Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-05-17 20:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, catwoman |
Who: Wren and Luke
What: Part I: Brielle
Where: A park
When: Recentish
Warnings/Rating: Enough sadness to drown the world
Gus was still asleep by the time Luke left to meet Wren, curled up in the center of the bed with his arms wrapped tightly around Finch’s neck. The dog, to give him his due, was laid out quietly beside him, not daring to move even a muscle and disturb the child’s slumber. It made him a little nervous, because he wasn’t sure Gus waking up crying would be such a good thing with Iris there, but there was no one else he trusted enough on such short notice to watch the boy and he couldn’t cancel his meeting with Wren. This might be his only chance to fix things, even if it was a tentative reparation, and he couldn’t risk losing it.
Once he was sure Iris had things under control, he finally managed to bring himself to leave the apartment, opting to take his bike to the park rather than hailing a cab. With Gus around, Luke knew he wouldn’t be able to ride the motorcycle much anymore, and as much as he hated to part with it he had begun to consider selling it and buying a car instead. It reminded him of his teenage years, the bike, and freedom, when things had only begun to slip into a downward spiral he never figured out how to get himself out of. He arrived early intentionally, wanting some time to himself, and found a bench along one of the paths where he could sit and think things through. The occasional jogger passed by, and even a couple with a stroller, but aside from that, he was alone.
Luke knew this could go very, very badly, and he attempted to steel himself for that reality. The last mistake of this magnitude had been years ago, in New York, and it all but destroyed the relationship between himself and Thomas. He was terrified that the same thing might happen with what he and Wren had. It was strange to think that one lie could be so damaging; he hadn’t cheated on her, and yet she doubted even that, all because he and Brielle had chosen to withhold the truth. It hadn’t been done maliciously, and even though Brielle had failed to tell Wren that there was nothing going on, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that she’d planned this, somehow. He remembered her as fragile and afraid, even now, and it was difficult to reconcile that with the sort of woman who could sabotage to destroy a relationship. Maybe she did feel more for him than he’d ever felt for her, and he was sorry for that, but he hadn’t been lying when he said that he had never loved her. What they’d had was temporary, born of the need for mutual comfort, nothing more; not to him, at least. Even if Brielle needed a hero, Luke couldn’t be that for her. He couldn’t not care, but he felt for her the way he felt about MK and Nell; concern for her well-being, but nothing even close to what he felt for Wren.
That was the one thing that kept him from panicking entirely, the fact that he knew he was being honest about that much. Even if she doubted him, even if she didn’t believe him, Luke knew what was true and what was not. He wasn’t going to lie to her, whatever she might ask. He could only hope that she would be able to see that, somehow.
Wren almost canceled a dozen times.
Her relationship with Luke was something that laughed in the face of her upbringing. She had learned, at a very early age, that all men cheated and all men lied. Her own father had claimed a wife back home, children he was purported to love. The men that flitted in and out of her Maman’s clapboard house all had families too. Wren remembered seeing them around Key West, pushing a stroller, holding a woman’s hand, smiling adoringly. She even remembered asking her Maman if their wives knew that they came to visit the French woman in the small house on the beach. Her Maman had informed her, when Wren was still too small to understand, that it was better if their wives never knew. For nothing would come of it, her Maman said. Men did not leave their wives and families for their mistresses, and only a fool thought they would. Along the same line, men all cheated and they all lied. It was the beginning of a lifelong education about men and women, one where sex and love had little to do with one another, and where love and marriage were nothing but pain and misery.
Wren had believed her Maman, as little girls do when their socks are down around their ankles and their frocks don’t yet reach their knees. Her Maman, despite all her shortcomings, had been fairy tale beautiful, strangely exotic in the sweltering domesticity of Key West, and her words proved true as Wren aged and had her own clients, her own married men with wives that they sat beside at church on Sundays. Luke, and her relationship with him, laughed in the face of everything she believed about relationships. And she wondered, now, if he was just like those other men, the ones that could lie so well that their wives never knew whose thighs they rested between after work on Fridays.
She should cancel, she knew, but she didn’t. And that was a testament to how much she felt for him, the man who had managed to break her heart without her ever expecting it. Even if it was only seeing him one last time, she told herself, she would go. It was like the earlier offer to be with him, even if he hated her. It wasn’t healthy, and she knew even MK would have sat this one out, told him to get lost and gotten lost at the bottom of an amber bottle. But she wasn’t MK; she never had her friend’s resilience, when it was all said and done.
Silver was around, and Jack was settling in, but she didn’t ask either of them to drive her, despite her initial intentions to do just that. Their presence would assure she only talked to Luke for a few minutes before leaving, after all. Jack wouldn’t criticize her decision, not verbally anyway, but she suspected her knew somehow, suspected Brielle had told him, as he’d been following her around the house with that dark, quiet, worried gaze. Silver would talk her out of it. He would sit her down and make her stay home, and he would likely go meet Luke himself and warn him off or throw a punch. So, no, she hailed a cab on the street of her new home, leaving both of the men behind.
She was dressed simply in a white linen dress that bared her arms and her knees. Her hair was loose, and she wore flats on her feet. She didn’t bother with makeup, because there was no hiding the dark circles beneath her eyes or the pallor to her skin, and she was drunk. She smelled of whiskey and vanilla and honey, and she swayed a little too much beneath the lights that cast circles of glow on the trails in the park as she wandered, unsure of where precisely he would be.
Luke saw her before she saw him, and he just watched quietly for a few moments before making his presence known. He looked as he had never looked before, just in case this was the last time, and he tried to ignore the ache that came with it, that made him wonder how he was supposed to go on day after day if she ended things here beneath the lights.
He wouldn’t be able to stand seeing her with someone else, he knew that much for sure. Despite Bruce and Gotham and even Gus, he just couldn’t handle it, and he would have to leave before it drove him insane. Even if he had to take Gus with him, it was better than the alternative. It had been hard enough to live not knowing where she was or what she was doing, but to have her so close, to know she was there without being able to have her... that would be too much, and it would be entirely his fault. This was everything he’d feared as a teenager, when he blamed himself for everything, but this time he was deserving of it. He imagined his younger self would hate the man he’d become, because he hated himself right then, and he’d been so much better as a teenager than he was now. The circles beneath her eyes and paleness of her skin became more evident when she wandered beneath the lights, and he noticed the way she swayed, because he knew her too well to not notice. He couldn’t decide whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, that she was evidently not sober, but at least Silver hadn’t accompanied her. There would be no hope of him convincing her to give him one more chance with the other man around, and he might not have been able to contain his temper otherwise.
While he wished he could just sit and stare at her forever, he knew better. Clad in jeans and a brown jacket over a t-shirt, he rose from the bench, looking impossibly young as he attempted to keep his fear in check. Not fear that she would see him for the liar he was, no, but fear that no matter what he said, he would lose her. “Hi,” he said, his voice carrying just enough to reach her as he stood at the edge of the path, hands in his pockets. He wanted to go to her, but he forced himself to stay still, allowing her to control how much distance she wanted between them.
She stopped when she heard his voice, somehow not expecting just how much impact it would have after not hearing it for so long. She’d heard him on the television, when she’d seen the clips from him leaving the court with Gus, but it had been a faraway thing, a recording and nothing like hearing him a few feet away. It seemed like years instead of weeks since they’d been together, because the memory of jail was like a wide-open maw that spanned forever and felt like it had gone on twice that long. Her head jerked up, and her blonde hair clung to her cheeks, and she just stared at him with unfocused gray eyes. Someone ran by, between them, and a dog chased a ball while his owner tried to get him to return, but she didn’t hear any of it. She didn’t move forward, either. She just rocked a little on her heels, fidgeted with her dress at the hip, gathering the fabric between shaky fingers and setting it free again, and bit her lip.
Looking at him was hard. It was hard in the way that looking at the sun was on a bright day - a little blinding, a little painful, and she almost looked away twice - no, three times - until she actually did look down, away. She took one step closer to him that way, without looking up, before she remembered that she couldn’t do that, shouldn’t do that. “This was a really bad idea,” she said, all slur and gray eyes lifting slowly. It was a statement for herself, really, not for him. But seeing him, it made her want to cling and hold on to the same thing that had hurt her, and she had promised herself she wouldn’t do that, not this time. She wasn’t that little girl without any self-worth anymore, and if she could be strong and cold around everyone else, then she could be that way around him too, even if it felt like shattering. But she was drunk, and it made it harder, staying aloof and apart.
Instead, she grabbed on to something easy, something grounded in more than how much it hurt to look at him and think about his hushed conversations with Brielle, the ones she’d been imagining in her mind since she’d walked into Brielle’s room. “How is Gus settling in?” she asked, and maybe she moved just another small step forward without realizing it, a little more sway in the movement that drew her closer to him. “I saw him on the television. He looked scared. When I turned myself in, he screamed the entire time and-” She stopped, the slur-babble finally registering in her mind as just that, babbling.
The world could have been ending around them and Luke wouldn’t have noticed. All of his attention was fixated on her, and he thought of the last time they were together, before the lies had reduced them to whatever they were now. Oh, how he wished he could go back and do it right, to avoid all this, but he couldn’t change the past. It was too late for that. He realized he hadn’t seen her before she’d turned herself in, and had things been good between them, he would have embraced her, maybe even asked how prison was, but now he could do none of those things. All he could do was look, even though she couldn’t bring herself to look at him, and it took all his willpower to keep himself from stepping forward when she moved closer. That simple, small movement made a foolish hope flare in his chest, but it was extinguished a second later when she proclaimed that this was a ‘really bad idea’. The words were like a knife cutting through him; no, they were worse than that, and he would have gladly taken a bullet over hearing her say that. He didn’t bother trying to hide the pain in his expression, and he shook his head, all desperate insistence. Maybe he should have been, but Luke wasn’t above begging.
“No,” he said, almost pleading. “It wasn’t.” He would have said more, but when she was talking about Gus, and he was at a loss before deciding to reluctantly go along with the topic change. Surely if she’d intended on ending things, she would have just told him over the phone. Why would she do it here, in person, when it would hurt all the more? “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “He was still sleeping when I left him with Iris. He was pretty scared when I took him home, though, and I think he’s confused.” A pause. “He misses you.” It might have hurt to hear it, but Luke thought she should know that Gus hadn’t forgotten her, no more than he had. “I told him he’d see you soon, before, because he will.” Even if they weren’t together then, he would never stop Wren from seeing her son, and he wouldn’t stop doing what he could to ensure the protection order was dropped either.
He took a step forward and winced, as though thinking better of it, and stayed where he was. If he couldn’t convince her that there was nothing between himself and Brielle now, in person, then there was no hope for them. “I’m not going to ask for more than you’re ready to give, Wren,” he began, fighting to keep his voice even. “I know I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve this, even, but... I made a mistake. A big mistake, one that hurt you, but like I said, I want to try to... to fix it. I don’t want this to be the end.” Because oh, god, he was terrified that it was, and he couldn’t cope with that, not with the newness of having Gus and trying to curb his violent tendencies when all he really wanted to do was go out, to feel a blade cutting through skin, to feel like he had a purpose. But then, this wasn’t about him, it was about her; her, and how he’d hurt her.
The pain in his expression was impossible for her to miss, even drunk, even with the sun no longer in the sky and the round circle of light the only illumination between them. She caught his denial, his response that it wasn’t a bad idea, even if he went on and answered her question about Gus immediately. She looked up at the light, even though it hurt to fix her gaze on it as drunk as she was, and she swayed unevenly where she stood. But it helped, it centered her, and when she looked back he was pinpoints and black around the edges of her vision. “It’s easier for me to tell you no when I can’t see you,” she admitted, the candor more than she intended, but there wasn’t very much filter between her mind and her mouth just then. “When you’re here, it makes me want to agree to anything you want, if I can just have a little of you.” It was very much a statement reminiscent to the girl she had been, to the girl she was trying so hard not to be now. But it was the truth, as unhealthy as the statement was. “You didn’t call, and you didn’t come, and once I knew- I thought she was why. I thought you’d probably gone off with her somewhere, some apartment somewhere with Gus. I didn’t think you’d get in touch again,” she said, the words leaving no doubt as to how much this had actually impacted her certainty about how he felt for her.
It did hurt to hear about Gus, but it hurt in a way she couldn’t put into words, not without feeling selfish and like a bad mother. “Iris cares about him,” she said and though she tried to keep the longing out of her voice, it was still there. “MK said she and Roger visited, and he has you. He’ll be fine, no matter what happens.” Because she did believe that. She didn’t know about Luke’s violent tendencies, and she had no idea the strain this was all likely putting on his attempts to resist temptation where that was concerned. All she knew was that she was sure Luke would lay down his life for that boy and that, at least, was a happy ending, even if it didn’t involve her. “I didn’t ever think that would happen, that he’d be free from those people,” she confessed, and she rubbed at one of her eyes in a telltale sign that she was trying to brush away tears without him noticing. “My lawyers say maybe supervised visitation, that it’s the most likely outcome unless we can find something solid on the Johnsons.” Because there wasn’t any point in not letting him know that the trial wasn’t looking good. Maybe all of this would be a moot point if she ended up in jail indefinitely.
She looked at him when he took a step forward, the movement catching her attention like he was holding a net and she was a butterfly about to be caught. Her gaze was unfocused wariness and so much ache that it was almost something tangible in the air around them. “I don’t care about the mistake,” she managed, though it was hard to focus on the words when all she wanted was for him to embrace her. “I care about what it means, what it stands for, why.” She shook her head, and she managed to wrap a little bit of force around her when she continued. “I don’t want to be the woman you cheat on. I’d rather be the woman you cheat with than that,” she said, and it was all of her beliefs about relationships in one simple sentence. “I’m not- The girl I was, she needed saving, and maybe that’s what you liked about me. I’m not her anymore, Luke. I don’t-” She stammered, and she turned in a slow-sway circle, hands pushing at her hair in her frustration. “If Brielle wants you, I don’t think I can compete with her needing to be saved.” And she didn’t understand that none of that was true. She was drunk, and she wasn’t thinking before she said anything, and her thoughts had very much slipped into present-tense, into him and Brielle now. “I’m not who I was. Maybe she’s more me than I am.”
The fact that she wanted to tell him no at all wasn’t easy to hear, as Luke assumed that was what she meant, and he wondered if anything she said while drunk would carry over to the next morning. “I don’t want you to agree because it’s what I want,” he said, a raw sort of honesty in his voice that wasn’t usually there. Now, he had nothing to hide, to reason to lie, and he might as well lay himself bare. It couldn’t make the worst case scenario any worse, could it? “I want you to agree because it’s what you want, because you want to give us another chance too.” Yes, he’d hurt her, but he had not cheated, and he had to believe that this lie (or omission of the truth) was something they could work past. They’d gone to hell and back together, after all. Surely they could handle this too. He shook his head again, furious at Jack and MK for telling him to stay back when he knew he should have gone, and he was angry at himself too, for allowing himself to be swayed. “I wanted to come, Wren, but MK thought me being there would just make things worse, and then Jack all but ordered me not to go, and I guess I convinced myself that I’d end up driving you right back into Gotham. I didn’t want that.” He paused for a breath, realizing he’d begun to ramble, and he inhaled deeply, his exhale coming out a little shaky. “Once MK let me know that you were staying, I contacted you. I thought you might need your space. I just didn’t want to make things worse,” he admitted. “It drove me crazy, waiting and wondering if you hated me, if you were coming back at all. I wasn’t off with Brielle, and I would never, ever, take Gus anywhere with her.” Because, when it came down to it, he really didn’t know much about her at all.
He nodded, because Iris did care about Gus; he wouldn’t have asked her to look after him otherwise. Roger had told him about his intention to visit the boy with MK, for which he was glad, since familiar faces were a good thing, and it was better than he start to get used to them now. “I know he’ll be fine, because I’ll make sure of it, but he needs you too. You’re his mother.” That counted for a lot, in his eyes, and as much as he’d loved his own father and even Thomas, no one had ever been able to replace the hole left when his mother died. Bruce often felt the same. He’d been close to his father, but mothers were different, somehow. The way she brushed at her eyes just made him want to embrace her even more, but he continued to resist. “He’ll never have to go back to them again,” he insisted, “and we’ll find something on the Johnsons. The police are investigating, and so is Roger. He won’t stop until he does. You’ll get better than supervised visitations if we have anything to say about it.” Despite everything, there was a we, and despite everything else, there was a certain sense of relief that came with the knowledge that he wasn’t alone, even if he sometimes thought it would be easier that way.
Even now, Luke wasn’t so good at this, and it took him a moment to understand what she meant when she said it was what the mistake meant, the reasons behind it, that she cared about moreso than the mistake itself. “Why,” he repeated. “Because I didn’t know how to tell you, because I was afraid of how you’d react, of how upset you might be. I didn’t want to mess things up, especially with everything else going on, and I thought it would be better if I waited until the right time. She’s your cousin, Wren, and even though I didn’t know that at the time, I knew it was going to hurt you either way. That was part of it too, even though not saying anything just hurt you even more.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw, the struggle to keep his distance becoming one he might not win. “I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of,” he said, and his voice cracked; this was the closest he’d ever come to a true confession. “I’ve done things you wouldn’t believe, but I swear on... on my parents that I’ve never cheated on you. I didn’t like you because you needed saving. I liked you because you were you, because you made me better, and you believed I could be,” he said, recovering slightly, voice becoming somewhat stronger. “I love you. You, Wren. I don’t give a damn if Brielle wants me, because I don’t want her. When we ran into each other, she asked me how I knew you, and I told her we were together. I don’t know why the hell she didn’t tell you that, but it’s the truth,” and there was a hint of anger in that, that Brielle had only admitted to the details that made them look so very guilty. “I know you’re not who you were. Neither am I. But that doesn’t change how I feel, and Brielle, she isn’t you. I don’t know who she is. Honestly, I don’t care, because that doesn’t matter to me.”
His explanation of why he wanted her to agree made her move forward, and she wasn’t able to stop herself until she was in the center of the trail, directly beneath that bright light that made her feel like her life was under a spotlight over glass. “You don’t think I want that?” she asked, her own voice cracking. “You don’t think I want to believe you, to trust what you’re saying? The only thing I might want more than that is to see my son again. I’m scared, Luke, and this isn’t like being scared of Alexander, because I can always walk away from something like that.” Despite the claim, her voice was shaking at the mention of Alexander, and it took a moment longer to start again. “This is something inside me, and I don’t know if I can- I’m not sure I could handle this being a lie, the things you’re saying. If I believe you, and it’s not true- And I can’t tell, because I didn’t think you would lie to me about something like this, not this, and I didn’t see it coming. I don’t trust myself to be able to tell-” She was shaking her head with something like desperation, and then she was pacing on the trail, back and forth, uneven and almost losing her footing in spots.
His assurances about Gus calmed her a little bit, and her pacing became less frenetic. She’d never had a father, and she didn’t have a point of comparison, but she didn’t doubt for a second that Luke would do just fine without her, if he needed to. She wouldn’t be okay, but Gus would be, and that was ultimately the only thing that mattered there. “If we can’t find anything, if we can’t do better than that, it’s still perfect. I’ve been watching that little boy for two years, thinking there was nothing I could do. He’ll be happy now, regardless of me, regardless of anything. He’ll grow up safe, and he’ll be happy, and that’s enough,” she said, stopping her movement long enough to end the sentence, even as she dragged sloppy fingers through her hair, pulling it away from her face. “Is this because of him? The things you’re saying to me? Is it because of him, because I don’t want you saying you love me because you think he needs both of us. I don’t- Maybe that’s enough for some people. I had so many clients like that when I was a girl, men who stayed with their wives because they had children. I don’t- I love you too much for that. I want more than that.”
And maybe she wanted too much, maybe that was the problem, but she’d always wanted all of him. She knew she might need to give that up, that she might need to agree to less, but it was hard. When he rubbed his jaw, the desire to close the distance between them was so overwhelming that she started moving again, walking past him and away from the light, into the thick of trees that led to some body of water that the desert likely dried out every day. She stopped well before that, though, beneath green branches that didn’t belong in Las Vegas, and she rubbed her face in agitation. His confession was hard to hear, but it was so reminiscent of the boy he had been, the one who had hidden whenever he didn’t want to tell her something. It didn’t do very much to make her believe he wouldn’t do the same thing if he slipped, if he fell in love with someone else, but at least she believed his reasons, which was some small progress. Maybe, too, she believed that he hadn’t slept with Brielle now, though she didn’t trust her own judgement there. Didn’t trust that he wouldn’t fall in with her if she managed to wind him around her finger. It was unkind, and she knew Brielle was running from something, but she couldn’t help it, not just then.
She wandered to a tree, only feet away, and more sway the longer she let the booze settle in her system, less sober with every second that passed. She touched the trunk with her fingers, tugged at bark that crept beneath her fingernail to splinter and sting. It was unthinking, and she hit the thing with the heel of her palm a second later - soft at first, then with increasing force, until her hand bled and made her feel better with the pain it brought. She wanted so much to believe him, and yet she knew she shouldn’t, and she was too drunk for that internal conflict just then. “Do you mean it?” she finally asked, angry with herself for the question and voice cracking as she asked. It made her feel weak, and it made her even more frightened, the fact that she was asking the question, because it meant she was at least willing to listen to his reassurances and try to believe them.
Luke almost took a step back when she moved into the light, despite wanting her close, but he managed to stand his ground as she spoke. Somehow hearing that she wanted to believe him was harder, because he knew she didn't, not yet, and he had no idea how to convince her that what he said was true. "I know you're scared," he said, because he did. "And I know that's my fault, because you trusted me and I fucked it up, but I'm telling you the truth. I didn't come here to lie to you, Wren. I thought not telling you about Brielle would keep you from getting hurt, but that was really stupid of me. I should've known better." He didn't know if he was making things better or worse, and he so wanted to fix this however he could. "I came here because I don't want to lose you, not over something that happened a year ago and my own fucking idiocy. I just-- I don't want to hurt you, I never meant to hurt you. It kills me that I did." He felt frustratingly helpless, but he refused to believe this was the end. It would be hard at first, but they had to be able to make it somehow.
Nothing about this seemed perfect to him, especially if the courts didn't rule in Wren's favor, and he began to shake his head before forcing himself to stop. "He will be safe, and he'll have the kind of life he deserves, but you should still be a part of that." He looked at her in confusion for a moment, not having expected her question, and he realized just how much he'd caused her to doubt him. "No," he said, dismayed that she would consider such a thing. "I'm not saying this because of him. I saw what that was like with Thomas and Max, when Amanda was first born, and you deserve better. I wouldn't tell you I loved you unless I meant it, and I do. It's because I love you so much that I want us to raise Gus together."
He wasn't sure what to think when she walked past him, especially since she didn't speak, and he hesitated for a long moment before following her. Wren's doubts wouldn't have surprised him, even if they would be painful to hear, and he wished she could believe that he loved her, if nothing else. Maybe he had agreed to keep this from her, but Luke wasn't that easy to control, and he couldn't be wound around Brielle's finger when Wren was the only one he wanted. He wanted to beg her to believe him, to plead, to offer himself in any way she wanted, but he didn't know what good it would do.
It was hard for him to keep back when she began hitting the tree trunk with her hand, but when the blood started to flow, Luke couldn't help moving forward. "Don't," he said, all agony at seeing her hurt, and he almost reached for her before catching himself and letting his fingers drag along the bark instead. "I mean it, all of it," he told her, trying to convey his honesty through words, through the way he looked at her. He'd never lied to her face, not like this, and he wasn't about to start now. "I haven't been with Brielle for a year, and I don't want her now, not even a little. I know it looks bad, me not telling you about her, but it wasn't like that. She never mattered enough to be able to come between us, even if she wanted to." Maybe she shouldn't have believed him, but he wasn't lying, wasn't trying to deceive her, and he thought that had to count for something. "I love you more than I've ever loved anyone," he said after a moment. "I love you so much I don't know how to live without you, and... god, I don't want to. I know you might not believe me right now, and you might not trust me, but please... just give me a chance. Let me prove to you that I'm not lying, that I mean what I say. Anything you want, Wren and I'll do it, if you want to take it slow or-- anything. We can get past this. It might take time, but I know we can, because we've been through too much together not to." He broke off unsteadily, watching almost fearfully as though expecting her to reject him at any moment. He might not have had the right to ask her for anything, but he needed her too much to let her walk away, to tell him she never wanted to see him again.
His assurances that he didn’t want her with him just because she was Gus’ mother helped, though maybe that was a strange thing to find comfort in. But she did nonetheless, as she did in his repetition of her words, the ones about Gus being okay. Maybe she had no idea how to do that, how be a mother, but she knew it didn’t mean she stopped existing. MK liked to say they needed to work things out for Gus, but Wren really didn’t think that was the case. Whatever happened, being together or not, that wouldn’t change how either of them felt about that little boy. It didn’t mean the jealousy wouldn’t tear her apart if someone else was playing mother, but she knew that would go both ways. She couldn’t imagine a world in which Luke would let someone else pretend to be Gus’ father, not even for a moment. In this, at least, she was calmed. What he’d said before, what he said after, that didn’t make her any calmer.
It was what she wanted to hear. The fact that the other woman didn’t matter, that he didn’t care for her, and she just let it wash over her until he was beside her, so close, his hands on the tree. She thought she could just reach out and touch him, and it would be so easy. She’d barely have to stretch her hand out, and he’d be warm and real under her fingers. She did stop when he said no, tugging with less force at the bark of the tree, all fingertips and no more splinters slipping beneath her nails. He said he hadn’t come here to lie to her, but not losing her would involve lying, and he said he wanted that too. He said he wanted a chance, but she wasn’t sure what kind of chance she could give him that wouldn’t be wound up in fear and the kind of suffocating grip of anticipated loss. “When we were kids,” she said, not thinking and all slur and her fingers tugging at the bark. “You hated it when I was insecure. It drove you crazy,” she said quietly, because it had. It had made him feel inadequate, she knew, like he wasn’t doing a good enough job of convincing her of his feelings. She looked over at him, the blown black of her eyes almost eclipsing the gray. “You’re asking for all that again,” she told him, not looking away as she said the words. And maybe she was wrong, maybe it would be different now, once the fear passed and things settled. But even if it was, it would be all act, and she didn’t think he’d like her facade very much. She wasn’t sober just then, and she couldn’t be distant when she was drunk, but she could do it to protect herself when she wasn’t hiding in the warm nepenthe of whiskey.
She shook her head as she turned to look at him, her shoulder against the tree for balance from the sway that threatened to overtake her. “That will just send you running back to her,” she said, and she gave him a sad smile, a watery one that didn’t quite manage to be a smile at all. “It’s not fair to you, the fact that I’ve been hearing men tell me all about their clingy wives since I was thirteen,” she said honestly. “At first, I thought it was so strange, because them being with me meant their wives were right, but then I just accepted that was how it was.” The drunken memory, her childhood, it didn’t really help matters just then. It only reminded her of the stark differences that had always existed between herself and Brielle and, combined with his broken words about not knowing how to live without her, it just made the thin tether she had on her control snap. She reached out a hand, pale in the nothing light of the moon that filtered through the trees, and she pressed her fingers against his shirt, just at the center, between the gaps of the jacket. It was nothing, the touch, just a verification of his presence, maybe. Encouragement for him to take her into his arms, maybe. Weakness, definitely, but everything was wrong, and there was too much of it, even for her. “I thought you didn’t check on me after jail, didn’t find some way to, because of her, because you didn’t know how to tell me you’d made a different choice than me.” She didn’t look at his face when she said the slur-thick, broken words. She watched her fingers against the fabric of his shirt, eyes downswept and unintentional pressure against his chest to keep her balance.
Yes, Luke realized that he was essentially saying what she wanted to hear, but the truth was the truth, regardless of what she believed. He wouldn’t have lied to her now, even if to do otherwise would have meant losing her forever, because he realized that lies would always lead to the end eventually. For a while, things might be okay, but inevitably they would bring everything crashing down with them. It was a lesson he shouldn’t have forgotten, one he had lulled himself into believing he would never have to learn again. Maybe too much time had passed, and he’d failed to recall how fragile relationships like this could be; it had been five years, after all, since he’d allowed himself to get close to anyone. He wished suddenly, as he watched her, that Thomas was here. He would understand, because of what he’d gone through with Max, and all Luke wanted was understanding, someone who could see why he’d done what he’d done rather than simply how wrong it had been. “It did,” he admitted, because he was trying not to lie, and this was the truth. “But that’s not what I’m asking for, Wren. I’m asking for another chance to do things right. I’m asking for you, for us, if you still want me. I don’t expect things to be perfect, but I can deal with that. For you, I’ll do whatever it takes.” Back then, it hadn’t been his fault, and he knew that, but now it was. He deserved her insecurity, and he’d brought it on himself, but he would take whatever he could get. As unhealthy as it was, even if it was downright dysfunctional, anything was better than not having her.
That sad smile made everything seem so final, like this was it, and it sent fear clawing up his throat and making it hard for him to breathe. As much as he’d tried to prepare himself for this, he wasn’t prepared at all, and he couldn’t manage to raise his usual shield of cold detachment. Right now, Luke had almost no control over his emotions, and everything he felt was written starkly in his expression. “No,” he said, and now, now he was begging, pleading. “No, Wren, that’s not true. I won’t go running to her. I never ran to her in the first place.” The last time he’d felt like this was after he left New York, when he spent days crying in a motel, hoping that Thomas would come looking for him-- or at least call. Despite how things ended between them, he would have gone back if the man had asked, but he never had, and those weeks following had been nothing but hell. “I never thought you were clingy, and it’s not going to be like that. It won’t. I’ll prove it to you, if you just let me. Please.” When she touched him, it was too much, and he couldn’t hold himself back. He was broken, and he wasn’t okay, but without her he was a disaster, and he wondered what she would think if he told her she was worrying about the wrong thing. She shouldn’t have been worried about him finding solace in another woman; no, she should have been worried that he’d find solace in death, in blood and metal in alleys, in the rip and tear of flesh he’d taught himself how to not feel.
He touched her tentatively, fingers brushing against her shoulders, as though he was afraid she might pull back. One hand stayed there, on her shoulder, while the other slid up along the column of her neck to gently curl around her jaw. “No,” he told her, a new sort of firmness in his voice replacing the shakiness that threatened to crack completely. “I would have found a way once I had custody, but until then, I didn’t want to do anything that might mess up my chances. If I lost Gus, then everything you did, turning yourself in, would have been for nothing. The Johnsons would have gotten him back, or some other strange family, and it would have killed you. It would have killed me too. I couldn’t let that happen.” He swallowed heavily. “I asked Roger to check on you, because I trusted him enough to tell me how you really were, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear, and I knew he’d make sure you were okay.”
His logic, that she could argue against. She could remind him just how angry he'd gotten toward the end, back in Seattle, when her insecurities were at their worst, when he'd wrapped himself in so much silent anger that it was hard to get through to him. She could argue all of that, but she knew she was lost when when he started begging. She couldn't recall Luke ever begging for anything - not for her, or for himself, not even for Thomas' life. The boy he had been didn't do that, bare himself like that. And she loved him enough to just want to do anything she could to make that hurt leave his eyes. Even drunk, she recognized that he had brought this on himself, but that didn't change the way her heart ached, and it did to change the tears that clung to her lashes before spilling onto her cheeks. Maybe if she'd known about the killing, she would have capitulated right there, but she didn't know; she didn't even suspect. There was a memory of something he'd said earlier in the conversation, something about things he'd done, but that was the kind of thing that would only come back to her after, when she was sober and thinking about something beyond how much this hurt.
"You never said anything like that when we were kids," she finally said, the words blanketed in tears and alcohol. "About me," she added, because she was pretty sure that letting herself hope was a terrible idea. "At the end, I couldn't even get you to talk to me, Luke, you were so sick and tired of me being insecure. I can pretend, and I can give you what I give everyone else, but I don't want that, not with you." It was a hard confession, one she wouldn't have made if she was sober. It was an admission, one that said she wasn't so very different from all those years ago. She was just a better actress, more guarded with just about everyone, but that was all. He was different, beyond skin deep. It wasn't just an act with him. Even all her anger, it had always been there, she just hadn't let him see. But he was standing so close now, his hand on her shoulder, and she glanced down at his fingers in that slow-drunk way that said everything was moving quicker than her mind could process.
When his hand closed around her jaw, her attention went right back to his face. For a second, she stared at him as if nothing had gone wrong, her expression changing to something soft and adoring before she remembered. Her hand slipped from his chest higher, to his throat, against warm skin, the fluttering of his pulse just at the edge of her fingertips. "You're so beautiful," she said, voice shattering around her words. She was pretty sure it shouldn't be possible to love someone so much that it made everything hurt all at once. She tried not to think of Brielle touching him, but it was in her gaze, that she was thinking about it, and she didn't know how he'd managed for all those nights that she'd spent with other men. But maybe this was different; she'd never wanted any of them. And he was right about Gus; that argument, at least, found its mark without too much hesitation. "You're right," she admitted about not having been able to risk it, that losing Gus after all that would have killed her. "Selina left a note saying Roger was going to come visit." She just hadn't waited for him.
His struggle to maintain his composure was lost when her tears broke free, and in that moment Luke felt no older than nineteen again, after Wren had left, after he’d left New York, when he realized he had nothing and no one left. The worst part was that he had no one but himself to blame this time, and it was self loathing layered upon self loathing, some old and some new. “I didn’t know anything when we were kids, Wren. I was angry about a lot of things, and I didn’t know how to cope with any of it, so everything got all mixed up. I thought-- I didn’t understand, but I do now, and this time... this time it’s different, because it’s my fault. I brought this on myself,” he said, his voice cracking under the knowledge that he had no one to blame but himself, that if this couldn’t be salvaged, it was his fault. He’d been self-destructive for so long, and in the end the one thing that would shatter him completely hadn’t been the least bit intentional. “I know I did this to you. I didn’t mean to, but I did, and-- I don’t want you to pretend with me either. You don’t have to. I can handle it, for however long it takes, but I can’t handle losing you.” His words came fast and unchecked now, pleas between gasps of breath that bordered on sobs, and he tried to pull himself together for her sake, because this was probably just making things worse, but he couldn’t do it. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, and it wasn’t clear if he was apologizing for his lack of composure or what he’d done to her; maybe it was both.
It hurt more than it should have, seeing that adoring look on her face, because he knew it wouldn’t last, and he knew he might never see it again. Not for him, at least. Luke was certain that Silver would take advantage of the situation, and he didn’t think he could take it if they ended up together, even if she was happier with him, even if he didn’t lie to her out of some stupid misguided belief that it was for the best. “I’m not,” he whispered, leaning his forehead against hers when she called him beautiful, encouraged by the fact that she didn’t push him away. “I’m not beautiful. I hurt you, and I might have ruined everything, and if you knew--” He shook his head. It was fortunate, perhaps, that she was drunk, because if she’d pushed he might end up telling her about what he’d done, about all the death, even if he was certain that she would completely cut him out afterward. There would be no chance for redemption then. He saw that look in her eyes, the one that said she was thinking of Brielle, and his heart sank, but he didn’t know how to fix it. “You’re everything to me, Wren,” he said, acting on impulse. “I went five years without you, and now that I have you back, I wouldn’t-- I know I messed up, I know, but I don’t want anyone else. I never have.” Maybe she wouldn’t believe him-- no, she probably wouldn’t, but he couldn’t not try. If he was going to lose her (and that was a huge if, because he still couldn’t imagine it), he wasn’t going to let it happen without doing everything in his power to prevent it.
“He said he would, visit, I mean,” he said in agreement, about Roger visiting. For a moment he considered whether or not to mention his conversation with Selina, but that was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place, wasn’t it? Hiding things from her because he thought it was better that way. “I talked to her too, to Selina. I asked her how you were, but she said you two didn’t work that way.”