her to draw nearer to his side, partially leaning against him. "I'll be fine," she assured him with the subtle twitch of a ghost's smile.. as if things like this were nothing new. Although she'd never been shot before, Brielle doubted this particular gunshot's severity was anything to constitute too much panicking. The burning was beginning to go numb, and she was grateful despite how light and clumsy her feet felt. It took effort not to stagger or slip. Dancers should have had better balance, although Brielle reminded herself that she hadn't been allowed to dance for some time now.
Jack’s hands were well-calloused, guitar strings, wrenches, and guns wearing in grooves of soft skin with hard knots between. He was a little surprised when she leaned against him, but he certainly didn’t pull away, glad she felt comfortable enough to lean as much as she needed to. He walked with her toward the entrance to the suite, slow enough not to tax her, but as quick as seemed safe. “You’ll be better once you’re sitting down,” he said, gripping her hand back firmly but carefully, opening the door to the suite for her and letting her go in ahead of him.
"I feel fine," she said.. she wanted her assure him, but the words didn't come out right. They sounded like a far away whisper that echoed forever in her ears. Fine, fine, fine.. She tried to keep her distance, she didn't want to crowd him. The suite door opened, but it seemed far, like some illusion. Brielle broke free from his hand to move inside, and her steps sagged. One after another, lower, and lower, on her way to the ground.
Wren was inside, pacing, as she had been since Jack had gone off to collect Brielle. She was scared, nervous, and pent up energy in striped pajama pants of silk and a camisole. She looked pale and ill, so close to the almost-drowning, and Gus was currently sitting on the living room floor and looking up at her, all brown hair and Luke’s features and gray eyes filled with worry in the new place. Finch ran to the door as soon as it opened, a growl of warned caution greeting the newcomers, and Wren tugged on his collar, pulling him aside to let Brielle and Jack in, then sending the dog to where Gus was peeking out from behind the couch. “How bad is it, cousine?” she asked, but she looked at Jack for the answer, not really expecting it to come from Brielle. “Lead her into the kitchen?” she suggested, just as Gus came and clung to her leg. She smiled reassuringly down at the little boy, ruffled his hair, and picked him up in her arms. “It’s alright, mon bebe.” She nodded toward the kitchen. “Let me just put him in my room,” she said of the little boy, not wanting him frightened by the needlework she was expecting she would need to do.
"Not good, but it could be worse," Jack said, bluntly summing up the injury. "She's lost some blood." The injury on its own wasn't too bad - it was that blood loss that might make things a problem. If they could get the wound sewn up and she kept it clean, she'd heal, no doubt about that. But she was going to need rest, and time the make up for the blood she'd lost already. He nodded to Wren when she picked up Gus, who looked just as angelic as always, and so very much like both his parents.
Jack led Brielle into the kitchen, pulled out a chair for her, and helped her down into it. "How are you feeling?" he asked. She'd looked like she was going to pass out for a moment there. He walked past her to the sink, opened a drawer and pulled out some towels. He turned on the faucet, flashing hot water over a cloth, and brought it back to her side. "Can you move your hand?" he asked, gently. She was going to need to let go if he was going to clean the wound and put the cloth to it to soak up blood until Wren returned.
Brielle was not accustomed to being tended to, save for certain emergency room visits, and now this made her feel strangely uneasy. Under the spotlight of victimization. Or maybe it was the kitchen lights that were making her feel so dizzy, she closed her eyes with a soft nod. Pale fingers flexed, somehow forgetting that she'd been holding Jack's hand. With an awkward shiver of avian boned shoulders, Brielle began to work her way out of the leather jacket. "I'm sorry," she repeated in a caged bird's whisper to Jack. For the bloodied leather, or him having to collect her. Maybe both. Notably disoriented, she didn't even notice the child.
Wren was back within seconds, Gus tucked safely away with Finch. She hadn’t stitched anyone up in a very long time, but it was the kind of thing you never forgot - how deep to go, how tight, how to pull a bullet out if it was lodged in flesh. It was, maybe, an indication that she wasn’t whatever she appeared to be these days, all soft and pale. She had tucked her hair up between the bedroom and the kitchen, and she set the first aid kit on the counter and pulled it open as Brielle shrugged the jacket off. She nodded to the kitchen table, and she poured a glass of water and held two pills out to Jack along with the glass. “Sit her down and get that in her,” she said, pulling items out of the kit to reveal a non-conventional collection of items. Maybe it was the old vigilante days, but she always kept emergency triage items on hand. The pills were antibiotics and a light sedative, and she was filling a syringe with local anesthetic. “Do we know who did it?” she asked, capable and sure, in this at least.
Jack helped peel the jacket away. "Don't be," he said, once her bloody shoulder was revealed again. "You have nothing to apologize for." On the hand that hadn't been clasped in hers, he wore a single fingerless glove, forlornly out of place. It covered the black bruises over his knuckles from where Jason had his gun knocked from his hand by an errant vine, kept them out of sight. It served, too, as a reminder of what he owed Brielle.
Jack offered Brielle the glass, then the pills, one at a time, to swallow. Who had done this? Who indeed? He was grateful for Wren's matter-of-fact efficiency, and her impressively well-stocked first aid kit. The syringe was unexpected but a good sight. Brielle was far enough out of it that the pain would be dulled, and the syringe would finish the job of erasing the needle and thread. "No," he said, glancing up at Wren, catching her eye. What his mouth said, his expression contradicted - but it wasn't to be discussed here, not in front of Brielle. Somewhere in the corridors of his mind, Jason snapped and jawed, displeased that Jack was now helping to patch up a girl who carried an psychopathic criminal. It had to be done, yes. The girl was innocent, at least as far as they knew. But still, he didn't like the principal of it, the idea of mending Ivy, of tending her wounds.
Brielle swallowed the pills without question, she trusted Wren to know what she was doing. The sedative hadn't kicked in yet, but the drowsy blend of blood loss and exhaustion didn't bring about any questions from Brielle. Why was Wren stocked with the kind of first aid expected to be carried on a battlefield? She didn't know, but she was grateful for it. Her eyes drifted closed again, and she tilted her temple against the counter's smooth edge as Wren prepared the needle. As for who shot her? "I don't know.. I guess it happened on the other side.." Ivy had nothing to say about the subject, and Brielle remembered nothing of her time spent over there. It was a mystery.. one that frightened her a bit, if she let herself think about it. Somebody had a reason to go after her, to shoot her. It wasn't comforting, but the sedative acted quick, and there wasn't much worrying after that.
Wren waited until the sedative took effect, and she made quick work of taking care of the bullet, cleaning and stitching the wound. She touched her fingers to Brielle’s cheek reassuringly throughout, glad that her cousin was so exhausted, because it meant she wasn’t strong enough to fight the pill. Once she was stitched, once the wound was cleaned, she motioned to Jack again, letting him know to pick Brielle up in his arms and carry her to the room down the hall. Wren would get her tucked into bed then, changed into something that wasn’t stained in red and whatever had happened that night. It worried her, injuries across the door, and she wondered how long it would take for all of them to fall to that particular bullet. But no, now she had other concerns, and she led Jack down the hall on quiet feet, not wanting to wake Gus.