tomorrow's shadows (fated_wren) wrote in rrinitiative, @ 2012-10-02 09:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | charlie, charlie and leandro, day five, leandro, wren |
circling tensions
Characters: Charlie, Leandro, and eventually Wren
Setting: Kitchen, late morning, day 5
Yet another day started for Leandro in which he took to heart the the conflict between two different walks of life. First there had been making pizza for Wren, feeling lighthearted and clean; then there had been the late-night visit with the artist and all the adrenaline of scheming that had come with it. When he awoke, he felt for the second time the strangest turmoil in his belly. When he was with others he couldn’t help but give in to his old habits, but when he was talking to Wren... it was as if his past faded away, even if only a little. Just enough that he felt the slightest glimmer that he could be someone else for a while as he amused her and listened to her thoughts. It was... he didn’t know yet.
He tried not to think about it while he prepared himself for the new day, but even as he went through simple tasks he felt trapped inside of his own head. His reflection in the mirror as he slowly brushed his teeth was one of permanent reminders. He’d only told a half-truth to Kyle the night before. His looks were a statement to the world, but they were also a statement to himself. They were there so that he would never forget, no matter what happened to him. He could not be what he did not know. The thought was grounding.
When Leandro did step from his room late in the morning, it was with that seed of caution replaced in him. He scanned the courtyard thoroughly before moving, slow and silent, for the kitchen. Maybe a piece of cold pizza would be soothing... but then again, maybe Wren would want something for lunch when she came to find him. He drew his mouth into a crooked expression of indecision as he stepped through the kitchen and snapped the fridge door open, staring inside.
Charlie had managed to lie down for less than an hour when he found himself on his feet once again. The alcohol swimming in his system wouldn’t let him settle. He hadn’t drunk enough to pass out: merely enough for things to be unsteady and fuzzy. Enough to make him careless and silly. And thirsty now.
He had stumbled from his new bed, curly mop a definite mess, and into the bathroom downing a glass of water before it occurred to him that, maybe, that wasn’t such a good idea. Anyway, pouring something into his belly had awaked it and hunger decided to join thirst at the party. There was a kitchen here - he’d spotted that on his map earlier. Luckily, his room was across from it and he’d just had to make his way round the courtyard - now freshly mown, courtesy of Brady, of course - and into said kitchen.
He noticed the guy by the fridge straight away and headed over, hopping up onto the counter with slightly less grace than he would normally have been able to muster, but he made it all the same. “Is there anything good in there? I’m starving!” he proclaimed.
Well, there was the cold pizza right there, calling, but... Leandro's deliberations were interrupted when somebody sat on the counter near him. His dark eyes tracked over, settling on the guy who seemed to be into bouncing around like a puppy dog. Normally that would have been amusing from someone unknown, accepting the challenge easily, but Leandro was in a mood. He was feeling a little sharper than the night before.
"Naw, man, in Narnia this is where we keep the socks. I like 'em chilly fresh." he said with a vague smirk, before reaching in and taking out a plate on which was heaped the leftover pieces of pizza. Even with the fridge door just hanging open, he seemed to stare down at the plate for a few seconds too many, and then just put it back. "If you're not into cooking you can eat that," he decided at last, and then dug out peanut butter and jelly instead, taking that to the counter. He let the fridge door drift behind him, either to shut softly or to allow the guy time to check it out for himself.
Charlie caught the door before it could shut, frowning slightly at the fact that the plate had been offered to him and then put away before he could grab a slice of delicious cold leftover pizza. Which he proceeded to do, taking a huge bite and chomping it down before declaring, “Food of the Gods,” in a loud voice with a wide smile. The rest of the pizza slice followed quickly and he grabbed another slice before shutting the fridge door and turning to the other man. “So, this place is Narnia then? Sure, it’s weird enough, though I haven’t met the white witch yet. Or a faun. Hell, not even a lamp post. Or snow. I’m not sure your analogy is all that great.,” he joked.
Suddenly feeling much better about the choice and the push into motion, Leandro went to the pantry while the guy ate, finding bread. It'd been ages since he'd actually made anything all on his own, but he figured it'd be difficult to mess up a toasted pb & j sandwich. Unless he managed to somehow destroy the bread, but if he put it in a toaster he should have been safe. And if not, he could try again and use the burnt mini-brick as a frisbee. He went back to the counter and set out two sets of bread, one of them going into the toaster.
"Yeah, it kinda is, isn't it?" he responded with a short chuckle at the pizza approval. "Thanks, 'cause I helped make them. It was a good time. But you missed the most important part of the Narnia analogy. Narnia can change, but you still got here by being shoved through a little closet and emerging into utter weirdness." Idly, Leandro fooled around with the knife, spinning it on its side like a propeller atop the jelly jar, while he took in the sight of the other man again. "You just get here?"
Charlie looked surprised and took a moment to look over the remaining part of the pizza slice. “You made this?” he asked, raising his gaze to the other man. “Good pizza - definitely good pizza man.” He took another bite. “And yeah - got here this morning. New fish, according to the first girl I met. So far, this place is nothing like I expected. I’m kinda thinking that I’m just tripping and I’m gonna wake up soon and reality will hit really damn hard.”
Leandro grinned with amusement at the guy's surprise. "Well, yeah. You think we get delivery up in here? And if he did, what do you bet the delivery guy wouldn't last thirty seconds while the first person up shanked him and stole his car?" As morbid as that was, he had to chuckle under his breath again. It was funny because it was true. He couldn't even promise he wouldn't seriously think about it.
"But thanks, though. I was assisting the real chef around here, but I'll tell her we got some more approval. She'll probably want to know all about you 'cause she's kind of like that, so go talk to Carmel sometime." As for the rest, Leandro just nodded slightly, tone a little more quiet. "Hard to have your expectations blown when you weren't expecting anything. For most of my first day I thought I was probably dead and this was Hell or something. Now that wouldn't have been a surprise. But you're alive and you're not tripping balls. For whatever that's worth. Might be more fun if you were."
“Carmel. Right - will look out for her. A send her a message or something.” He frowned. “Though - might wait until my typing skills decide to make an appearance again. Was kinda all over the place earlier on.” Charlie shrugged. “Which is what happens when someone designing a prison decides that the first thing new inmates should see is a bar.” He laughed at that, still happily buzzed and not seeing a problem with letting this guy know he was drunk - if that hadn’t already been obvious. He hopped down off the counter and moved to the fridge again, opening the door wide and crowing as he found a carton of juice. “Perfect!” he declared, drinking straight out of the carton, long and deep.
“I’m Charlie, by the way. New guy and apparently a fucking idiot. At least, according to the moron in a bad mood earlier on who thinks that hitting women is just fine, as long as you regret it somehow.”
The toaster dinged, and Leandro stuck his second set of bread in there while he just watched Charlie, neither stopping him nor egging him on. He did wear a sprawling smirk. This guy was kind of funny in his way. "That's yours now, homes," he said in regards to the juice. Actually that was kind of iffy, but nothing Leandro wouldn't do on a normal basis himself. Though he would have probably taken it and strolled around with it, too.
"Yeah, that bar showed up by magic the day after I got here. I was cool enough to wait until after the sun set to serve up drinks. Apparently it's been an issue. I bet it's some shit thing the creepers topside thought up to give us a social problem to work on. Maybe we're supposed to post prohibition guards or something, if we give enough fucks for that." That thought made Leandro scoff loudly, but he let the mention of the man who'd hit a woman sink in for a moment too. He considered what to say on the matter while he painted one side of the finished toast with grape jelly. "I heard about that too. It was posted online. I don't know a lot about that guy, but why'd he call you an idiot? You get up in his business?"
Finally, Leandro nodded at the name given to him. "Cool. I'm Leandro."
Charlie took another swig of juice, as if to claim it when Leandro pointed out it was his now. He figured he would probably finish it off before he left the kitchen anyhow. “Apparently I’m a fucking idiot because I, after a few whiskeys, declared that the bar was awesome. Which - after a few whiskeys, it totally was. The guy was looking at it from the whole ‘place full of convicts’ perspective. Totally different place. And I agree - from that place, bar here is a fucking bad idea. Look at me. Prime example. They put me in an elevator with a bag and a key, all alone, no idea what’s going on. Doors open. Bar. Normally - not one to drink before sundown - like you said. But today? If I could get wasted and make all that shit about being here go away? I was totally doing that.
“As for the guy. Brady. He... Was all open about the fact he was a violent drunk. Apparently, he’s gonna try and stop drinking, but he was pretty much of the opinion that if he was drinking, he couldn’t be expected to be held responsible for his actions. Which, in my book, equals ‘moron’.”
For all that Leandro was spontaneous and devil-may-care, in this one thing he had to disagree. He knit his brow a little, wiping the jelly off the knife on the other side of the toast and lobbing on a big glob of peanut butter. "That is kind of idiotic, dude," he said. "It's one thing to drink for fun, and to mind your self-preservation," Which he'd been informed last night that everyone had a right to. That was fair enough. "But it's another thing to wallow publicly before you even know where you are."
In that moment he made something of a snap judgment about Charlie. The people who had real problems whined the least. There was some element of the survivor in them, like Carmel and her persistent direction in keeping order in the facility. He understood on an instinctual level why she cared so much about others, and surely it was because she cared about herself too. She had the guts to pull a knife on a rapist. The people whose problems were that privileged type he was so prejudiced against... well, in his mind they were the ones most likely to cry in public and hit that bar right off. It just made them even more easy to victimize. Leandro snorted vaguely and added, "I think I like the bar where it is. It's fine. Everyone is responsible for themselves, period. I don't expect anybody to help me out and neither should anyone else."
“So - you don’t think putting temptation straight in someone’s path when they’re confused and disoriented and probably have been dry for months if not years is a recipe for disaster?” Charlie asked. He could see it going wrong in so many ways, though it was certainly making him feel more able to cope. “Along with making people into idiots. Not denying that I’m one of them. I am. Total idiot right now. Definitely.” He looked sideways at Leandro. “I’m normally better than this,” he added.
"Nope," Leandro said quickly. Perhaps it could be shocking how quickly his animated facade could turn to ice. He was focused on his sandwich, capping the two ends together and rocking the knife in one neat slice through the bread to cut it. "From now on I'm going to consider it our own personal bullshit meter. Temptation? Pff. People are making themselves into idiots, and they obviously don't care what happens to them after being dropped into a strange place. I mean, what do you think it looks like? You want somebody to hold you close and sympathize with you?" His dark eyes stared hard at Charlie. "There's only half of that that's actually going to happen."
With contrasting care, he lifted the last two pieces of bread from the toaster and started to make them up as nicely as he pleased. A rasped chuckle slid out, though. "Sorry, Charlie, but like I said... Most people just don't help each other like that. You have not fallen into tellytubby land. You better know what you can get away with from now on before you start." He, apparently, was very confident in what he could get away with. After all, what he neglected to mention was that he too had gotten drunk pretty soon off. But he'd done it locked into his bathroom where no one ever knew. He didn't disagree with drunkenness. He disagreed with open weakness.
Drunk or not, Charlie tracked the mood change and followed it with one of his own. “I know this isn’t tellytubby land’. I got that one. And I’m not looking for help - or for someone to hold me and tell me that it’s all gonna be alright. Because I know it’s not,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “But yeah, maybe for a moment there, I didn’t fucking care what happened to me. You ever slip, Leandro? You ever have a moment where you make the wrong fucking choice. Maybe even you know it’s the wrong fucking choice at the time, but you still make it. Because, right at the moment, you don’t fucking give a damn?” He walked off, heading for the other side of the kitchen, needing a moment or two of space.
Leandro narrowed his own eyes to match. He wasn't swayed by the argument, even if he could think of times when he'd done horrible, self-destructive things. The point was that he'd always imagined he had his wits about him and done what he needed to do to survive, even if he was wrong in believing that and he'd put himself in more danger than he ever realized. After all, drugs were quick to take away one's wits maybe first of all.
Still, he staunchly refused to talk about it. In a rather even voice he said after Charlie had started to walk away, "Maybe everybody slips, but where I'm from you slip like that and you're dead. This your first stint in the lockup or something?" That heaviness of emotion did speak of someone greener. It was the first-timers too, he thought, that tended to show most measures of guilt and remorse on the outside face. Higher security prisons quickly beat any inclination to show anything but prickliness or aggression from anyone.
“Yeah, I’m a first-timer. And pretending to be otherwise isn’t going to help anything,” Charlie said, turning back to face Leandro, now from the other side of the room.
Wren had gathered up her few bits of dirty laundry and wrapped them in a towel to carry, thinking if they were exploring she could drop that off on their way through, and she wouldn't have to stay there for any significant length of time. She still wasn't pleased about having to walk through the area anyways, and was very glad she didn't have to do it alone.
She was heading into the kitchen, looking for Leandro, when she heard his voice. He sounded strange. She also heard another voice, which sounded familiar, but she didn't place it.
Or, she didn't until she entered the room. "Leandro, is everything okay?" she asked, coming in even if she was wondering if she shouldn't just wait things out, just in case she was interrupting. But he sounded funny-strange to her, and that was concerning.
Leandro was cutting his second sandwich in half, opening his mouth to say something else to Charlie, when he heard someone enter. He turned his head and immediately upon seeing who it was dropped most of the coldness from his face and gave Wren a wide, almost excited smile. Something about her made him feel so much more relaxed than just a moment before.
"Hey, sweetie!" he chirped. "Hope you haven't had lunch yet, 'cause I made you a sandwich. Toasted pb & j. Want anything else before we go? But no, it's fine. I just met this guy--" Here he stopped and pointed his butter knife in Charlie's direction. "Charlie. He just got here. He liked my pizza, so there's points."
He decided to behave himself a little then, because he liked it when Wren's worldview was happy and he'd already disappointed her with his harshness enough times for his nerves. He didn't tell her on his own that Charlie was tipsy and that they'd been disagreeing. That was Charlie's business.
Charlie had turned at the voice as well. He would never forget that voice - though... Maybe it was someone else. Just... some girl who maybe was from the same part of the world. But still he turned. And no, there she was. A little older, but still the same.
Charlie dropped the juice carton, his fingers going slack.
Wren had a similar reaction. She smiled at Leandro, walking towards him happily enough. She also smiled at the sandwich. When she looked over, she dropped what she was carrying as well, mid-sentence. "Hello, Char..." she started. She blinked, eyes wide as she stared at the other man. "Chester." she said, voice very quiet, almost inaudible. She felt a wave of sick hit her stomach, and she paled, the world seeming much more tilty and unstable than it had a moment ago.
The fallen juice caught his attention first, snapping to watch by instinct as it fell to the ground. Charlie's expression set something off, and Leandro immediately crossed the counter to go to Wren, maybe to put himself in between them if there showed a need for it. She didn't look so good either all of a sudden. Both of them had stopped in their tracks, but why?
Leandro chose to talk to Wren first, ghosting an arm around her back and casting a suspicious look at Charlie. "Chester? Who's Chester? You know this guy?" he said to her specifically.
Charlie wondered if he looked as pale as he felt. He stepped back as the juice hit the floor, managing not to fall over his own feet, which would have just capped the moment off. “I am. Chester. I - Wren, I...” he said, feeling like someone had just injected him with coffee and thrown a tub of iced water over him all at once.
Wren reached up and put a hand on Leandro's arm, but it was a grip to help her keep her feet. She was going to faint, or that was what it felt like. The world was tilting around, all willy nilly, she wasn't prepared for it, and she definitely wasn't prepared for Chester speaking.
When she spoke, it was abrupt, utterly unplanned on her part, and there was a surprising emotional level to it. Wren was an even person. She was almost always even. But she was anything but right then. "I searched through a sea of the dead for you." Her voice shook a tiny bit, a light tremble. "They were all gone. Everyone, and I looked for you. I turned people over, and looked into their still faces, and the wine still stained their dead lips, and you weren't there. You were gone."
When Wren's hand went onto his arm, Leandro did his best to prop her up by putting the flat of his hand on the middle of her back. He didn't know what was going on, but his usual "see if I care" attitude was quickly losing ground towards a protective concern. Hearing the twinge in Wren's voice was just making him angry, the words evoking a sort of imagery that even a plain stranger would find terrifying. He was silent, letting them sort it out, but his eyes on Charlie – or "Chester" – were clouded with wariness.
Charlie, on the other hand, was anything but. He swallowed, drawing back into himself a little. “I know,” he said, his voice small. “I - I mean, I heard. They told me. About everything that happened.” They wouldn’t let me see you. Somehow, he couldn’t get those words out. They sounded too hollow. That he had tracked her case, that he knew what had happened to her. That he had allowed his parents to drag him home. Even though he’d fought them every step of the way, right now. Here. It all sounded like one big excuse. “I’m sorry. So damn sorry.”
"I don't--you--" Wren said, stumbling over her words, also something she didn't usually do. She fell silent again, realizing belatedly that she was breathing a little too rapidly, and she needed to slow that down. She shut her eyes, keeping them squeezed that way for a long moment. When she opened them again, she drew in a breath, and let it out very slowly. "Why are you Charlie?" she asked. "You're Chester." It was unimportant. She knew it was unimportant. But it was a confused itch in her head that she needed to address or she was going to drown in everything else.
From what Wren had told him so far, she had been left alone at the site of a terrible disaster, believing that she would have died along with everyone else she knew, the people she was talking about. Leandro regarded Charlie's words with that in mind. He had been there? A second escapee? Or had Wren only thought he had been there? Had he run from the scene, and if so did he know something? These were all questions Leandro filed away for another time. Either way, Wren hadn't exactly gone running into Charlie's arms with glee at seeing him, so something was just... just off. His stance remained unchanged, though his hand did tighten against her to remind her that he was still there. He would still wait a little longer to see if she actually needed him to jump into the middle.
“Yeah. I’m Charlie. That’s - That’s my name,” Charlie told her. He had never - okay, that was a lie that wasn’t even getting off the ground. Once upon a time, he had hoped that he would get to tell her his real name. He had hoped he would get the chance to tell her everything. But then everything had crashed and burned in a massive way and there had been nothing he could do about it. So, then he had abandoned all thoughts of every telling her the truth. And, now that he suddenly had to - in a room with a guy who had seemingly taken against him, at least in part, and who had his hand on her back - he wished it was any other way than this.
“Chester - it was never my real name. Just for then.” He considered lying more. Spinning a tale of wanting a new start and it really not working out, but he decided against it. One, because he didn’t want to lie to her. And two because he didn’t think he was actually sober enough, despite the shock, to spin a convincing lie - no matter how good at it he was under usual circumstances.
Chester - it was never my real name. Echoed in her head. She felt like the world wasn't tilting anymore, it had dropped out from under her. He'd been her friend. Her only friend. What did he mean it was 'just for then'? Why would he lie about his name in the first place? Where had he gone? What had happened to him? She had a billion questions and nothing was reaching her lips. She looked down, at the floor, realizing slowly that she was being supported by Leandro, who was probably as confused as she was. "I need to sit down." she said, voice quiet, devoid of all emotion. "I'm very sorry, Leandro, but I do not think I can eat anything right now."
It wasn't lost on Leandro that Charlie had lied to her about his name, and that was yet another thing to add to the pile of questions he was collecting. Maybe putting that one up top. To him, it suggested that if Charlie had told one lie to Wren, then it stood to reason he'd probably told others. But those would come out whenever Charlie saw fit to tell them, and right now that wasn't Leandro's concern. His main motivation was that Wren had asked to sit down, and that pushed him into motion. He immediately left her side just long enough to go deeper into the kitchen and find a small stool, bringing it back on one arm and setting it down next to her.
"Here, okay, sit," he directed her gently. "Don't worry about eating. I'll take care of this stuff." Once that was done, he stood back up and threw a piece of paper towel over the sandwiches to protect them from the open air, and then took a place behind the stool with arms crossed over his chest. Now maybe it was appropriate to press the guy a little. "So... Chester. You going to talk, or does the lady have to ask again? She did ask you why." He rose one brow questioningly.
Charlie watched the concern, the support, the way she turned to this other man for help. He didn’t like that. Or the air of protection emanating from Leandro. Of all the people Wren may need protecting from again, he was not one of them. He would never purposefully hurt her. Sure, he had lied to her, but only about the things he’d had to - and he’d been going to tell her, eventually, when everything had worked out. Only, they didn’t. They didn’t work out at all - everything had gone so horribly wrong and three years had passed and now they were both here and there was some guy with piercings and tattoos and a judgemental look standing between them, telling him that he had to justify himself when it was none of his damn business. This was between him and Wren. “I doubt I’m the first person to change their name when they enter a cult,” he said, focusing in on Leandro. His tone was short, his body language closing off as it so often did when his mood darkened.
Wren flinched slightly when Chester said ‘cult’. She knew, fundamentally she knew, it had all been explained to her at length, but he’d been a part of it. His tone, however, wasn’t helping her. But she doubted very much anything would help her right then.
When she spoke again, it wasn’t anything to do with his name. It was a little like she wasn’t quite following along with the proper flow of the conversation, and that was essentially accurate. Her thoughts were such a screaming mess, she was latching onto little things here and there that she needed to address, but they didn’t all fit with the flow of the discussion. “What happened to you?” she asked, voice very quiet, a little strained, a little hoarse. “Where did you go?”
At that particular moment, with the lines quickly drawing themselves in the proverbial sand, Leandro was losing interest in whether or not it was his business. What he knew was that he could feel that flinch from Wren below him. Something about it ignited his blood. He was starting to get mad, and when he got mad he instinctively made himself feel larger, joints out and chest expanded. He leaned on the advantage that he at least looked frightening. With Charlie's look focused on him, his grip on where he should intervene and what he should let go was beginning to loosen.
"Watch your words," he growled. How frustrating, that a guy who should have been on his hands and knees begging for Wren's forgiveness was throwing around sloppy vocabulary. Whether or not the place had been a drop in the bucket for him, it'd been Wren's whole life and apparently he knew that. Even Leandro knew that. It was, however, still just a warning. After that he fell silent again, sliding back out of the conversation just to wait for their mutual answers.
Wren’s words wrenched Charlie’s attention back to her and Leandro’s growl barely registered. Charlie’s body language to her changed, softening rather more. “I went to get help,” he told her, wanting to explain, but not wanting to get into things in front of this other guy. “I found out and I went to the cops. They didn’t believe me - and they wouldn’t let me go until after it was all too late. They wouldn’t let me see you. And then...” And then he’d found out that it was possible to be treated like a child, even when you were a grown adult. He had never felt so utterly helpless in his entire life. “I tried. They wouldn’t let me anywhere near you.”
Quiet, Wren let that sink in, even if she was still confused about a lot of it. But she didn't say as much. In the end, she didn't know if it mattered. She was glad nothing bad had happened to him. She'd been so worried about that, when everything had happened. "Why?" she asked, to his last statement. "And I went to prison...could you not have seen me then?"
There was no particular change in Leandro's stance just yet. He continued to simply watch, absorbing the change in Charlie's posture and his words. Police indifference, or even outright idiocy, weren't surprises to him at all. Still, he just felt... sour. His eyes tracked from Charlie to Wren, to keep an eye on her reactions.
“Why wouldn’t they let me near you? I guess at first it was because they didn’t want two people they were holding for the same crime to have a chance to get their stories straight or something. Then - then things got complicated. I’d been reported missing, and before I knew it I was being hauled out of the State.” And then, according to his doctors, he’d pretty much had a mental breakdown. Apparently that’s what they called six months of being able to do very little other than stare blankly at a wall. Then there had been therapy. Then there had been purpose. And she had been left along the way, part of that broken piece of him. “I can’t make this okay, Wren - I’m not going to be able to explain this in a way you can understand,” he told her, looking like he would like nothing more than to be able to do that. But, he knew her. He knew what she could and couldn’t grasp and this... Maybe, one day, he would be able to get near to something she could grasp. He hoped so, but he doubted today was that day.
"I'm not...I'm not stupid." Wren said, voice halting, and she wasn't looking at anyone, her eyes cast to the floor. "I know I don't have experience, and that there are a great many things I don't automatically grasp, but I'm not..." she trailed off. "Why did you go to the police? And you...I...they put me in prison for drug things." she told him. "Marijuana manufacturing and conspiracy to distribute." she recited, tone and cadence of her speech clearly practiced. "They were going to try you for the same thing, and things just...went to me?" She didn't know what that meant. How that worked. "I didn't have anything to do with any of that, Ches....Charlie." she said, the name clearly strange on her tongue. "I don't understand."
No, something about that didn't feel right. Leandro pressed his lips down hard, especially at what he perceived as the condescension towards Wren, Charlie's insistence that Wren wouldn't understand. Shouldn't he be willing to try her anyway, if it was so important? Wren had the right to know, so he thought, so he interrupted again with the inconsistencies that he noticed.
"That's an awfully long time to be hanging around in the system for drug charges, pal," he said skeptically. "You just got done telling me you were a first-timer now, and Wren's already been in. They didn't ask for your testimony, if you were being held for the same charges? Regardless of whether or not you were allowed to socialize, she'd have seen you at the trial. Unless you ran. If there had been a witness that could have saved her some grief, you'd think they would have dragged you up." Once again, he rose an eyebrow in question.
Charlie shot Leandro a dirty look. He wasn’t helping. But, of course, the guy had no reason to want to help - not him, at least. “The charges against me were dropped,” he ground out. “They wanted me right up until the point that my parents turned up screaming blue murder about brainwashing. Then you were the easier target. And yes - I should have been a witness at your trial. I should have actually been right up there with you. But turns out they weren’t so much looking for justice, as looking for someone to pin it on. And it also turns out that nobody much gives a damn what your opinion on things is when they can shout louder about ‘trauma’ and ‘shock’ and everything else that goes with it.” He paused for a moment, then took a couple of steps towards Wren. “Don’t think you’re stupid, little bird. I know full well you’re not. Just that I don’t really know everything that went down around that time, and I get how the system works - or, I thought I did. Mostly now I just think the system is fucking screwed up, along with everything that goes with it. Nobody cares, as long as they can stick a guilty sign on someone and sweep it all under the carpet. What happened - it was screwed up. It will always be screwed up. You deserved so much better than that.”
Wren looked up again, a miserably confused look on her features. "Your parents died there." she said quietly. "I found them, I saw them." she insisted. Her voice was starting to crack at that point, eyes welling up and tears spilled down her cheeks at 'little bird'. "I thought you would be with them, but they were alone, they were gone, and you weren't there, and...and...what do you mean your parents? What..." she blurted, her words tumbling over each other and she drew in a shakey breath, feeling like she was falling apart entirely now. She looked back at Leandro, wondering if he could help her make sense of this either, but he just looked mad, and he'd been sounding mad, and everything seemed to be cracking.
Seeing Wren's tear-stained face was like dumping a bucket of blood in the water next to a shark. Leandro was a mass of crackling nerves now, his fists balling, every fiber standing out throughout his bare arms. "Bullshit," he hissed. "Bullshit. They don't just dump witnesses if it means they can get another body. You got diminished capacity, didn't you? You took a plea. Or maybe you got immunity. What'd you do, snitch?" There was real venom over the word "snitch". "So that's why you're only getting to prison now. How'd you like the state looney bin? I didn't know they transferred psych ward patients. You must have said something good if they'd give it to you and not her."
When Charlie stepped forward so did Leandro, as if to try to freeze him in place with his stare. Ward him away again. Everything about him was not buying it. His fists felt like rocks, and the knife hidden in his boot glowed red-hot against his leg, but he was silent long enough to hear Wren's shaky breathing. It eased him down. He left it with one thing, "You're a lying son of a bitch, and I have my eye on you."
With that, he retreated to Wren's side, abandoning looking at Charlie or trying to unravel the rest. Leandro knelt down beside her stool, seemingly at heel for her. His hard hand opened into a soft palm, holding it out for her to take if she wanted. "I got you, sweetie. You're okay," he murmured close to her.
Charlie stood there, frozen as everything collapsed. As Wren started to cry and Leandro bit into him. His instinct was to clam up. To shut down. “I’m not lying,” he said, clearly. He had lied enough in his past, but about this, he was actually telling the truth. “Not about this. I didn’t snitch. I didn’t turn you in-” he almost laughed at the idea of that. “Wren, if there was anyone... There was no way I would even imagine that you knew what was going on... No.” He turned to look more at Leandro. “I’m here because they found me guilty of something else. They arrested me for something else.”
"What are you talking about your parents!" Wren broke in. She could find out about conviction later. She could find out what had happened, or what Leandro seemed to be latching onto later. She was sure he was getting to something, though she was having problems following everything. Her head was spinning, and she was thinking immediately that she was missing major things. But the parents thing was sticking out to her. "Jack and Mabel were dead. What are you talking about, your parents came to get you?" she said, wiping at her eyes, even if they kept tearing. Her voice was definitely ragged now, breath dragged in in gasps.
Not speaking again, Leandro reached his arm out and grasped around on the counter for the paper towels he'd left there. They weren't the greatest thing in the world for the need at hand, but it was all he had. He ripped one off with the roll sort of spinning on the counter a bit, and brought it down to offer to Wren to help dry her face. As he held it for her, he did look back up at Charlie now to keep him fixed in his gaze, awaiting his next explanation. Wren was apparently very concerned about his parents, and for this Leandro had no conspiracy theories.
Charlie really wished this conversation wasn’t happening. God, over the years he’d thought about seeing her again. Dreamed about it. But nothing like this. This was a nightmare, and he was handling it so very badly. But he couldn’t stop now. “Jack and Mabel weren’t my real parents,” he told her. “They were... friends. But not my parents. I had left home. My real parents had reported me missing. I’d joined... the commune-” he shot a glance at Leandro as he said that, stressing the wording subtly, and then looked back at Wren again, “With Jack and Mabel. As a family. The night everything happened - I had found Brian’s journal. I found out what he was planning. But he almost caught me - there wasn’t time to get any of you out. I was scared about what he was going to do, so I ran. I went to the cops. To try and stop him. Only, they wouldn’t believe me. Not some guy caught up in the drugs they suspected were going in and out of that place. I tried to get them to take me seriously. I knew what Brian was planning. In the end - I was just trying to get them to listen! I told them that I was trying to get out, that I had a family and my parents were probably looking for me. I thought it would help. Actually, all it did was turn me from a suspect to a ‘kid’ who had to be kept like a lost fucking puppy while his parents turned up to take him home! And they still wouldn’t listen to a damn word I said. I am sorry I left you, I’m sorry you went through all of that. It wasn’t meant to turn out that way. None of it was. It was never meant to be like this.”
And everything went quiet in Wren's head. The storm stopped raging, or she'd reached the eye of it, one of the two, but either way, she felt like the wind got ripped from her sails, and she felt a stillness settle over her. She mutely took the offered paper towel, and wiped at her face, wondering when the last time she'd cried was. A long time ago, that was for sure.
All questions that had been rattling around in the whirlwind died. She listened to him speaking, taking in the words, though she knew it would be a while before they made sense to her. In the end, she found herself calming down, tears still falling, but the sobs stopped. She was shaking a slight bit, but not overly obviously. "I see." she said simply, quietly. She got to her feet abruptly, and she grabbed the roll of paper towels up, crossing away from everyone to start mopping up Charlie's spilled orange juice. She got down onto her hands and knees, quietly cleaning the mess.
Nor did it make sense to Leandro just yet. He was far too suspicious to take it at face value before he had had time to find out more, kick the bits of information around until they made a roughly complete picture. He had enough skepticism of the police that it was maybe plausible, maybe, and yet his perception of their maliciousness still made him refuse to believe that someone like Charlie could just disappear into the system somehow. If he had, then it was an incredible insult against the both of them... but he had always known the hound of the law to be swifter than that. Too swift, in fact, and too quick to divide and destroy. Far less to ignore.
He folded his hands on his knee as Wren got up, watching as she darted away to clean up Charlie's mess. She must have been grasping now for something else to focus on. Maybe she was finished for the day. At that, Leandro stood up too, much more slowly, with the aid of pressure from his hands, and called to her. "Hey, let's give it a rest. We should go sit down somewhere comfortable. Maybe you'll... I don't know." It pained him to say this. He bit into his lip, but knew it was probably the right thing to offer it. "Maybe you want to be alone for a while."
Charlie took the scene in. He didn’t like it at all, but Wren was clearly upset, and he was the cause of that. Nothing he could say here and now was going to make that any better. “Maybe that would be a good idea. I should go. If - If you want to talk. Message me? Or I’m in room...” He thought about that, trying to recall the number. “Nine. I think. Over that way,” he told her, gesturing in the vague right direction. “I’m sorry,” he added, skirting round her. He should leave. It was the right thing to do.
The number nine bothered her, it wasn't a good number, she'd have to fix it, like she had her own. But she didn't say anything, sitting there, looking at the mess on the floor, the juice on her hands. She wound up saying nothing, just looking down at the mess. She knew she should answer, but she seemed to have run out of words.