Orrie likes arrows (sagittal) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-06-06 23:39:00 |
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Entry tags: | green arrow, lady |
Who: Orin and Valerie
What: Breakfast and a discussion about a maybe-daughter
Where: Aubade
When: Recentish
Warnings: None
She was getting better. Orin had been watching, even if he’d been keeping his distance. He’d been back to work, back to patrol, back to trying to find Fawkes and his damn bombs. The city was falling apart, but Valerie was doing better, and he wasn’t fool enough not to wonder what he was missing. He was, however, fool enough not to be able to figure it out.
He woke up early on Saturday, and he decided he was done with this damn pussyfooting. He showered, went downstairs and made juice and omelets, toast with too much jam, and then he carried them upstairs to the room Valerie hadn’t vacated (surprisingly). He was shirtless, chest and arms covered with a new collection of bruises from the previous evening’s patrol, bruises he didn’t bother hiding. They spanned his torso, dipped beneath the gray pajama pants he wore at the hip, and he crossed to the bed and put the breakfast tray in the center without hesitation.
He took a seat, picked up a piece of toast, and looked at the woman in the bed. It was his damn house. He’d come in here and have a conversation if he wanted to.
To Valerie's relief, Hayley had come through, inciting a complete reversal of Valerie's opinion of her, and after the initial consumption and destruction of two gold-plated bracelets, Valerie hid the rest in her cosmetic case and slowed down. If she got better too quickly Orin would wonder why, and though she detested being sick and she caught a flu almost immediately, at least she was not in danger of dying. Over the next several days, however, the infuriating man was around less and less. Valerie had a small television in the corner of her bedroom, however, and it was on often enough for her to understand why Arrow had more reason to be on the streets.
Her understanding did not necessarily commute to patience with the damage he was doing to himself, and she gave him a rather pointed look over as he entered. Valerie was not an early riser, and she slowly slid up to sitting as he sat, emerging from a small nest of crumpled Kleenex. "Not worried about catching anything?" she asked, after a moment, to break the silence.
“A cold might be a damn godsend,” he told her, holding out some of the fresh squeezed juice he was fond of out to her. “But you been in that bed too long, an it’s time to get out of it,” he said. He thought, maybe, that she was doing it on purpose. That staying in this room was a statement of some sort, or something like her crocodile tears - intentional.
They hadn’t talked since his cousins had left, since Hayley had been there, and he found himself unsure about what to say to this woman across from him. This beautiful, unlikely ally. “Snow’s finally stopped,” he told her, watching the television in the corner for second, “but things aren’t getting any better out there just because the weather’s improved.”
Trying not to feel self-conscious, Valerie combed her fingers through her hair and shoved a pillow behind her so she could sit more upright. She took the juice, surprised at the gesture and wondering what his purpose was. A second later she wondered if she was not being too suspicious. "I don't mind getting up," she replied truthfully, sipping. The gold chain at the bottom of her box would probably take care of the cold in another day, if not sooner. "I feel better."
Valerie glanced at the screen. "I'm glad I missed it. I've never been fond of being cold."
He watched her take the glass, and then he watched her attention turn to the screen. He considered small talk, asking about her cold, discussing the weather more. In the end, he grabbed the other glass of juice and drank it down. “What are we doing here, woman? You and me?”
She looked up into his eyes from the toast, which wasn't charred too badly. "Talking? You'd prefer to avoid it?"
He put the glass back on the tray, and he gave her a look. “You know that isn’t what I meant honey. I meant you and me, what the hell are we doing? You got the money you wanted me for. Why you still here? More importantly, are you planning on staying?”
Valerie tried to be as blasé as possible about this new line of questioning. "I'm here because I got sick and this is where you brought me. I am not doing anything to you, there's no need to get defensive." She nudged at a piece of toast. Her stomach was churning and she didn't eat. "...And I hadn't decided on leaving or staying. Have you decided for me? Is that what this," she indicated the spread, "is about?"
“This is just breakfast, woman, and me asking you a question.” He put down the toast, and he took a bite of the omelet, handing her the fork once he was done. “You inclined to answer?” he asked, and he wasn’t really expecting anything from her. She was already independently wealthy, whether she chose to acknowledge it or not. She’d already taken what she was going to take from him, and she knew the biggest secret he had (save the island, which was becoming less and less of a secret these days). He had, simply, nothing to lose by asking.
Valerie shifted uncomfortably and delicately folded a piece of over-sweetened toast. She was trying to think about what she would lose by staying, or what she would gain by leaving, and she couldn't think of anything. Unfortunately that left the fact that she had to say why she was staying, and she wanted to avoid assisting Orin's ego whenever possible. "My things are all here. It is easier for me if I stay," she said, finally.
The corner of his mouth turned up. “Easier? Alright, we can go with that for a spell,” he said, and there was something in his demeanor that spoke of changes. He watched her hand on the toast, her fingers, and he chuckled and moved over to one of the nearby windows. “We got problems in Seattle, honey, and I’m trying to figure out who to juggle them with other things. Not finding it real easy.” He looked over his shoulder, at her and the bed. From where he stood, his shoulders were a pattern of bruises on bruises, old and new, and he looked back out at the water. “Girl’s come to town recent.”
Valerie detected a hint of warmth that hadn’t been there before, and she didn’t think to be alarmed. Somewhat reassured instead, she nibbled at the toast and then gave it up in favor of some coffee. Her appetite still wasn’t great, but she wasn’t concerned, confident that it would come back. As he spoke she edged a look up, but he caught her when he looked back, and she most certainly wasn’t looking at his face. Rather than playing innocent, she just tried to look bland again and shrugged. “...What girl?” Maybe he was already married and she missed it. That would be so like him.
“Name’s Eleanor. I knew her mother back in the day,” he said, and knew was an understatement, obvious in the way he said the word. “Told her I wanted to talk to her in person.”
Valerie stared at him and didn’t blink. This time she was definitely looking at his face. “Why?”
“Near as I know, her momma wasn’t sleeping with her husband around that time,” he said, turning back to the window and obscuring her view of his face. “I want to see her. See if I can tell anything.”
Valerie pushed off the covers and slid forward so her feet were on the floor, but she didn’t get up. “How old is this girl, Orin?”
“Eighteen.” He turned when he heard her push the covers off. “Coming over here to yell at me about it, honey?” he asked, but he sounded fond. It was good to talk to someone about this, and he trusted her with it. Not that he was going to go thinking too hard about them. “Her momma was crazy as they come.”
“And that didn’t bother you, obviously.” Her tone was somewhere between fondness and disgust. “Why don’t you come sit down back here? I’m sick.” She made the last bit sound like a whine, just to be annoying.
“I was sixteen, and she was a married woman in her twenties. Nothing bothered me about that situation, Val.” He heard the whine in her voice, because it was impossible not to hear the whine in her voice. He put it in the same category as those crocodile tears of hers, and he walked toward the bed. “You’re fine, and I’m just damn sick of standing,” he told her, saving face and sitting down on the bed again, taking his own coffee and tipping the mug back.
Valerie, modestly clad in pajama pants that felt awkward compared to her usual diaphanous bed-attire, folded a knee up on the bed and turned a hip to face him. “Tell me why you care about this girl that might not be your problem then?” she asked, curiously, touching a fingertip to the inside of his elbow just because it was there.
He didn’t look down when she touched, and he wasn’t real sure if it was because he didn’t want her stopping, or because he didn’t want to draw attention to it. “She might be,” was all he said, and that was enough, at least for him. Family was important to Orin, and he knew she didn’t share that opinion - yet.
She pulled her hand back, but not hard, just idle. He was interesting when family got involved; no less annoying, but interesting. She smiled, a little unwillingly considering the subject, and transferred her gaze to a mark of blue and purple so strangely shaped that she could hardly imagine where it came from. “Where is her mother?”
“Not here. Dead, I think. Father, too.” He followed her gaze, green eyes focusing on the bruise a moment as he thought, remembered. “End of a gun,” he said, finally, remembering the unique butt of the heavy weapon. “She’s not real trusting, and I don’t know how to broach this subject with her.”
As soon as he explained it, she took her hand away, as if worried touching it might bring the weapon back into existence. “If she’s not very trusting, you volunteering isn’t going to help. Why don’t you just try talking with her without bringing in the fact that you screwed her mother the right number of years ago?” Valerie’s jealousy tended to take her by surprise and she wasn’t sweet about it. Fortunately it was also relatively brief and without fangs.
He chuckled, and he grabbed her hand back and put her fingers on the bruise. “You aren’t going to hurt me, woman. You can’t touch near as hard as a weapon,” he said, and then he was quirking his brow at the venom in relation to Eleanor’s mother. “She didn’t mean anything,” he said, and there was a smile hiding right beneath the surface, something all smug and self-assured and gotcha.
“I think if I wanted to hurt you it would not be so hard, with you black and blue like this, you fool man.” She used the appellation in an intentional reflection of the one he used for her, and gave him a pert look. Her hand slid down over his elbow and back to his wrist. It wasn’t so idle this time. “She does to this girl--what’s her name?”
“Her mother?” he asked, distracted by the hand that moved from his elbow to his wrist. She might be sick, but he was only a man, and she didn’t need any of her frilly sleepthings to look tempting in that bed. “Gina. She was an archer,” he said, but he wasn’t really paying attention to anything that wasn’t her fingers, and then his gaze slip up to her face and it was obvious that the breakfast tray was about to become a casualty.
“No,” Valerie said, annoyed. “The mother doesn’t matter, you said. The girl, Orin.” Blue eyes widened a little as she caught that look, and her fingers rippled slightly before she pointedly pulled her hand away with a smug little smile of her own.
“Eleanor Rex-Wood.” He was grinning at her annoyance, thinking it’d be real fine to see more of that. He caught her hand with a movement that was too quick to see, and he tugged her forward, not giving a damn when the tray smashed onto the floor. The maid could get it. When she hired one. He slid one hand behind the nape of her neck, and his voice dropped. “If you’re planning on complaining, now’s a good time.”
Fortunately, Valerie had not been all that hungry. “You’re doing the laundry.” It wasn’t a protest. She was honestly surprised that he was all that interested, especially since she was not feeling particularly feminine. She didn’t even have any makeup on. Intent on being distracting, however, she wrapped an ankle around his waist. “Are you going to complain about that?”
Orin, man that he was, didn’t really give a damn if she was wearing makeup or feeling feminine. “You can hire someone,” he said, covering her mouth with his a second later, calloused fingers sliding up into her sleep mussed hair. She was warm and didn’t have a whole lot of trappings on, and he liked that a sight better than when she was all wrapped up in things.
His response was reassuring, and she found she felt a lot less sickly. She made a pleased little sound, low and feminine and even feline, against his lips. Valerie liked to be wanted, and it made her feel like everything would be okay, if not under her control. Orin thinking less was always a good thing. She pulled her mouth from his as she slid onto his lap, thighs against his hips. “You can hire someone.”
“Woman’s work,” he said, and it wasn’t clear if he meant it, or if he was just teasing her. His cheeks were scratchy, a night’s worth of blond stubble lining them, and he pressed her back against the pillows and off his lap in one of those movements that was too quick to register until it was done, and he was leaning over her, that stubbled cheek brushing against her stomach as he rucked her shirt up in one indelicate fist. “Or you could leave it, and it’ll start smelling real foul in here, real quick.”
It was clear to Valerie, because Orin’s opinion of women’s work didn’t matter to her--over time she would wear him down. She set her hips back into the mattress and arched up against the tickle of his mouth against pale skin that was again acquiring a soft, healthy glitter that was not cosmetic. “Or I’ll shovel it into your room.”
“I’ll take your damn useless wall down, woman,” he said, and he meant it. Oh, did he ever mean it. He tugged down the pajama pants she wore, just a touch, and he nuzzled lower, slower. He wasn’t in any kind of a hurry, not yet.
This was different, like the breakfast, like the warm look he'd given her earlier, and Valerie didn't know what to make of that. She should have just been pleased, accepted the intimacy as a prize she had earned for herself, but instead it troubled her. She wondered if this was something Orin would ask of her, and she worried she would not be able to give it.
Of course, she forgot all about what she'd already given him when she'd thought he would die if she didn't.
She snuggled back a little in the sticky sheets, watching him curiously and giving in to a soft, faintly girlish giggle when his beard tickled her navel. "You tickle," she advised, huskily.
“You ain’t seen tickling yet,” he assured her, moving back to give her legs one, good solid yank toward him, until she was flat on her back. He sounded husky, masculine, and entirely amused with himself. If it ever occurred to him that she’d deny him, it sure didn’t show, and he tugged her pajama pants down further and mouthed her exposed hip.
She wasn’t entirely surprised by the move, and Orin’s demands in bed were just as amusing to Valerie, like a game, and the laugh was now delighted. Little thrills went up her spine and if she had to give a little cough from a rusty throat to catch her breath from the recovery, it was worth it. She threaded her fingers into his hair, gave it a playful little tug, and didn’t bother to reply.