Megan Louise Mills (inspiteofall) wrote in rrinitiative, @ 2012-09-06 15:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | day three, dominic, dominic and meg, meg |
An Unavoidable Conversation
Characters: Dominic and Meg
Setting: Their room, getting late
As showers went, it was probably one of the oddest Meg had taken in a while but Cal’s advice about the lemon juice had done the trick so by the time she shut off the water and stepped out the bath in a cloud of citrus scented steam, she felt thoroughly clean for the first time since she’d had the cast put on, relishing in having her full range of motion back as she wrapped a towel around herself even if her wrist was already starting ache a little from the exertion.
Dominic had gotten his pajamas on, locked the door, and set some music playing. It wasn’t overly loud, though it wasn't out of respect for the neighbors, it was because he had a lot on his mind. He wanted something to break up the quiet, but not actually intrude on his mind. When he heard the shower shut off, he waited for Meg to emerge, eyes over on the shut bathroom door. He was laid out on the bed, head propped on one arm curled behind it.
Opening the door, she immediately looked around for him and smiled when she saw him already looking her way. “Hey you,” she said, padding over the bed and perching next to him, not overly bothered about putting clothes on yet or the water that was dripping from her hair as it lay almost flat against her head, making her look even smaller than usual.
"Hey." he said, reaching out to gently grasp her now free hand, lightly brushing his thumb across the back of it. "How's it feeling?" he asked. Then he gave her a light smile. "You smell good." he told her. Like lemons, obviously, but it was nice. It was a light scent, something clinging to her.
“A little achy but mostly good,” she told him, giving her wrist a twist and letting him feel the movement of the joint. Her smile grew a little brighter at the compliment and she leant down to sniff her arm. “Good thing the doc recommended lemon to get rid of the smell not somethin’ else then otherwise I might not be smelling so pretty.”
She was such a tiny thing. And feeling those small bones in her wrist, how light it felt in his hand, he appreciated that all the more, in that moment. He propped himself up to press a very light kiss to the inside of her wrist, looking up at her. He knew he ought to say something further, but words failed him. So he just watched her eyes.
It wasn’t unusual for them to have moments of quiet where they simply looked at each other, unspoken words filling the space between them. Considering the way their relationship was perceived by other people and the press, a whirlwind of young love and crime inextricably intertwined and always on the move, in reality their time alone together could just as often be a quietly contained thing, instances like this one, hushed conversations, comfortable just being in each others company. That didn’t mean that being under his scrutiny affected her any less though and after a little while, she ducked her head; shyness wasn’t an quality often attributed to Meg but Dominic had the ability to bring it out of her.
That made him smile, a little. Then he got up, and went to retrieve her brush from the bathroom, going to sit on the bed. He tugged her along with him, arms around her tightly for a moment as he positioned himself behind her, back supported by the headboard. Then he started to brush her hair out. It was something he did now and then. Not every time or anything, but he'd felt the overwhelming need to do it right there and then. But he liked to pamper her in little ways sometimes.
And she relished in the attention, the intimacy that came with such a seemingly small thing. If her mother had ever done it for her, and she imagined it had to have happened at some point, she certainly had no memory of it and the fact that he did made the act even more important to her. Another way in which he treated her like no-one else had, with love and a kindness that she had felt the loss of all too keenly when they had been separated. Letting out a small sound of contentment as the brush moved through her curls, she leant back against him as much as she could without forcing him to stop, her hands lying limp against her crossed legs. “I missed this,” she said quietly.
A small smile touched his lips. "So did I." he told her genuinely, voice just as quiet as hers. He kept up the motion, even, slow strokes of the brush through her hair. "I told Carmel that our romance was quiet." he shared. "I think it's easy for everyone to forget we're real people, not just whatever the press said, and what the internet thinks." he added. Like Leandro, who he had decided he liked, but there was that kind of fanboy reaction to contend with first.
Meg hummed in agreement, one of her hands leaving her lap to begin stroking along his leg beside her. “I forget sometimes you know, that everyone knows who we are, well thinks they know,” she said, her tone thoughtful. “I thought Leandro was going to start something before he started babbling at me about how amazing he thinks we are.” She let out a small huff of amusement.
He quirked a smirk. "Yeah, he did seem to be quite the fan." he noted. "Earlier, I met this girl, Becka. She's heard of us too, though I made her nervous at first." he told her. "She's really nice, you should meet her. Once she realized I wasn't going to...I don't know. Assault her or something, she got past being scared. So I helped her tape off a wall in her room that she's painting and gave relationship advice." He gave her a little more information than strictly necessary, but it was specifically designed so it wouldn't get a hard knee-jerk reaction of jealousy from Meg. “Apparently she’s got a crush on someone here.”
Even with the effort he made, she still felt a of spike of jealously at hearing him describe another girl as being nice. It was probably in Bekah’s favor that she had feelings for someone otherwise Meg would have been liable to seek her out and make her position on other women in relationship to Dom abundantly clear. “She likes someone already?” she said, twisting round slightly to look at him. “Enough that she’s asking for advice? Girl works fast.” Not that she was in a position to judge anyone in that regard given how quickly things had happened between her and Dominic.
He laughed a little. "She likes someone already. What, you have trouble with the concept of intense, overwhelming chemistry at first sight?" he asked, grinning at her as he tickled her side a little and kissed her shoulder. "Really?"
“No I don’t have trouble with the concept,” Meg replied, collapsing back against him and giggling as he attacked her side. “Not in the slightest.” She twisted further around in his grip so she could kiss him, knowing exactly what he was getting at with his comment. “Guess I just wasn’t expecting to hear about it happening here. Who is it she likes?”
He returned the kiss, putting his arms more fully around her again, before he continued brushing her hair. "And I don't know, I didn't ask." he said. "She was talking about it being complicated, and how she doesn't know the specifics about what happened during their crime. And she was worried about the situation here, and pretty much everything else. I mentioned she's kind of nervous, right? Oh, get this--she's twenty two, and she's a virgin. I told her she was like a unicorn." He chuckled. "But she doesn't want people to know, so shh. Don't tell anyone." He kissed the tip of her nose.
“Are you serious?” she said, mouth falling open in surprise. “Twenty-two and a virgin?! Unicorn is right.” She could help but laugh a little at the ridiculousness of it all. “And I won’t say nothing though I can’t exactly see anyone believing me if I did.”
"Right?" Dominic agreed, smiling. "But yeah, she's nice. I just sort of hope not too nice. She sort of seems like someone who will get eaten alive by the first predator that crosses her path."
Meg frowned a little. “Seems like there’s a couple of folk running round here like that,” she pointed out, readjusting her towel slightly so it didn’t fall down. Not that she was especially bothered if it did and she was sure Dom wouldn’t mind either, she just didn’t want to get cold.
"Yeah?" Dominic asked, tone immediately losing it's humor. If she ran into people he needed to know about, he wanted that conversation to happen right now. He finished up her hair and set the brush on the nightstand, turning his full attention on her.
She nodded. “You know I mentioned Adam, the guy I met on the first day? Him,” she explained. “I got a bit of a vibe off him anyway then I spoke to Kyle and he said pretty much the same thing.” She shrugged. “Wouldn’t wanna see him get into trouble, more than he’s already been in I mean.”
It took Dominic a second to realize she was talking about there being more than one person like Becka, who might need someone to look out for them, as opposed to predators. So that made him feel slightly more relieved. "So, what do we do about that, baby?" he asked, leaning closer to just kind of hug her. Hold her closer.
Meg shrugged, all too happy to have the extra contact with him as he held on to her. “Keep an eye out I suppose,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder. When it came down it, he was the only person she really cared about but she didn’t enjoy seeing other people be victimised, it triggered too many bad memories for her and knew deep down that if she saw something like that had happening, she wouldn’t just sit idly by. “Make it clear that kind of shit won’t be tolerated if someone starts giving off the vibe.” Granted no-one had yet but she wasn’t naive enough to think that would remain the case.
Dominic nodded. "That's what I was thinking." he said. Then he recalled he'd met Adam, if incredibly briefly. "Adam--yeah he really is going to be eaten." he agreed. "Okay, so there's Adam, and Becka that seem to need signs that read 'Victim Here'. Guess we'll just keep an eye out." he said. Clearly Dominic had issues with that sort of thing too, if his history with Meg said anything about him. After all, half of all of this started because he’d met her and couldn’t just let her walk away, couldn’t watch anything bad happen to her.
It was gratifying to know they were on the same page if not particularly surprising given how often it occurred but she smiled anyway. “Yeah well, you’ve got a lot of practice in that department, shouldn’t be too difficult.” After all he’d been doing it for her for two years and while he didn’t exactly need looking after, she was used to watching his back so between them they would have lookout duty covered.
Dominic let the subject drop, and shifted so they were lying down, his arms around her. He was quiet for a long moment. "Got anything to say about the DNR?" he asked, figuring they had to talk about it at some point. And just because he was upset over a few things with her didn't mean he drew back when it happened.
The change of topic caught Meg a little off-guard and it took her a moment before she was able to reply, hand coming up to rest on his chest just below where she’d written. “I think I get it,” she said quietly, glancing up at him through her lashes. What he’d said to Leandro about it in the courtyard and his conversation with Cal she’d tried really hard not to listen in on but had done so anyway made his feelings on the matter pretty clear. “Not wanting a rerun of what happened last time.” What she wasn’t sure on was how the whole matter made her feel and she began worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.
"Yeah." he said. He watched her biting her lip, taking a minute before he moved ahead. He was in territory he didn't like. It wasn't that they never got pissed at each other or anything, he just hated it when it happened. And at the moment, he really hated that it was coming so fast after they were reunited. "How could you say you didn't know if you'd get one or not, when you've tried to kill yourself, twice?"
Having him just say it like that, throwing what she’d told him back in her face like that felt like getting punched in the stomach and she actually had to pull away from him and sit up. “Because I don’t know,” she said, looking away from him. “And don’t you use what I did to make a point alright?”
"I'm not making a point. I'm not even 'using' it. I'm asking a valid fucking question, Megan." he said. "It's fine if you don't want one. I'd never ask you to get one in the first place. I just want to know, how in your head, it adds up that you would actively try to cut yourself out of the equation, and then hesitate on that." he said, sitting up. "And were you even going to tell me?" he blurted. "Or was I going to get the news from some asshole giving me letters back that can't be delivered because you were fucking gone?"
Scrambling to organise her thoughts into some form of a reply that would make sense, how it was about trust and control and fear about doing the wrong thing again it took a moment for what Dom had asked to register with her and when it did, she went cold. Before she even realised what she was doing, she was on her feet and raising her right hand, she slapped him across the face with enough force to send pain coursing through the barely healed bone. “How dare you fucking ask me that?!” she cried, tears springing to her eyes. “Of course I was gonna tell you.”
He glared, though even with that, he looked at her wrist. "If you're going to hit me, at least do it with your other hand." he snapped, feeling the burning sting in his cheek. "And how dare I? Megan, you tried to kill yourself!" he reminded her. "Fucking twice!" he added. "And I didn't hear a goddamn word about it til you told me here. So what the fuck am I supposed to think? When were you going to tell me, after you were already gone? It's a little too fucking late at that point, don't you think?" He dragged his fingers through his hair, catching a pale reflection of himself in the window, and he could see even with that the red mark on his face.
"You don't get to pull 'how dare you' when you were the one leaving me." he said, getting up himself and pacing a little ways away. "I was checking out, but it sure as fuck wasn't my idea. It wasn't by my own hand. I wasn't leaving you because I wanted to leave you, it was because the judge decided life wasn't good enough in my case. So, not only was I going to have to deal with my impending fucking death, but you were going to make me go that alone?"
Angry as she was, with the tone he was taking with her, Meg had to resist the urge to take his advice to heart and slap him with her other hand, instead her grip tightened on the top of her towel, for the first time bothered about her lack of clothes. “I wrote you so many letters,” she said, voice thick with emotion. “My mattress was probably full of them, prison shrink knew I was writing to you even before the first time, knew I wanted them sent to you even if she had no idea what was in them.”
When he stood up, instinct that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with years of conditioning from her father had her taking a step back from him, his words hitting her like a blow as he went on and tears began rolling down her cheeks. “Don’t you get it Dom, you’d already left me! I was on my own and thought I was never gonna see you again - tell me how the fuck I was supposed to carry on when waking up every morning and not having you there was like having my heart ripped out of my goddamn chest.”
He hated seeing her take the step back from him, on a number of levels. Though the most prominent was the cut to the quick that she'd shrink from him in the first place. Like he would hurt her. He knew it wasn't him. He knew she fundamentally knew he'd never, ever hurt her, no matter how angry he was with her. That just didn't help the emotional reaction he got hit with. A sick sort of feeling in the pit of his stomach he wished he could shake.
It took him even a little longer than usual to respond because of it. He wound up putting both hands up, palms towards her, the universal sign of 'I mean no harm', and he backed up until his back hit the wall, bed between them. He slid down it, til he was sitting on the floor, not looking at her. He opened his mouth more than once, but didn't say anything immediately. When he did, his voice was quiet.
"How do you think I wouldn't get it?"
Having him move away like that, retreat so fully, appeased the terrified little girl inside her but only added to how bad she felt as the woman who loved him and whose entire existence was centered around him. “If you get it then why are you so mad at me?” she said, voice still wobbling as she ventured a step forward.
He still stared at the floor. "Because you tried to kill yourself. Twice. You were out there. You weren't with me, but you were out there. Somewhere." he shook his head. "And you were going to leave me, all by myself, to face down the electric chair. And I just...wouldn't do that to you. If the situations were reversed, I would have waited til you were gone."
Meg took another step forward and sat back down on the corner of the bed where she could see him. Not that she was looking at him properly but she needed to know he was there even if it was just in her peripheral vision. “I’m sorry Dom,” she whispered, making no effort to wipe away the tears still tracking down her face and dripping onto her collar bone. “I just...I wasn’t...I’m not strong like you are. Being without you, it just hurt so much...” Her voice cracked on the last word and she screwed her eyes closed, eyelashes clinging to each other.
He said nothing, feeling like 'sorry' didn't make it better. He didn't actually think anything would. Nothing but time, anyhow. It wasn't like he would leave her over it, he wouldn't. He loved her, more than anything, and it hadn't diminished. It just...hurt. It was just a wound there, that was going to keep bleeding for a while. How long, he didn't know. He pushed himself to his feet, though he was careful not to make any sudden moves, or get too close to her. He tugged some street clothes out of the wardrobe, and changed. He figured a walk might clear his head a little. Something. Anything that didn't have him saying what went through his head at her words, which even in his most angry moment he wouldn't actually say. Anger had died, however, for the moment. It had been replaced by that still bleeding sensation instead. "I'm going to go for a walk, baby." he told her, voice still quiet, gentle, even. "Get some rest, okay? Don't hit anything else with that hand." He hated seeing her crying like that, but at the moment he wan't absolutely positive he was far from it himself, and he wasn't a crier. So, he needed some air, and...he didn't know what. He'd feel better? He'd punch a wall or two, and come back later? He didn't know, really.
The sounds of him moving had her opening her eyes again, rubbing at them frantically to get her vision to clear so she could see what he was doing. The sight of him getting dressed didn’t exactly fill her with confidence and while logically she knew he couldn’t actually go anywhere, not really, it did little to stop her from panicking when he said he was taking off, regardless of how gently it was said. “Please don’t go,” she begged, as much as she hated that they were fighting, the last thing she wanted right then was for him to leave her on her own.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, teeth clenching. It was only a moment, though. "I just need a few, okay? Some air. I heard you, you're sorry, I need to...process, or whatever. I'm not going to be gone long." he promised, voice still light and gentle. He walked slowly in her direction, ready to stop the second she even so much as tensed. She didn't, which was good. Reaching out, he took up her previously injured hand, and kissed her palm lightly, cheek still red from where she'd slapped him. "I'll be back."
The selfish urge for him to stay warred with a need to appease him knowing she was the reason he was so upset in the first place. The kiss went a little way to sooth her fractured nerves and she fought the urge to cling onto him and beg him to stay. “Promise me,” she said, looking up at him, knowing that after everything he would never lie to her.
"I promise." he told her easily, since he had every intention of coming back shortly in the first place. He wasn't lying, that he was going to go for a walk, and come back. "You going to be here when I get back?" he asked, just to clear it in his own head that she planned to be. That she wouldn't go back to her own room, or wander off by herself either.
Meg nodded, relief preventing her from actually verbalising a reply. She didn’t even trust her voice enough in that moment to tell Dominic she loved him, instead kneeling up the bed to press a gentle if slightly desperate kiss against his lips.
Dominic bent a little to give her a light squeeze, kissing her back. "I love you." he told her, unwittingly saying what she couldn't at the moment. "I'll always love you." And it was absolutely true. He just needed a little bit to make a solid effort to move past something he couldn't change. "And I'll be back soon."
She just nodded again, more frantically this time as her tears continued to fall, forcing herself to let go of him so he could walk out of the room.
God, he hated seeing her like that. He looked away, then back. Did he take the time he really felt he desperately needed? Or stick around til she was calmer? In the end he decided to ask. "If I wait ten minutes, are you going to feel any better about my going for a walk? Or will you feel the same, and I should get it out of my system and come back sooner?" he asked, figuring she could get a choice in the matter.
Forcing down the lump in her throat so she could at least try and speak, Meg’s voice was a wreck. “If you need to go, go now,” she told him, not sure she could face ten minutes of knowing he was going to leave, 30 seconds of it had been bad enough.
Nodding, he accepted that, and after a hesitation, he bent to brush another kiss against her cheek, catching some of the moisture from her tears. "I promise I won't be long." he said again, hoping it was reassuring, then he did go, looking back twice before he actually shut the door. He drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and rubbed his sore cheek. Just a walk, and hopefully he'd feel less gutted.
The promise and the kiss, the looks back before the door closed behind him helped her hold it together but only until the door clicked into place. Then the dam burst and she collapsed onto the bed with a heaving sob, dragging the pillow and clutching it to her chest, the faint trace it held of Dominic’s scent a small comfort to her as she wondered how things had fallen apart so spectacularly, so fast.