sgt cal davidson. (resourcefully) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2015-10-31 14:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2018 [10] october, calvin davidson, demi rafferty |
i could go on talking or i could stop, wring out each memory 'til i get every drop.
Who: Demi Rafferty & Cal Davidson
Where: His room at the Capitol
What: The details of La Quinta and all of her secrets come out. (His, on the other hand…)
When: Backdated to Tuesday, October 7
The time had come and her heart was just about as heavy as her footsteps were against the marble floors of the Capitol halls. Though they didn’t echo, Demi felt each step shudder through her body, bringing her closer and closer to the thing she had been dreading for days -- weeks even. Cal had come face to face with her past, there was no way to hide it, no way to dodge around it and pretend as if it didn’t exist. There would be no more lies of omission, no more evading the unasked questions she could see in his blue eyes. She had made a promise to tell him everything, to lay her cards out on the table and let the chips fall where they may. Even so, she was ignoring that ache in her heart, the one that feared that revealing everything would sever whatever bond they still had between them. Cal had assured her he still cared, that that wouldn’t change. But, he didn’t have all the details, he didn’t know everything. Would he still feel the same once he was presented with the depth of her involvement with the Hellhounds? Would he feel the same once he found out about La Quinta? A shudder ran through her body at the mere idea of recounting La Quinta to him. Twice now she had had to retell those horrors to someone she cared about, but never once had she had to sit across from them, look them in the eye and see their reaction. Demi had taken the coward’s way out with both Rodeo and Teagan, telling them when there was distance between them -- when she didn’t have to look into their eyes and utter the words. Circumstances dictated the distance, but she knew deep down she could have held onto those secrets, could have told them in person -- whenever that may have been -- or even, and this is still something that haunts her, she could have kept them to herself, saved both parties undue pain. Demi doesn’t have distance to lean on here. She made a promise, swore to tell Cal everything and now she would have to sit across from him, stare into familiar blue eyes and watch as the fate of their friendship is determined by the secrets she reveals. All these worries, all these thoughts, swirl around in her mind, bouncing off her skull and colliding into each other as she turns the corner, stepping into the mouth of the hallway that will lead her to Cal’s. Her footfalls are still heavy, as if she has lead for feet, and her heart is still racing away inside her chest as if she’s about to step in front of a firing squad. Still, Demi squares her shoulders, walking the mere twenty feet or so from the opening of the hallway to Cal’s door. Staring at the dark wood, memorizing the grain, she takes a handful of deep breaths and fights every last muscle in her body that wants to turn and run. That’s not an option. She won’t do that to Cal. Raising her hand, she raps her knuckles against the wood, three sharp knocks and then she waits. The door opens quickly enough, as if he’s ripping off a band-aid; the man inside has been waiting and pacing and stewing in his own anxiety, and it’s obvious in the quick, jerky movements as he lets Demi in. He doesn’t pause or hesitate. “Hi.” He’s smiling by way of greeting, but it comes out strained, tight around the edges. Both of them can tell that they’re teetering on the edge of something possibly momentous, and Demi’s tension makes Cal’s worse, scraping against it like a whetstone on a blade, and then his makes hers worse, until it’s an endless cycle of a snake devouring its own tail. Sick and tired of it, Cal makes a sudden decision: he sweeps that forced look from his face, steps forward, and pulls Demi’s narrow shoulders into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Before they can change, before they plunge headfirst into the unknown and he has no fucking idea what he’ll see or face or be on the other side, at least he can do this. She’s still buzzing with unspoken tensions, still wound tight like a piano string about ready to snap, yet, when Cal pulls her in for a hug Demi doesn’t resist. Instead she leans into him, arms going around his waist and head resting against his chest as she savors what could very well be the last time he might ever want to hold her like this. Demi doesn’t know how he’ll respond to what she’s about to tell him, has no idea what he’ll think once all the cards are on the table. So, she indulges the selfish part of her that wants one last good memory, just in case it turns out he can’t forgive her for the lies she’s held in. “Hey,” she finally murmurs into the fabric of his shirt. “I’ve missed you.” And she has. The days that have gone by since that night at the Chestnut Tree have been filled with tension and anxiety, Demi has felt like a puzzle that’s missing a piece. She knows there’s a chance that that feeling might never go away, and if so she wants Cal to know just how much she does care about him -- despite the secrets she’s kept from him. “Me too.” It’s an easy truth, one he doesn’t even have to think about much. Even if she’s in bed with the enemy, he can tell there’s no active malice in her—no intent to hurt. Demi loves too much and too hard and too often. As far as he’s concerned, she’s just added the wrong people to her list. The man relishes the moment, letting it sink in; pretends, for a little while, that there isn’t anything wrong between them. But then it’s time to move on, so he finally steers her into the room with an arm slung around her shoulders. So much like their reunion, and yet not. “So. All cards on the table, huh?” Cal begins, already cutting to the chase. This has already dragged on long enough. Two years too long, if anyone’s counting. “How the hell do you end up with people like the Hellhounds?” The old familiar anger is there, bubbling underneath his words, but he’s managing to hold it back for now. He’s had these days to swallow it, after all, until he doesn’t even spit out the usual expletives he might’ve last week: the fucking Hellhounds. It's a small comfort to hear Cal confirm he's missed her too, one that steels her for what she needs to do. If she cares about him at all she knows he deserves to hear the whole truth. She just wonders if he will still feel the same when she's done? As much as she wishes they could have stood in each other's arms a little while longer, Demi knows deep down that would be the coward in her wanting to avoid this moment. She can't avoid it though, so it's without resistance she allows Cal to lead her further into his space, slipping out from underneath his arm and settling down on the edge of his bed as he asks his first question. Demi winces at the way he spits out 'Hellhounds' like a curse word and she knows this won't be easy. There's a hatred here that runs deep. Taking a deep breath, Demi wills herself to stay calm, to remember she's doing this to try and salvage their friendship. As painful as this is going to be, it needs to happen. "They reminded me of my dad and his guys," she finally begins. it was never a secret that her father was in prison, or that he had had a motorcycle club -- her dad and her past was never something she had ever been ashamed of, or hid. "And I wasn't happy at the library. I was restless and antsy all the time, venturing out into the city more than I ever told you I did. One of those times I crossed paths with some Hellhounds, and God their leader was infuriating. He was all charm and bravado and must of thought I was one of those types that would go weak in the knees over that, swooning over the fact he showed an interest in me. I didn't swoon or go weak in the knees. Instead I snapped at him, he snapped back, I slapped him and may have pointed my gun at him before leaving," as much as she tries not to let it show, there's a fondness in the way she recounts the story. "I thought that was that, end of story. It wasn't. A couple weeks later I came across them again, they still reminded me of home and their leader, well, I wasn't as immune to him as I thought. He started in again trying to persuade me to join them, and they just reminded me so much of home that I guess second time was the charm." Demi stops there, eyes searching Cal's face for his reaction, or any sign as to whether this was all too much for him to take or not. He’s absorbing each little piece of information as she relays it: Their leader. His charms, his bravado. The same bravado that led to the ka-bar knife sinking into flesh, and twisting. Cal’s mouth has settled into a sharp, thin little line. “James Hawkins,” he says, a questioning note in his voice even as it’s flat with resignation. “The Dog King himself.” There’s so much to unpack here, so many things he could choose to latch onto and worry at—her recklessness. The fact that she slapped the goddamn leader of the Hellhounds. Does she have a death wish, or what. Except that it seemed to all work out for her, hadn’t it? If that had been him… “Seems they go a bit easier on a pretty face and a set of legs.” There’s a cruel bitterness in that capitulation, an exhaustion that laces itself throughout Cal’s voice. Even though she knows the whole Capitol and everyone in Austin now knows his name, Demi still can’t hide the way she flinches when Cal says it. Months spent inside La Quinta, refusing to give up Rodeo’s name and for what? To buy him a little more time before someone else broke and gave him up? (And god forbid she ever finds out who passed on that name.) “Yes, James Hawkins, the Dog King.” Demi answers evenly, knowing Cal doesn’t need the confirmation but she gives it anyway. She wants to snap at Cal when he makes the remark about her being a pretty face and a set of legs, but he’s not wrong. If a man had given any Hellhound, let alone their leader the kind of attitude she had, it would have gone much differently. “They do, especially if they happen to want the pretty face and set of legs,” her reply is blunt, honest. Demi has no misconceptions about how it was she found her way into the Hellhounds camp. “I take it from your bitter tone you’ve crossed paths with more than just Teagan and Vic?” “Yep. I’ve come across pretty much all of the officers at some point or other.” A perverse desire grips him, a way to explain that seething anger; some need to make it real in a way that it might not be for her yet, since Demi’s hands haven’t been slippery with his blood. And they haven’t slept together since the outbreak, so she hasn’t seen— Cal tugs at his sleeve, rolling it up until it can reveal a jagged zigzagging line: “Hawkins’ knife. You can see I’m pretty intimate with the guy,” he says dryly. Then, completely unselfconsciously (she’s seen him naked many a time), he pulls up the bottom of his shirt as well, exposing a bare stomach with the puckered scars of extracted bullets, more skin mottled from blades. “Crossed paths, that’s one way of putting it. They might be all sweetness and honey to you, darlin’, but I see an entirely different fucking side when I’m out on the road.” When he rolls up his sleeve Demi is entirely sidetracked from laying her own sins bare, her gaze drawn to the jagged scar while she reaches a hand out to run her fingers over it. The gesture is an unconscious one, reactionary before she can think about the chasm that’s been growing between them. “Is this the only one?” she pauses while he lifts his shirt, adding. “From him, I mean?” she surprises herself with the note of anger in her voice. Anger at the situation as whole, at the fact she had never tried to protect him, even though she knew he was on the frontlines facing off against people she could have tried to persuade to leave him unharmed. “Only one with the combat knife, but we’ve run into each other more than once, yeah.” Enough that the other blond had wormed his way into Cal’s dreams, a twisted reflection of himself, a nightmare dogging his heels at every truck raid. “God, I”m sorry Cal,” It’s all she can say. Demi may not be have been responsible for permanent marks on his body, but she hadn’t done anything to try and stop them either. She knew the violence that ensued each time the Hellhounds hit a DoR truck, and maybe somewhere inside of her she knew that expecting Cal to be the exception to the Hounds rule of shooting first was a ridiculous. Yet, she also knew not even she had enough sway over a single one of them to the point they would leave a Capitol agent alone. So Demi sent messages instead, checking in with him after each attack -- always asking if he was alive, but never asking if he was uninjured. Subconsciously she knew it was unlikely Cal came out of those events unscathed. Knowing that and seeing the scars with her own two eyes were two very different things, though. “Cal, are you sure you want to hear anymore of what I have to say?” Demi sworn she would tell him everything, but only if he truly wanted to hear it. “Some of them were sweet to me for a very specific reason, their King included.” He exhales, dropping the shirt and feeling his weight shift on the mattress. It had been a hairtrigger impulse, a desperate attempt to connect some of the dots: to help her understand his reaction, the way he’d recoiled away from her, the fact that he may not ever come to see the Hellhounds as she does, no matter what stories of kindness she plies him with. But he’s gonna have to unclench that rage long enough to hear what she has to say, like prying open a stubborn door with a crowbar. That’s why she’s here, after all. Not for him to explain himself. But for her to. So after considering it and internally sussing out his reactions, taking his own internal temperature, Cal finally nods. “Yeah. Back to you, Demi. I just—needed you to see, for once, where I was coming from, before we cross this bridge.” Resting her hands back in her lap, Demi can see the picture more clearly now. The reasons for Cal’s hatred are glaring, raised scars on his skin from where people she cares about, people she calls family, have left their mark on him. It surprises her the anger she feels towards each one of the Hellhounds in this moment, does she have a right to be angry? None of them knew how important Cal was to her, and if they had would it have changed anything? Even so, she can’t fault Cal for the way he feels. He has every right to detest them. She half expects him to tell her that he doesn’t want to hear anymore, that he’s heard enough and would like her to leave. If she had been hesitant before, she’s even more so now that she knows Cal’s history with the Hellhounds. “I can’t say I didn’t know, because I think there was a part of me that knew, but wanted to deny that you could have been injured in any one of those attacks,” Demi begins, her expression apologetic. “But I understand your hatred for them now, more than I did before.” Taking a moment to regather her thoughts, Demi shifts on the bed, turning her body towards Cal just slightly as she continues. “So I went with them that second time, like I said. There’s structure to their camp, everyone is expected to contribute in some way, and like you said I’m a pretty face, so I used that to my advantage. I became what they now call a camp bitch,” she stops to take a breath, trying to slow down her speech and avoid rushing through explaining this. “They are men after all with certain needs, and I always did enjoy sex.” Demi’s tone is light, even while she can already assume the places his mind might leap to. “I wasn’t mistreated. They’re a lot of things, Cal, but they don’t mistreat women. The bitches get to call the shots as to who they sleep with and who they don’t, so I was never forced to be with anyone. And, anyway like I mentioned earlier I had caught Rodeo -- The Dog King’s -- eye from that very first meeting. Time passed and I became I guess what you could say his favorite. More time passed and eventually I was less camp bitch and more exclusively his, without anything being official.” Demi stops there, again knowing that with each thing she says it’s a lot to take in and well aware that Cal’s temper has to be simmering just under the surface. A deep breath, rattled through gritted teeth. She isn’t even his, but there’s still that hot flare of possessive bitterness—not over just the woman herself, but mainly at the thought of him in particular, the Dog King, Rodeo, James fuckin’ Hawkins, and his hands all over Demi Rafferty. Cal’s heartbeat is starting to pulse in his throat, something almost like adrenaline, but he’s using every last inch of willpower to press it back down. And then he wonders, for a fleeting moment, how she’d feel if she knew about the email he’d sent and the man he’d sent it to. And he remembers that nobody’s lily-white. So with that steadying thought, that sickly guilt to cloy him, Cal remains calm. “Okay. Then?” Someone who didn't know Cal might have thought he was taking this all in, calm and collected. Demi on the other hand knew him, knew that that deep breath was his way of steadying himself, the short reply, the 'okay' he gives her may be the only thing he can say right now. It's a better response than she expected, but that grim feeling that she hasn't even touched on the worst of it yet is still there in the pit of her stomach. Casting her eyes down at her lap, she takes a moment to prepare herself before looking back up and launching back into her retelling of the last two years. "Then a congressman, a council member I believe, wanted to strike a deal with the Hellhounds, he'd give them information for a very specific item in return," she has to pause as memories from that night, the exchange gone wrong, threaten to deter her from her current task. "A woman. Now, that request alone pissed them off, but the information was important. That's where I came in since not just any woman would do for this plan, and it meant something that Rodeo asked me to be a part of it. Jobs like that, they aren't something you ask a camp bitch to do, they're something an old lady would help with." Demi didn't expect Cal to understand the importance of this, but to her it had meant something. "Anyway, I said yes, knowing full well they weren't going to let the man keep me. It never got to that point though, because patrolmen crashed the exchange and we all scattered. I wound up with a new patch, he got shot in the shoulder and laid down his bike, next thing I know we're both being hauled into the DoJ, him for being a Hellhound and me for simply having a connection to the Hellhounds." Every fiber in her wants to stop, to give herself time to gather her thoughts. This is the first time she's told anyone outside of Isaac and Nina all of this. It's not easy, with each word spoken she knows she could be ruining a friendship. Still, she has a fear if she stops now she may never finish. "We were arrested of course, and as expected didn't receive fair trials. For months they tried to get Rodeo's name out of Smiley and I, they killed him, but not me. I suspect that's because a little bird told Olinger that I wasn't just a hound whore, that I had ties to Rodeo, So instead he had me tortured. Broken bones, dislocated shoulder, bruises, none of that would get me to talk. Which meant they had to try a different tactic, if pain wouldn't get me to talk, maybe being violated would." Demi's eyes drop to her lap again, her heart rate pounding as she reaches the part of her story she wanted to keep from him, to protect him. "That went on for a month, I think, I lost track. They kept telling me it would stop if I gave up the Dog King's name. I wouldn't. Eventually Isaac caught word of what was happening to me -- he had been the one interrogating me while I was in DoJ holding, and when he found out he stopped it. He protected me after that, until he eventually pulled enough strings to get me out," Demi's looking at Cal now as she finishes her story. "And that's how I ended up here in the Capitol with him. He pulled me out of La Quinta, taking me into his custody so I wouldn't have to face those horrors anymore." There’s silence when Demi finishes talking and telling her story. The man beside her has gone stock-still, frozen on the mattress as he looks at her, his mind whirling a thousand miles a minute as it struggles to process. His blood runs cold. Absolutely ice-fucking-cold thinking of the name he’s given up. The one she’d worked so hard to protect. At the cost of— that she’d endured— Say one thing, this tale does confirm what Cal had already known about Isaac, that he was a genuinely good guy. That he wouldn’t stand by and let an injustice continue once he knew about it. Now Cal is thinking of Nina, tight-lipped as she skirts around the subject of La Quinta, careful in the way she describes it when he asked. It’s like his brain is incapable of looking dead-on at what he’s just heard. It keeps skirting away from the whole truth, refusing to register, even as the mental images come fleeting into his head and lodge like a fly trapped on glue and it isn’t going away. His hand has reached out and caught Demi’s; Cal wasn’t even aware of it happening, of his muscles jerking forward and seeking that touch. “Demi,” he says, voice faltering. “Fuck. Fuck. I don’t— I didn’t know. I mean, we all suspected conditions were shit in there, but no one ever…” There’s no excuse for it, their ignorance and this cover-up, so he falls silent. (The name. James Hawkins. He gave up the name. The name she’d protected for so long. For months. Against—) “Demi. Sweetheart. I am so fucking sorry.” His hand reaches out for hers, callused fingers brushing against her skin as his larger hand engulfs hers. This act jolts her out of every last thought and memory that this retelling has awoken within her. His strong hand around hers anchors Demi back in the present, and hesitantly she places her other hand over his, gaze steady as she looks at him. Cal isn't pulling away, that's a fact her mind latches onto. Walking to his apartment today, she had had no idea what to expect, no idea if this was the reaction she would receive, or if his temper would have flared up. Demi had been prepared for the latter, ready for his all familiar anger to seep out, in truth she believed it would have been giving her exactly what she deserves for keeping this secret from him. It's nearly overwhelming to her when all she sees reflected back in his blue eyes is some mixture of guilt and something she thinks she can pinpoint as sadness. "Cal, don't apologize," she murmurs. If there's one thing she knows, even while they stand on unsteady footing, it's that Cal would have broken down the doors of La Quinta and pulled her out himself if he had known. "They keep what happens in La Quinta under wraps, I mean if Isaac didn't even know at first, how can I expect anyone else to know of the kind of terrible things they do in that place?" Demi's fighting back tears now, not because of what she's told him, but because of the effect she knows it's had on him. Don’t apologise, she says, and he laughs, but it sounds more like a barked, strained, strangled noise than any real amusement. And there’s tears in her eyes, and Cal has scooted over to bundle Demi into a proper hug, pulling her to him and into his arms, his lips pressed against her temple. And he thinks of the Dog King again, his hands on her, their supposed special connection, and that old anger threatens to rear its ugly head—but Cal forces it back down. Because there’s something more horrible looming in the air between them now. Bigger problems, bigger fish to fry, a gaping awful wound that he’s finally caught sight of. One he barely knows how to address. If only he could get his hands on the men who did this... “And they’ve left you alone?” he tries, murmuring into her hair. “Since he got you out, I mean. You’ve been—safe?” Even though she’s not sure she deserves this kind of comfort from him, not after having lied to him for so long, Demi selfishly leans into Cal, lets him gather her into his arms and just hold her as the first hiccup of a sob wracks her body. Soon enough she knows the tears rolling down her cheeks will make a wet spot where she has her face pressed into his shoulder, it’s just the idea that he’s willing to comfort her, even while she’s hurt him, it’s too much to bear. “God, Cal, I--I’m sorry, so fucking sorry for lying to you,” she whispers, the steady ‘thump, thump, thump’ of his heartbeat comforting as she wrestles how this might change their friendship. She wonders, not for the first time, if he’ll see her differently now. Both because of the lies she told and the things that were done to her. It turns her stomach to think that Cal might see her as damaged or broken, as some kind of shell of the woman she used to be. His questions draw her out of her own thoughts, and just like she’s not sure she deserves his comfort, Demi isn’t certain she deserves his concern, either. She always swore that Cal was a good guy, the best even, and maybe this is proving it. “The guards?” Demi begins, voice muffled by the cotton of his shirt and thick with tears. “They’ve left me alone. I think Isaac might have threatened them, I mean, I know he broke one of their noses,” she can’t help the hint of laughter that mingles with another sob as she says this, her words stilted and choppy through her tears. Demi wants to do so much more than just break noses, but at least it was something. “Yes, I’m safe from them for now. I don’t even know if Lansing has this kind of pull anymore, but if he got his way I’d be dropped right back into La Quinta and thrown to the wolves again.” This is said with an involuntary shudder, voice strained a she fights down the dread she feels whenever she thinks about ending up in prison again. The mention of Lansing means that, for a moment, Cal is about to say something, that the man isn’t that bad (Cal’s loyalty is a steady thing, no matter which direction it ebbs and flows in). But he holds it back, instead contenting himself with maintaining a tight grip on Demi. Even if his shirt is wet, and his heart is thrumming from the sound and shake of her crying. She might not think she deserves his compassion—but his guilt is one that’s currently devouring him from the inside out, hollowing his insides. “The lying is…” Cal falters, unsure how to continue. How to step around that hole in the floor between them, this new lie that’s simply taken the place of the old one. His own, this time. “It’s whatever. I understand why you did it. I just wish you had told me earlier. Because I’m still in touch with Bode, Demi. With Nate, and Bunny. Y’all are in tight with the Hellhounds and I never cut anyone outta my life. But now that you have told me—you can be open about it. Alright? This is fucking dangerous shit you’re into, that we’re all into, and my priority is keepin’ you safe. Not one word about this goes from my lips to anyone in the Capitol about this. Just as you won’t say anything about the people I still talk to. Make sense?” It’s a small gesture: a sign that they are, in a very slight way, in the same boat. They’re both carrying secrets. With each word Cal speaks, it's as if they lift more and more of the weight off of Demi's shoulders. She deserves none of this, her lies should have lost her a friend, but instead he's offering her an olive branch. The weight might be gone, but she'll forever carry the guilt of knowing she nearly lost Cal over this. There's a shudder that runs down her spine at that thought, the sheer idea of not having him in her life makes her blood run cold. Still clinging to him as if she's worried he might be a mirage, afraid right down to her bones that if she let go he might 'poof' out of existence. "I wish I had told you sooner as well," she murmurs while reaching one hand up to swipe at the tears rolling down her cheeks. "I promise no more secrets between us." It was a comfort, if even just a little one, to know that she could be open with Cal without fear of losing him now -- that in some little way they were in this boat together. "And Cal, I hate to ask you this since I know you're friends, but, please don't tell Isaac about what I just told you. He doesn't know about Rodeo, or the fact that I'm still in contact with people at the Dog Park," She knows in this moment she's asking a lot of her friend, but Demi is still convinced that the less Isaac knows, the safer he'll be when she does end up leaving. "I think he's safer not knowing about them." Or maybe she was, either way, she hopes Cal will keep this secret for her. And what else can he do but say yes? No more secrets is a thin and threadbare promise he’s drawing out of her, coming from him. The irony isn’t lost on Cal. He’s already building on a foundation of deceit, firming it up around that central, crucial, unspeakable truth: he gave up the name. But she can never find out. Hot on the heels of what he’s just heard from her, Cal knows he never wants Demi to find out. And considering the volatile situation in the Capitol, he’d rather know everything he can—he can better keep her safe that way. (That’s what he’s telling himself, at least.) “I won’t say a word,” he says. |