wu_lo (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} wu_lo) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} rrinitiative,@ 2012-10-21 23:45:00 |
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Characters: Carmel and Wu
Setting: Night, Farmland (Block B) and in transit back to Wu’s room (23)
Carmel cupped her hands around her mug of hot chocolate, careful to keep it from jostling as the elevator came to a stop on the other, newer part of the facility. She was beyond tired at this point, and Cal's pills waited for her on her night stand, but she still felt the need to unwind.
The new farm area seemed to promise quiet and relaxation. She wasn't looking to get away, precisely, though away from the stocks was nice. She stepped out into the fresh night air, not sure if anyone lived over here yet or not.
She had a similar frame of mind compared to Wu, it seemed: he had spent his day seeing to his own affairs in relative silence, lurking around the corridors of the facility and confining himself to his room. Still, when night had finally settled in and he should've slept, by all rights? Wu couldn't. He only sat at his bed, hands folded in his lap as he stared listlessly off into empty space and let his mind wind itself tighter and tighter.
As he had that morning, Wu finally relented and left his room behind, hoping that perhaps he could tire his body enough that his mind would follow suit. So he had walked again, listening to the murmurs of life fade away as the others went to their rests. A stop in the gym had been a good start too, leaving Wu many steps closer to exhaustion, albeit still short. And with no other option but the threat of new space? He'd ventured to B Block, treading across untilled patches of land in bare feet and pausing long enough to draw in a deep breath. Farmland... it took him back across the years.
But a silhouette in the darkness shattered his fleeting peace, drawing Wu's eyebrows together in faint ire before he started across the grounds again, seeking to put space between himself and whoever it was. "Do not be alarmed," he said as he moved, "I will not linger here."
Carmel was tired enough to not be paying much attention go her surroundings, so when she caught sight of him and he spoke, walking away, she was faintly startled. As she recognised him, she felt a pang, wondering if his opinion of her company had changed already.
"Don't leave on my account, Wu," she called quietly after him. She had never spurned his company so far, and she saw no reason to start now. "I don't mind if you stay, and I won't be here very long."
Of course it would be her. Why expect anything to be simple today? Punishments abounded, from the literal sort this morning to the mental reminders that had flowed in his meeting with Jun-he. And why stop there? Why not throw in the woman who... he still didn't have a word for it. Tangled everything, perhaps, though that fell short. "I would not have expected any others so late," he said eventually, making no move to leave once Carmel had spoken.
It would have only been a momentary hesitation before he excused himself, if Wu ever stopped catching the details in things. But it was already odd for him to wander out here alone at this time, so for Carmel to do so? With what he knew of her past, and the conflicting natures of a woman who wanted to help but had taken revenge? It fit to imagine her feeling as restless as Wu did; exhausted but unable to stop and breath freely. It definitely made more sense with the simple signs of weariness in her poise. "It is a good time to explore, though. Quiet." No fights, no mockeries of community, just quiet darkness; Wu was utterly at home here.
Carmel gave him a warm if weary smile, taking a step closer. Her hot chocolate was cradled in her hands, warming them a bit though it wasn't cool enough quite yet at night to really need it. "I was hoping to unwind a bit before going to sleep. I'm so tired I'm wired, I think," she admitted, pushing her hair back behind her ear again.
She nodded in agreement. "It is. I looked over here the other day, but I thought it would be nice right now. No one really watching, no stocks in the yard, no stress..." She trailed off with a soft sigh. "Just darkness and growing things."
"Tranquility," Wu agreed with another roll of his neck, letting his head fall back to regard the darkened sky overhead. "I understand this. A fine counter for a restless mind." Really, he knew exactly what Carmel meant, though Wu wished he didn't. The moments of symmetry with someone so different were maddening things, he wanted them done and gone instead of being plagued with flickers of thought over her. "What spurs your thoughts and keeps you awake?" Wu asked then, frowning in the dark as he moved over towards her. He hadn't bothered with any more work in his outfit, still barefoot, still wearing the bright red shirt entirely unbuttoned.
Carmel bit her lower lip lightly, unconsciously. "Tonight, like many nights, worries of what I'll see behind my eyelids when I close my eyes," she admitted softly. She watched him come closer,and she noted his casual attire. Strangely enough, she didn't feel any restless fear, and she smiled faintly at him. "Dreams and I have a rather poor relationship these days."
His lips pursed thin at the admission, and after a long moment Wu just nodded in understanding. "You return to the violation," he ventured quietly, thinking it seemed likely. Such a kind heart wouldn't shed those memories easily, and even after the years Carmel had said she'd served, Wu was unsurprised at the idea that she still labored with her nightmares. "This is not right. Sleep should be a respite, it is the only one all man and woman share in common," he mused with a faint frown, surprising himself by wishing he could help somehow.
But even if he'd let himself, the bleary misery clinging to him made it unlikely that Wu could do much of anything. "So you walk, breathe in the stillness, and pray for exhaustion to silence your mind," he went on thoughtfully, nodding again, "In this, we are alike. I will hope for success for you." Which was entirely genuine of him, if only because Wu knew it was unattainable for himself, but wanted to know someone who actually deserved it could find peace. Even fleetingly.
"To that entire time, yes," she told him. She wondered if she should follow Cal's advice here and now, and confide in Wu. It wasn't an easy decision to make, even if she did rather like the man. Conversations were always interesting with him, though she wished she knew how to help him find a bit of peace, as well. She sighed quietly again. "It should be, but it hasn't been for a very long time. Needless to say, I don't like the dreams, and I don't like to disturb other people with my reactions to them." No, no one wanted to be woken by another person's screams, even if they couldn't control it. "Not even my ex-fiance could take them, after awhile." And Franklin had loved her. She knew that. Too much had happened, that was all. And he should have a normal life.
She nodded. "I try, yes. Tonight should be easier, once I settle down." Once she medicated herself, especially. She did not like doing so, but she would. "And I for you," she told him. "What keeps you awake, if I might ask?" she inquired just as gently. Perhaps she could help him, even if she couldn't help herself.
Her frankness was unexpected, if only because Wu assumed others would guard themselves around him. And even if Carmel hadn't yet, and really had done the exact opposite by reaching out to him before? Old habits died hard with him. "There must be a line, some division between what you will suffer yourself and what others may have to endure," he offered first, eyes glinting in the darkness. "For all you have done for the others here, you should not fear a night where they may be woken. You are owed that risk, it should be taken. Especially if you plan to continue such selflessness." Which was flawless logic to him; there had to be a give and take in her life or Carmel would give everything away and have nothing to face down her own demons.
"The dreams will come, yes, but whatever rest may be gleaned between them is vital. Take what you may, so that these nights become more rare." If they didn't, she would need someone to rely on, and even in a better mood Wu didn't think he could be that someone. Already some part of his mind whispered venom against this former fiance for the man's weakness and inability to support Carmel, even if Wu knew nothing of him. "It is never easy or kind to learn the limits of another's faith in you, or to see the moment when there is not enough for them to hold on," he said instead of the sharper words, "For that loss, with so many others to have touched you... I am sorry."
He took a few steps closer, idle as his bare feet moved across the soil and around one side of Carmel, just pacing for the time it gave Wu to sort his head out. "Many things keep me anchored here when I should rest," Wu answered eventually. "All that I have lost, the harm that will come to those who put faith in me, the chance to help my people that I will never have again... I was not a good man, Carmel, or a kind one," he assured her, "But those who took what I have built? They will make the city bleed, they will ruin the lives and trust of many women who have only those things left. I think of them, and believe I am the only one to do so."
"I suppose so, but I'm unused to drawing such lines," she said after a moment of thought. "People don't owe me for me helping them, not really. I enjoy doing what I do, for the most part." She hadn't enjoyed the stock thing today, but she'd made sure that they at least had liquids as well as the sunshade. She didn't really think of it all as selflessness, as he did, but simply the way she was and what she felt she had to do in life. "I just hate to disturb everyone." And to be seen as weak... she didn't want that. She didn't want to be anyone's prey again. Not in the real world, not in prison. She'd had enough trouble those first months.
"I've been trying to, but that alarm this morning took what little rest I'd finally started to get. Been too worked up since then to really relax. Finally got something to help me, but I wanted to try to calm a bit before I take it." There, she admitted it, though she didn't like doing so. She hated depending on drugs to help with anything, especially something that should be as natural as sleep. She sighed quietly, tugging on one of her curls that had fallen forward. Her smile, small though it was, was sad. "It wasn't his fault. The attack gave him his own demons to deal with. Especially since he's the one who found me, after. No one should have to see the one they love like that." Because she had been hurt, and half hysterical, after several hours tied and used. And she had cringed at those first touches, and been so ashamed she couldn't look at him. "But thank you. I appreciate it."
Carmel watched him, unruffled by his movements. She tilted her head slightly and listened as he began to speak. "You might not be able to help those people again," Carmel ventured after a moment, "But you can help yourself and others in the future, if you wanted." She believed Wu could have a future, and a good one, if he aimed himself in that direction and wanted it enough. He might not have been a kind person once, but he had been good to her, and she thought he could be good to others.
"And yet if you disturb no one, you tax only yourself," Wu pointed out neatly, folding his hands behind his back. "The goal of this place is a new life for each of us, and to claim it you must have something left to build that life upon." For him it was vengeance, and on days like these Wu wasn't sure it could sustain him, but he hadn't quit yet. He wanted to see that in Carmel, to witness one tenth of her spark surviving this and blossoming into something better in the outside world. And even if he couldn't see it? He wanted to imagine it was happening.
"You cringe from these facets of yourself. From the shame. You... you accept these failings as natural and accept the gaps they leave in your life. It was not his fault, this is true, but it was not yours either. To leave someone who trusts you so much in their moment of need..." Wu had killed men for that failing more than once. "All things may be overcome, even these. But they must be confronted, voiced, faced with the resolve that is only found in the presence of fear," he mused with a touch of his own resolve. "Dreams of what has been must be endured if you would have anything else."
In that moment, Wu wondered over many different things. He asked himself how long it had been since he'd been in a moment like this, if those moments had been even half as honest on his part, and if he'd ever wanted a positive outcome quite as badly as he wanted one for Carmel. He wondered if, maybe, she was half-right. Wu knew that he couldn't be a good man outside of this place, not with the necessary steps to reclaiming his throne, but inside of it? Perhaps he could be a good man for her, just in the ways she needed. Never in the ways he was starting to dream of. "Would you walk with me?" he asked somewhat abruptly, "There is something I would give to you, if so."
"So everyone keeps telling me," she said with a certain degree of ruefulness. "I am trying to claim it, it's just not always easy." She didn't know what she would do when she had a new life. She hadn't managed to give it much thought yet. No family of her own, not that she had the strongest of ties anyways... she didn't look forward to being alone again. It was hard to make a new life again and again. "I suppose I just don't look forward to having to rebuilt my life over and over again. Don't get me wrong, I'll do it," she said reassuringly.
"Well, aren't they natural?" she said softly, shrugging her shoulders slightly. Her head ducked a bit, though she wasn't hiding precisely. It was an uncomfortable topic, but she wasn't backing off. "It's not the fear, precisely. I am afraid, but I'm used to pushing through that." She didn't shy away from people, even men, most of the time. She still made friends. She had a life. She hadn't let the fear stop her. "Though I am afraid of reliving it over and over. I've never been one who likes to be helpless." She'd been self sufficient for so much of her life, that helplessness was her enemy. "And it is hard, to not have anyone anymore."
She blinked at the suddeness of his request, but she smiled and nodded. "Certainly. Where are we going?" she asked him curiously. She had no idea what he might want to give her. "You don't have to give me anything, though."
"To the other block," Wu answered plainly, studying her once more before he looked away. He had to just do this before his apathy and nerves won; he couldn't talk about it, couldn't even think about it if he was looking at her. "I know nothing is required or expected, but the opportunity is one best taken." That said, he turned to start back towards the elevator at a languid pace, happy to let Carmel set a faster one if she chose. Really, he'd prefer it. Wu hadn't taken a woman anywhere in ten years now, at least, not even for a friendly walk like this. And his mind? It was a blur of imagined faults on his part, of missteps he could take that would end with Carmel cursing him and him finishing a bottle of cognac in solitude. But even those fears couldn't stop the impulse, or the surge of positive reinforcement he felt when she actually smiled at the offer.
Carmel nodded and turned to walk beside him, keeping pace and not pushing it too greatly. It was nice out, though clouding up a bit, and she thought she smelled rain on the horizon. Not for the first time she wondered where they were, precisely. North, but not too far north; not humid enough to be near a coast, or any large body of water, so not near the Great Lakes, or in the Midwest. She suspected the northeast somewhere, though it was possible it was the northwest, for she hadn't been there and couldn't tell. She sipped at her half-empty cup as they walked to the elevator, and she pressed the button so the doors would open, if it was still there.
Gesturing for her to step in before him as the doors parted, Wu was nonetheless prompt to move into the elevator with Carmel, tucking his hands into the pockets of his cargo shorts after thumbing the button to send them on their way. For the entirety of the short trip to the sub-level, his eyes stayed trained on his bare and dirty feet as he felt the car hum with movement all around them. The sight was a tether to a very different life; one he'd abandoned before Carmel was even born, most likely. Still, the last time he'd seen his feet like that? He'd been living on the streets of Hong Kong for a month. He'd been eleven. And I am back to such low places, Wu thought despondently, looking up when the door chimed and opened.
Stepping out with an arm extended for Carmel, Wu waited until they'd both left the elevator completely before speaking up again. "I do not anticipate whatever our hosts will reveal to us next," he said quietly, all too aware of the reverberation the corridor had. "Relief first, then wonder over new additions, gifts to soothe us, then punishments. It strikes me as a game for them." And he would know, he'd played similar (albeit much smaller) games with his own men to encourage loyalty and have them sniffing out betrayals in their own ranks.
She wondered what he was thinking in the elevator, so quiet and self contained. He was one of the most self contained people she'd ever met, and it made her want to know more. She didn't like to pry, but she did ask questions on occasion. She had never seen him dressed quite this casually before. Even when working out, she thought. She really did want to do that again sometime soon. It made the day, and the work out, pass faster if she did it with someone who knew what they were doing, and who were pleasant company on top of that.
Carmel smiled at him as she walked out at his gesture. "I have no idea either. I'm honestly dreading it, most of the time. I don't like bribes." She was too upright a person, generally, to take anything in the spirit of a bribe. Here she had no choice but to take it, but she didn't have to do what they wanted, precisely. "Dividing us so much, too. Always so suspicious, when most people just want a new start. Leave all that, and our private mistakes and failures, alone. Behind." Move on to new things. Most people would stumble and fail some, but wasn't the struggle to get back up again--hopefully without anyone having seen you make the mistake, the stumble, plant your face in the floor. "Doesn't help me sleep any better, wondering what tomorrow is going to bring. How much more uncertain they're going to make anything." She spoke quietly, head inclined toward him.
"Bribes," Wu echoed with the faintest of scoffs, nodding in agreement. "This is an apt word for it. Rewards for good behavior, judgment for perceived faults." he still didn't know quite what had happened, and had never bought the offered "confessions" on the journals from Ryan or Caroline, but... "I am unsurprised by it all the same. This is an old gambit, to divide your foes and put them against each other," he went on, walking the hallway past the clinic with muffled footfalls in each step. "They must know the stress this causes with each new day. Perhaps these are the tests of this experiment," Wu wondered aloud as they drew near the other elevator. "Not so much tests we would think of, but static things. It is craven of them to ply us so," he decided with a note of harshness that melted like snow on a warm day when Wu looked to Carmel again. Something about the softness she spoke with and that slight angle of her head was too compelling, drawing one hand into a tight fist of restraint where it hid in Wu's pocket.
"Yeah, it is. But even knowing about it, doesn't mean it still doesn't affect a person." Just like people did treat her different, knowing she'd been raped.Not always, but most people did, if only in subtle ways. "They should. I'm not the only one who has sleeping trouble, I know, though who else I don't know specifically. It can't be just me that this bothers." Though some people didn't seem to mind the way others came and went. Carmel did, because it was her nature to befriend and become attached. Dom's sudden disappearance still ached. "I do feel like a lab rat sometimes," she admitted. She still didn't like the feeling, especially since she wasn't naturally terribly paranoid. "It is. I don't like it at all," she said. "This is some twisted maze, and we have only the illusion of control." She smiled ruefully as she looked up at him and then pressed the other button. "I mean, I know how to roll with the punches, but I like a little control sometimes, you know?"
Nodding at that, Wu was fighting to keep from staring at his feet again once they were in the elevator, working to keep his focus on her. It felt wrong to, though; it was too small a space to share and engage in. Though if Wu thought about it, he was already more engaged despite his depression than he had been since his arrest and the first bouts of misery. It was a lessened burden on his shoulders, and even if it was short-lived? That it happened at all meant that Carmel had definitely earned the gift he wanted to give.
"I have always had control, since my youth when I came to this country," he agreed, opting to share just a sliver of his past, "Surrendering it in Southport was harder than here, at least this place promised that it would be returned to me. But what I have seen here makes me believe that they have been honest with us on one point: we must become some manner of community, it is the only way to endure their tactics." And there were many of them indeed, a fact that honestly made Wu worry. He'd seen plenty to be concerned with in these first days, and that was the problem: it was only a week so far. Who knew what was waiting for them tomorrow?
"You were pretty young when you came here?" she asked, taking the opportunity to inquire deeper, though it was simple honest curiosity that shone from her eyes, a desire to know him better. "Yeah. I didn't like giving up what little I had left, but at the time it felt like what I needed to do," she told him quietly. She touched his arm briefly, an understanding gesture. She listened to him and nodded again. "We need to, but it's hard to when no one wants to come together, or distrusts others." It felt like they were being sabotaged. "Those are good words to gather people more together, though. Us against the admin, but that could just bring down more punishment and deprivation on us."
"They cannot punish us for solidarity," Wu pointed out with a little shake of his head, internally surprised with just how talkative he was being. His depression tore down some of the walls he guarded himself with, loosing his tongue even if he kept his composure through it. But more than the depression, it was her. It was a strange moment for him when Carmel reached out to touch his arm, a rare one where his bleakness actually worked in his favor. normally he would've shied from it or removed her hand, but now? He just let it linger there, looking her way with something unreadable in his eyes and silently committing the moment to memory. "If they do," Wu said at last, "It will only reinforce the sentiment itself; that we are oppressed in this place, and that unity will carry us through."
Still, he knew he'd left questions unanswered, and when the elevator brought them back up to A Block, Wu nodded again as the doors slid open. "I was sixteen, a stowaway on a ship that touched down in Delaware," he answered at last. "It is the fable of America, yes? The immigrant who comes to this country and finds his fortune?" Which Wu had done ten times over, though his methods of success weren't the sort most people would emulate. The body count tended to discourage that.
She snorted softly, a faintly jaded sound. Most of the time she could push those feelings aside, that wariness that the legal battle and then prison had given her, but sometimes it came out at the oddest times. "Can they not?" she said, eyebrows lifting as she looked at him. "While it would be counter-intuitive, they seem to be content to punish any transgression, admitted or not. And without specifying what happened." She shrugged again. "But you are right, in the end it would just serve to make us more cohesive. But can we get of one mind in the first place?" she mused aloud. "People seemed awfully divided this morning."
Carmel wasn't planning on pushing, when he didn't answer. She stepped out of the elevator, hesitating just to allow him to come even with her so he could lead her wherever they were going. "That is the tale, I think," she agreed, flashing back to a childhood movie on it. "The hope everyone has." The beacon that America was supposed to be, though these days it wasn't nearly so bright and shining. "And you did succeed, in your own way." Even if she didn't approve of that way, she knew how much work had had to go into it.
He paused long enough for them to fall into step together, shaking his head as Wu started to walk. "Divisions such as this close rapidly when survival takes precedent," he offered, absently reaching down to finally twist the lowest buttons of his shirt closed. It was definitely cooler out, and the change in temperatures between the sub-level and the courtyard was palpable. "I have closed such gaps myself in the past." He'd done the impossible even, unifying disparate gangs that had warred over ethnic and cultural lines, forcing them to work together for his own goals and raising all of them up. The Black Suns had recognized no nation as superior; the words of Wu Lo were their only doctrine. "But one of us must take it on themselves to speak such things, and I am no Mao," he said with a note of amusement. "Whoever it is, they would benefit from experience, from conviction."
Really, that made him an ideal choice for speaking up. The problem was that Wu just didn't care enough to. He could endure the games, the punishment of others, and the expectations of their overseers. After all he'd been through, what could these people do to make him submit? "I conquered," he corrected softly, head shaking at the term even if it was wholly accurate. "I achieved more than my father ever had, more than his proper children, or even their own children. But in ways that no one would speak fondly of. Still, this country forgets..." he trailed with a sigh, glancing into the darkness of the courtyard, "In another handful of years, Zhang Wu Ji will be a story at most; one that those who hear it believe to be grossly overstated." Reaching the stairs, Wu shook his head at himself again, glancing Carmel's way somewhat sheepishly. "Forgive me. So often, I speak of what I have lost without heed of your own burdens. You have plenty of them, I would not add another," he told her earnestly, some part of his mind reeling in shock at the genuine apology as Wu extended a hand to the stairs, asking her to ascend without saying as much.
"I don't know anyone I'd follow here," Carmel said quietly. "Dominic is gone, and I'm not quite leader material, for all I want to get some organization going." Had, subtly, by creating meals and meal times. But she had no illusions that she was leader of a whole place. Wu, now, he had the skills to do it, and she'd probably follow him, but she didn't think he was about to do it.
"There's nothing to forgive," she said easily, hand going up to squeeze his shoulder before moving just ahead of him to go up the stairs. "I don't mind taking on other people's burdens and problems. It's easier when shared. It's simply my own that linger and bother me, since I can't see the solution to them or the way to help them as easily as I can at least try to help other people." It was always so much clearer when she was trying to help someone else, and so much harder to confide in people, especially since the people she cared about had withdrawn or were unavailable to her now. "So please, speak all you want. I don't mind at all."
His problem was that the fires of resistance were gone, and while they'd so often kept him alive? Right now, without them, Wu felt exposed. His only salvation, bitterly amusing in some sense, was his resigned sense of himself in the world. There was no reason to respond to the hand on his shoulder either way, no sense in listening to either nerves or hope. And both were definitely present.
"People have been tested already," he noted, "The boy who rallied the yard, the young woman who brought the accused forth, and yes... yourself." She'd brought shelter and whatever comfort she could to Ryan and Caroline, and while it wasn't a mark of leadership? It was a mark of character. "Now it is a choice of who will speak, and who will be heard." And in any other moment, Wu would be reveling in watching it if nothing else. Contests for control were always delightful.
Walking up the stairs with Carmel, Wu frowned slightly over her other words. "There is no solution for some things," he said simply, topping out the stairs after her and starting for his room. "They must simply be accepted, navigated each day. It is a... handicap, of sorts, but life is not without merit because of them. To live at all is to dare achievement." It was a bare spark of zeal, but still something more emphatic than he'd had yet today.
"I wasn't quick enough on the ball to help with that episode this morning," Carmel said ruefully, obviously regretful that she hadn't been able to help. "Hadn't had any caffeine." And she'd had her head in the water under the sink, at one point, since her sleep had been so rudely interrupted. "Me?" she said, surprised at her inclusion. "All I did was put up the sun shield, and someone else would have done it eventually, I'm sure." Though it had been a neat bit of MacGyvering on her part, she thought, though that was perhaps vain of her. "At this point, I have no idea who will." Reminded her, she needed to put up a chore roster. She'd been meaning to and meaning to.
"No, but sometimes a burden shared is a burden halved, and so that in itself is a help," she said, following his lead toward his room, which she didn't believe she'd been to specifically yet. She found herself listening and nodding in agreement. "It is one day at a time, sometimes. To plan for more is very daring for me at times. I don't know what sort of future I could have, at this point." Not with everything she'd worked for gone, and her potential future, even if she got out of here, compromised. She'd always hoped for a family, and children, at some point, but her age and her problems were against her in that already. She liked to see him enthusiastic, well, as enthusiastic as he got, though. "But finding something in each day and each moment, it gives promise and hope for the next day and moment."
His lips pursed thin and tight at Carmel's last words, the closest to tangible amusement Wu could get right now. They couldn't be more different. For him, what was found in each moment and day was focus, preparation for vengeance. Even in this grey-washed state, Wu still had that focus. He would live or die against his betrayers, but not here. Not as a prisoner. "Plan simply for the possibility of more," he suggested intently, "Not specifics. For the idea that this will pass," he said with an errant nod over one shoulder at the rest of the facility around him.
And it sounded good, it let him remain close to this woman who was so sharply contrasted from him; almost hopeful, purely intent, and strong as Wu was thinking Carmel could be. Reaching his door, Wu unlocked and opened it, reaching in to flick the light switch up. Any similarity to the other rooms in the facility only made the contrast sharper with the reveal of flowers everywhere; bunches of them that sat in vivid displays of color, perched on his desk and by the edges of his bed, pooled in impromptu glasses of water around the floor, and even wreathing the door of his closet. There was no apparent order to the bundles, roses with orchids and lotus blossoms surrounded by wildflowers, but so much of it in one place? It was a sight, at least to Wu. "You may choose from among them," he offered quietly, not daring to look Carmel's way and instead just drinking in the visual splendor.
She couldn't quite read that expression on his face as she glanced over at him. "It will pass," she said, looking at him curiously through her lashes for a moment. He was one of the most unreadable people she'd met, and she wished she knew more of what he was thinking now. "For both of us," she added, because sometimes she didn't think he was planning for much beyond here. And for some reason she really wanted him to. She liked him. She wanted more for him than it seemed that he wanted for himself.
Carmel stepped forward a bit as he opened his door and moved out of the way. Whatever she'd been expecting--she'd been clueless--it hadn't been this. All of these flowers, a profusion, an explosion of color and scent and beauty. "Oh, wow," she said, feeling a bit dumb once the words were out, but she felt lucky to have managed words at all. "These are gorgeous, Wu. Truly." She stepped further in the door, absently setting her cup down so she could gently touch some of the velvet smooth petals, leaning down to take a deep breath of a few of them. She hesitantly took an orchid, glancing over at him, enchanted by the purple color on it. Then an iris, and a couple other flowers, not wanting to disrupt the beautiful profusion too terribly, but touched, very much so, at the gift of this bit of beauty. She knelt to touch but not take one, looking up at him. "Thank you," she said softly.
With a nearly imperceptible nod as he watched her move among the flowers, Wu felt better for a moment. Satisfied, as if the day hadn't been so unbearable if it could lead here. "It was a staggering amount that were delivered when I requested them," he explained, "It made sense to share what I am able. I have long been accustomed to fresh flowers each day, and to have them again? Soothed me." At least for part of the day they had, while Wu had tucked himself inside and trimmed his flowers down. "I had thought perhaps they could do the same for you. To be reminded of the vitality of the world... it is a thought that holds bleaker things back for another day," he mused, still lingering beyond the door of his room. Some part of him feared how Carmel might take it if he entered; if confined space with a man would unsettle her fears. And another part? Wasn't sure what Wu might end up saying.
She ahhhhed in understanding. "Well, rather have too many than too few," she said with a grin. "And I appreciate you sharing them. They're lovely." They were incredibly soothing, and uplifting, and she could see why he had requested them. They were definitely something that helped. She tucked a daisy behind her ear idly, looking among them. "You're right. They are vital and uplifting." She tilted her head back up at him. "What else should I choose?" she asked him, gesturing at her small bouquet, not wanting to take too much, or something he was especially fond of. She gestured at the rest, inviting him and his recommendations closer.
"I have always been partial to chrysanthemums," Wu encouraged slightly, taking a few steps into the room. He bent low as he passed one bouquet and another, plucking free flowers in white, red, purple and blue and gathering them together. "They compliment others, bring fullness to a bundle, and if dried properly can be brewed into tea," he explained as he offered them over, still stubbornly keeping arms' length between himself and Carmel. "It is what I appreciate them for, their ability to soothe on many levels." That, and old memories that were bound to them. But there was no dwelling on those memories as he watched her slip the daisy behind her ear, studying the play of Carmel's curls as they fell around the flower. "Also, perhaps bluebells?" he suggested, slipping a stalk of them free and holding out the heavy blossoms as they bent the stalk faintly. The color suited her, though he wasn't about to say so.
"Chrysanthemums usually last awhile too, don't they?" she asked. God, how long had it been since anyone, let alone a man, gave her flowers? Years. Probably even a year before she was arrested, or more. She and Franklin had been pretty settled in their relationship by that point, and he hadn't often come home with such gifts. Indeed, it was probably Darren, her business partner, who had last given her flowers. "I always enjoy mums, in the fall when people have them all over the place," she mused quietly. "They're in the same family, maybe. I'm not sure." She took the flowers from him with a smile, adding them to her bouquet with a careful eye for balance, though she'd rearrange them again, probably, when she got to her room and found something to put them in. There might be a pitcher in the kitchen... "Oooh, bluebells," she said, reaching out for it with happy grin, dipping her head to sniff at one of the blossoms briefly. "It's like you brought spring into your room," she said, knowing it was silly and whimsical and saying it anyway.
He couldn't do this, couldn't maintain himself in the wake of that smile. It was making everything worse for Wu as he finally recognized just what the impulses he'd been feeling were. They wouldn't be indulged, they had to be ignored. "It was difficult to bring so many here," he offered lamely, untrusting of anything else he might end up saying. But it was true, at least; he'd been mindful of scrutiny the whole time, not to mention awkward in trying to juggle all the bouquets. And in many ways it had been worth it to bring them up, this moment more so than others. "But I am pleased that you appreciate them. Please, do not hesitate if you would like more, either today or another day," Wu continued, "Perhaps they will serve to help you rest." Which was doubtful; flowers couldn't erase trauma like hers. Still, he would offer them and more just for the possibility.
Carmel levered herself up, lips twitching faintly at her lack of grace. Old woman, she thought with mild asperity. She carefully gathered her flowers in her arms, cradled in them to one side like a baby. Looking around at the sheer amount, she nodded. "I bet it was, there's so many of them," she said. It would have taken several trips at least, she thought, and possibly he would have been self conscious about it, though the man was so self contained he certainly wouldn't have shown it, she thought. "They'll brighten my space at the least, so if I do have trouble they'll be something cheerful to look at," she said, grateful for the offer. Impulsively, before she could think and remember that he was aloof and might not welcome it, she went over to him and rocked up on her toes, pressing a kiss to his cheek and then smiling at him as she eased back, hoping he wouldn't be upset at the gesture. "Thank you," she told him again. "It's been a very long time since anyone has given me flowers."
'Upset' wasn't quite the word, though the contact was startling in a way that Wu couldn't prepare himself for. He could smell her with that proximity; the scent of her hair and the faint aroma of flowers in her arms, the hint of her breath, tinged with whatever she'd been drinking. He could feel her in that close moment, some mixture of the tension Carmel fought against and relief threading it, appreciation perhaps. He was too aware of everything about her, and it hurt to even know that. There was a faint tremor in him when she kissed his cheek, eyes shut tight for the moment of contact as Wu knotted both hands tight as his sides, resisting the idea that maybe she would welcome his touch. And even when she withdrew? He could still feel faint heat on his cheek, imagining a mark there.
It was madness to think there was more, he had to remember that. And focusing in on that belief was enough to flutter his eyelids back and let his hands uncurl as Wu looked to Carmel again. Here, he was helpless against the nervous twitches in his cheeks and lips that were the beginnings of a smile he couldn't hide, though it never fully formed. Still, the suggestion of it was plain to see, and in Wu's case he was lucky in strange ways. For so much of his life he'd seldom smiled, only ever in vicious moments of celebration and triumph or, from time to time, private displays. He'd kept some measure of youth in his face as a result, smooth and unlined serenity that was fleetingly buoyant with the near-smile before it faded and he nodded. "That should not be," he said finally, touching on Carmel's last words. She deserved them daily, in his mind; only a fool would have a woman like this in his life and not thank her for her presence regularly. "And you are welcome. They suit you," he added lamely, bewildered after that close moment and finding himself at a total lack of words.
Carmel sensed his tension, but not the cause. She hoped she hadn't offended him by kissing his cheek. You never knew, though hopefully he would tell her if she had. He seemed the sort who would be upfront about that, at least. She stayed close, though hoped she wasn't too far inside his bubble. He really did have that aloof sort of thing down, though with his past, she couldn't say she blamed him. It had taken awhile for her to get used to that kind of thing in prison, and grow her own bubble.
The shadow of a smile he gave made her grin a little more broadly, reassuring her a bit that he wasn't upset at her. She wondered if she'd be able to earn a full smile again; she still remembered the last one. It had been a delightful surprise. She hugged the flowers to her slightly, pleased that she'd nearly gotten one out of him. She ducked her head slightly, still grinning. "You're too kind," she said in response to the compliment. The flowers had buoyed her mood up, and she knew she'd sleep well for at least a little while tonight, having gotten a nice, surprising gift. "I should let you get on to bed," she said, pushing her hair back, letting her fingers linger on the flower there. "But will you work out with me tomorrow? I got some stuff to help teach a self defense class, and I wanted to figure it out, too."
Despite her offer, sleep wasn't coming any time soon. Wu's body was getting there, sure, but his mind? It was more active now than it had been all day, or possibly even in the last year of his imprisonment before coming here. Turning everything over and over, it was picking at the moments that had literally just happened, dissecting and analyzing each second in search of anything that would verify his feelings of doubt. What was he supposed to do if he found nothing? Start daring to dream?
"Tomorrow?" he eventually managed, jaw setting as Wu considered the request. He knew he wasn't going to be back to full speed so soon, that it may even be worse tomorrow. But if he didn't listen to his own doubt, if he didn't finish the bottle of cognac alone tonight? If he just looked at this evening in it's own light? Maybe tomorrow could be better. She probably would've liked to hear that, too; it seemed like the kind of sentiment Carmel would approve of, but Wu said nothing about it. "In the afternoon, if that is agreeable," Wu finally agreed with a nod. "I have other matters for the morning, but would... I would like to join you, yes." He could've refused if she wasn't so close, so locked in her smile and perfectly half-hidden by her own hair. This was a problem.
"Yeah, tomorrow," she said with a nod, curls bouncing slightly. She'd worked out a couple times the last couple of days, but it hadn't quite been as nice as that first work out where he'd been in there too. She didn't look at anything too closely right now, but she could enjoy each moment, and see what happened next. She didn't even know what she wanted for the future yet, let alone what simply tomorrow would bring. But this moment felt right, and she would enjoy it. "In the afternoon is good. I'll keep an eye out for you, or just flag me down or whatnot, when you're ready." She was very pleased that he'd agreed. She beamed at him slightly. "I'll look forward to it."
So would he, though that got stacked on the ever-growing heap of things Wu wouldn't say. And his agreement for tomorrow wasn't going to help that, either. He'd have to compose himself, to make sure he could frame his mind in a way that both dealt with his depression and reined in the impulses and feelings that were throwing him for a loop. Drinking or meditating, one of the two might work... "I will speak with you tomorrow, then," he agreed with a curt nod and a rapt stare, taking the chance to commit that beaming expression to memory. "Rest well tonight, Carmel. You deserve no less," Wu offered in what was apparently a goodnight, stepping towards his door once again to see her out. Then? He could let the mask fall apart.
"Rest well yourself, Wu. And thank you again," she told him genuinely, reaching out once more to squeeze his arm as she passed by him, getting a little more comfortable with the action as time went on and he didn't pull away from her every time. She'd once been a very affectionate person, and this place was starting to bring it out of her again. Albion had been much more foreboding in many ways, and no one seemed to want to appear affectionate toward anyone, lest it be seen as weak. She flashed him one last grin as she left his room and headed down the hall for the stairs. She'd take a pill, or at least half of one, and lay down, get some real sleep, but not before she put these in some water so she could enjoy them for however long they lasted.