Leandro Reyes (wentupinsmoke) wrote in rrinitiative, @ 2012-11-22 01:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | day nine, leandro, leandro and wren, wren |
Soothing the Break
Characters: Leandro and Wren
Setting: The greenhouse, Block B, Morning day nine.
The turmoil had cleared somewhat in Leandro's mind like a break in the rain, clouds of doubt still swirling but a high peak of clarity somewhere beyond it. He was still riding on tension - especially that that came from throwing away his cigarettes - but he thought he knew what to do now. Maybe. As far as he ever planned. His dream from a night before clung to the corners of his mind, his mother's whisper just barely there as he went over what he thought he would do now. He was going to be better for her. He'd try harder. He'd survive with more strength. He wouldn't make the same mistake as the girl the morning before, the one he had almost made some months ago that still scarred his mind.
And in that moment, he would not let someone else he came to care for wander into that dark place. She too had escaped it once before, but depression could be much like a nightmare monster; no matter how fast you try to run it is always faster. The person Wren had been in the kitchen was not the person he’d come to know amongst the plants, and it wore on his heart that it had been his fault. She relied on him, and even if she had been the one to walk away, it felt as though he might as well have done it himself.
Regret was a new emotion for him, and it consumed all of his thoughts on the way to find her. He went to her room but it was locked and silent. Was she with someone? Where would she go? He only knew of one place she loved in the entire facility, but would she brave going there by herself, and in the rain? Maybe. Maybe not. It was better than wandering aimlessly. If someone was there, maybe they would have seen her. Leandro found himself soon enough in the big, empty room just after the elevator doors to Block B. He stood there for a moment at the window, watching the rain pummel the plants.
Among those plants was Wren. She was still looking everything over, still trying to see what sort of mess they were going to have once the rain stopped. She wasn't positive the area was going to drain properly. She ducked into the small greenhouse, looking out at the situation with a light frown on her features. It was going to be messy later. Though, really, she was a mess currently as well, so did it matter? Probably not. It did give her more to do, she supposed, checking everything over once the rain stopped.
She did realize that there was little else she could do while it was pouring. But she didn't know where else to go. She didn't particularly want to go to her room and sit around looking at the walls. She had considered going and listening to music, but that just made her feel worse. It made her think of Leandro, and all it did was highlight the absences in her life then. It was a terrible thing, when one realized just how small the world was, and how much more empty it felt with the loss of people.
The air outside was too murky to see very clearly through it, and Leandro missed seeing the brunette head amongst the wet greenery until she stood and moved to the greenhouse. He followed her with his eyes until she was fully inside. The sight of her out in the rain made his head make up stories on him. Could she be so sad or aimless that she would really spend her day in a storm? Did she not care if she got sick?
With a bit of forethought, Leandro took off his hoodie and wadded it up into a tight ball. He tucked it tight to his stomach to keep it warm and dry as he left the empty room, breaching the threshold out into the weather. The rain quickly soaked through the short side of his hair and his breath was steam through his nostrils, but he made for the greenhouse at a steady pace. He dodged inside, the glass door making more noise than he had anticipated. It startled him, leaving him standing awkwardly with his sweater, the only thing on him left completely dry, hanging off his fingers.
"Um... Wren...?"
It startled Wren as well, and she whirled around, tensing. She blinked when she saw it was Leandro. She didn't expect him there, for some reason. She'd just been thinking of him, and there he was. It isn't Fate. she told herself firmly. "Should I leave?" she asked, that being the first thing that came to mind. If he'd come to look around the greenhouse, and he wanted her to be elsewhere, then she should go.
Other thoughts barged into her mind as well. Was he there to tell her Caroline was her fault? Was he there to make sure she didn't say anything again when it came to anything the group was meant to do? Both? Neither? She didn't know, and that lost feeling translated into her expression very clearly.
Leandro stared even more awkwardly for a few moments. He was looking over the way Wren's hair was wet, the way she too had the sheen of water over her skin.
"Um, no," he finally murmured, with a little shiver running down his arms. The rain was cold. "I wanted to see you, actually. Here, you're... kind of wet." They both were, but nevertheless Leandro held out the hoodie he had protected to her. "You'll catch a cold if you stay like that. Why are you out in the rain, anyway? Were you in the other block at all?"
And had anyone told her that someone had died? He didn't know the name of the person, but it seemed like something everyone would be talking about given enough time.
Confusion was the most prominent thing in Wren's mind then. She wasn't sure what was going on. He didn't seem angry with her, and that was what she had been expecting. She stepped closer, and looked down at the hoodie, sort of noticing at that point that they were both soaked. She took it, looking uncertain. "You're looking wet as well." she told him. "I...you wanted to see me?" she asked.
"I was over there earlier, before I moved, I...I know Caroline's end may have been my fault, you don't have to tell me. I understand now." she told him, words speeding up. "Chester, he thinks the same things, I think, as you do, you two should speak, I think you would get along very well and you have outlooks that I think would line up well. But it's okay now, I'll stay out of things, I promise." she said, by the end kind of rambling.
"Yeah, it's..." Leandro withdrew his hand after Wren took his hoodie, turning it up to jut his thumb back over the door. "It's kind of bad out. I hope you don't plan on hanging around."
It was mostly a distraction from getting the point of why he'd come. He thought he had a plan. He honestly did. But with his feet nailed to floor and his mouth full of molasses, he wasn't sure what to do anymore. He bowed his head when Wren told him the name of the person who had died, recognizing it for the controversy it had caused. So the girl who'd killed herself that morning was the same girl who had been in the stocks. No wonder Wren looked so confused. It seemed she blamed herself.
Leandro shook his head slowly. "Nah, don't... don't say that. It wasn't your fault that she decided to do a thing like that. If it had been me having to sit in those stocks, I wouldn't have killed myself after. That's a choice she made. Being out of here was worth everything else in the world, so... what can you do? It's done now." He shrugged ineffectually, the statement perhaps sounding more numb and resigned than anything else. Shortly after he'd first heard about it in the first place, he had resigned not to be too distraught. People made choices. It was what they did. "I know Chester... erm.. Charlie? I know he thinks in certain ways. I talked to him yesterday, during that time that people were supposed to be voting. But... Wren..." Here was the hard part: coming around to the dreaded subject. Leandro scrunched up his face and rubbed at the back of his neck. "It's not like you should just disappear... you don't have to "stay out". You have rights too. Like everyone else. You shouldn't be afraid to say what you mean."
His assurance that it wasn't her fault didn't ease that suspicion in her mind. To her, she was never going to know if she'd not put the woman in the stocks if she'd still be here today. There were always consequences for actions, and she would never be certain her own hadn't led to that outcome. He didn't look very happy. It was concerning. It wasn't just the rain, it was his mannerisms, it was everything else. It made her want to sit him down so he could be more comfortable, maybe get him a towel. Something.
After he was finished speaking, she didn't say anything right away. It took her a long moment, where she looked off at a middle distance, not sure how to respond yet. "Y..." she started, giving up and she attempted again. "You didn't really want to know how I felt. I see that now. You didn't really want to know and I told you, and then things went very poorly. And I talked to Chester...Charlie...he told me it sounds wrong for me to call him Charlie, so I should call him Chester, I apologize for the confusion." she said, back to rambling with her words. "But I spoke to him, and told him about my plan to stay out of things and he made no move to disagree with that assessment. He doesn't believe in me either. I'm not to be trusted." she told him, believing it.
Leandro's look at Wren was one slightly blank, churning behind his eyes as he tried to process everything she said. His skin was growing a little clammy with the moisture evaporating off of him and his arms instinctively wrapped high around his chest.
"I didn't mean it personal like that," he tried first, with both of his shoulders lifting up towards his ears. "I wasn't thinking about it personally at all. At least not between you and me. I thought that was something we did. We talked about stuff, even hard stuff, and I thought you knew that, you know, because we were talking and not screaming or something that we were still okay. I never told you to leave. You left me." It was his turn to take on that mark of pain, though he showed it in a different way. His came through in scrunched eyebrows and thin lips. "It's a little shitty that we were struggling through an issue and you're hurt that you think nobody liked your actions. I didn't think it was supposed to be about that. When shit happens, you fight like hell to survive and that's about how it goes. Good, bad, fuck-up, success, if you're still standing at the end then you did something. So yeah. I guess I wasn't really thinking about feelings. At least not ours. I didn't think it was that important that we feel nice and gooshy. I wanted us to have done the right thing. I definitely thought you could be trusted to do that at least. I never doubted your intentions no matter what you say about how much you don't know."
"You think I'm a monster. You were speaking, and talking about how it all was, and how what I said made everything even worse. I imagined you would no longer wish to be associated with someone you saw as being terrible." Wren told him, still not seeming to take offense to the idea, more that she was explaining things as how she'd viewed them. "I made you lose faith. One should not force their presence upon another if they have done something that awful." she added.
She also looked confused. She wasn't quite sure how to take what he said, wasn't sure she understood it. There was only one thing she thought she could clear up. "I'm not hurt that no one liked my actions." she told him. "I never asked for anyone to like them. I never even said I was right. I said I did what I had thought was the right thing to do. They aren't the same thing. It wasn't about my actions, and it was never about anyone agreeing with me. It's about not having a voice. You only want to hear you. You don't want to hear me. Chester doesn't either. And when the two most important people in the world don't trust you, don't want to hear your voice, you shut up." she told him. "Which I have done. You do understand that you win, do you not? You said if you're still standing at the end...you're still standing. I am not." she asked. "You get your way. You both do."
Leandro shook his head sternly. "I didn't call you a monster. You didn't understand me. I was talking about the kind of person who'd just do as they’re told to save their own ass. The kind of person who doesn't demand proof when the higher ups call for someone to be punished. I never imagined you were that selfish." Nevermind that Leandro thought he knew some who were that way. It stung to have found out, to watch people divide themselves on that day and to see so many fall into the camp to call for blood. Their narrow world felt that much more isolating. It had made him begin to doubt many of the others around them. But not Wren, not until the moment they really disagreed. He pulled another struggling face, this time two fingers coming to rub at the bridge of his nose.
"Look... we didn't win, Wren. We lost horribly, him and I. I'm not sure anyone else was with us, but whatever. We lost the moment those two were clamped into the stocks and left there. It's because he and I were after a different kind of goal, and apparently one the rest of the crowd wasn't ready to pursue. If they ever care to. Now I pretty much doubt it. We were willing to take the risk that we'd get smacked down if we stood up to the staff. We were ready to fight, and not just for ourselves but for those who couldn't stand up for themselves either. But we were alone in that. So we lost. Believe me, I have plenty to be sorry about and that's just one thing."
For a moment he went silent, just ducking his head. He knew that he was going down a path he hadn't meant to. He had come to make some sort of amends, to comfort her, to encourage her back, but the way to that had been so long lost to him that he didn't remember how. But he knew the fight and the familiar thrum in his chest when one reared up, and even if he didn't acknowledge it it gripped him. When he spoke again, he said a little less steadily and through his teeth, "I didn't mean for you to get caught up in it too. I would have kept you safe if anything had happened. No... I didn't want to hear you because I wasn't ready to give up. That's what it felt like I was being asked to do. Avoid speaking out, avoid violence, but for what? To live like what?"
She hated to see him struggle like he was, though she still wasn't positive what she could do about it, or what more she could do to help. She tried to listen to everything he had to say. Staying quiet until he was finished, she tried to be sure she processed everything. "I am not the kind of person who does as she's told just to avoid being punished." she said, not sure if he was still putting her in that category or not. So, she just said it for clarification. The rest of what he said, however, had her stepping closer. "You don't understand. You won now. I'm very sorry that you feel like you lost. But no one else was standing up. I'm not entirely certain anyone else would have gone through with things like I did--but that's over now, I'm over. I won't do anything like that again, I will stay away. I understand now. I'm...wrong." she insisted, reaching out for him.
It was awkward at best, as she wasn't sure how to go about it, but in the end she took his hand and squeezed it, giving him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. "You don't have to protect me. And next time...it's okay. I'm quiet now. I promise."
The more Wren tried to reverse the roles Leandro expected, to comfort him and to tell him he was right, the more frustrated he seemed to get. He bristled when she touched him, his hand twitching beneath hers. The rage in him welled up sour in his throat and screamed at him to yank it away. His head turned toward the clear glass wall and focused his gaze there as if to pierce right through, watching the plants for a moment, trying to remember his resolve. Though they were dark and a little bruised by the rain, they were all beautiful like nothing he had ever seen before. Even still, without the benefit of a fond imagination, he could just see his mother amongst them, pouring her steadiness onto them so that they rose in perfect symphony with their cycles. The conscious reminder calmed him. He resisted the urge to pull away.
When he re-engaged with Wren, he had visibly ramped down a touch again. "I told you. I didn't mean for you to stay away, or stay quiet. I just don't understand how, in all you have to say about doing the greatest good, how you didn't think about our future here. I don't understand why you thought it was the best thing to avoid any conflict. I mean yeah, it's scary. But you have to admit.. you didn't trust us either. You saw us out there, working on it, and you didn't say a word to us. Not that it surprises me. People not trusting people is like a fact of life. I don't trust anybody, really." He shrugged just barely with his opposite arm. "But I guess you laying down now and shutting up feels even worse. Feels very false. I don't even really believe that it's for me, or Chester. I think it's you and your fear, but I don't begrudge you having fear either. Just that there's a time to face it. This is the wild world now, out here. People who believe that everything can be solved without fighting are usually in for a rude awakening. Even amongst friends. But my point being... you don't lay down and say whatever. You get on with it."
The second Leandro twitched when she touched him, she immediately took her hand back and backed away from him several steps, feeling like she couldn't stop doing things incorrectly. It reinforced her idea that she was plain old Wrong, on a lot of levels. She was hit with a wash of intense self loathing, and she felt sick to her stomach.
"It wasn't you I didn't trust. I don't trust--" she started, but broke off, shaking her head, and looking down. "It doesn't matter what I thought. I was wrong." It didn't matter if she tried to explain her reasoning when clearly it wasn't the right way to view things in the first place. Her instinct to explain wasn't going to help matters. "I trust you. I trust Chester. You both--you both feel like I am wrong. I trust your assessment. It isn't for either of you. It's the logical move with what I've been presented." She was quiet a moment. "I am sorry you feel things are false. I'm not lying to you. I won't put a hand in anything. You two can do what you feel is right. You are both very very similar, and should speak, get on the same page. Perhaps you could work out a front together. Get others on board. Take a stand before it's the middle of a crisis." she told him. "I don't understand what you mean by laying down and saying whatever, or getting on with it. What am I meant to be doing?"
With distance from Wren, Leandro could fully feel the way he stood, even beside her, alone. He was rarely actively aware of the spiky aura he wore about himself, since it was so natural, but that simple action had briefly brought it into his consciousness. He regretted it for a moment, but the more he became acquainted with this emotion "regret" the easier it was to chuck it too aside. He was still marching blindly through his own thorny path, plan abandoned for now.
"I don't want to have to tell you what to do. Don't you see that? If that's what you're gathering from this conversation, then I don't know. I just don't even know. I don't really know what you want out of other people or yourself and it's pretty confusing." He tried his hardest not to make that sound accusatory, rolling the words between his lips with tension. "But fine. I really do want you to explain. I want you to try, and to not just give up on me or people or yourself. I don't really want to start coalitions with Charlie. I don't believe in that shit anyway. Things happen and I react, and I like it that way. But you and the other thinking people... you have sort of a theme. You have a way of talking about how much you care about everyone else and then treat yourselves the worst. What happened to learning about the world and stuff? You don't think that's going to be part of making decisions like this?" Slowly but surely, he felt like maybe he was rounding back towards what he had intended, though the harshness was still present in his words. Hope didn't seem to be completely lost just then.
Wren covered her face with her hands, squeezing her eyes shut. Inside her head, everything seemed to be screaming. She felt like she was awash in a sea of confused impulses, none of which she trusted. "I didn't understand what you meant, I was asking for clarification, you said to get on with it, I don't know what I'm meant to be getting on with!" she said miserably. "I don't want anything out of anyone! I just wanted...I felt like we connected, you were the first friend I made since I left the commune, I made friends with you, all on my own, and now it all seems fucked up," she said, not even catching that it was swearing, something she never did. "And nothing I do seems right, I tried to tell you my point of view and that was wrong, I step back and you seem unhappy about that too, I don't know what to do anymore. I feel like nothing I say or do is right anymore. I don't trust me anymore. I have nothing to say. I have nothing of value. I gave away my runes, I keep thinking I should give my cards to Kyle, he would like them, they're artistic, because I shouldn't be 'helping' anyone. I'm not..." she broke off, though it was because she had to gasp in a shakey breath.
She swallowed, and tried to calm down, but she could feel herself shaking. Abruptly, she was freezing. The water soaked into her clothes, all of a sudden it hit, like she felt everything too keenly. "What I've learned about the world so far is that I shouldn't be a part of it. Not even this world, which is smaller, and should be less terrifying, but it's not, it's just as scary as everything else. And I'm sorry. I don't know how else to tell you you're right, and I'm sorry. But it just seems to make you more mad."
Leandro's pulse hitched when Wren covered her eyes, afraid that she was crying again. It had been such a shock the first time. He took a step forward again, his own conflicting impulses fighting for control of his space; he tried as hard as he could to look at her and let that one laced with sympathy win.
"No, hey--" he started, but she changed direction and started talking again. He didn't expect it and it startled him. Leandro stayed in place after that, not daring to confront the wall between them from over which Wren's words ran.
When she was finished, he took his turn. "We are friends. And yeah, friends disagree sometimes. It's not always perfect. But right now its like you want to throw everything away because me and Chester didn't like something you did. If we're really friends, we wouldn't just ditch you because of that. You know, it doesn't seem to me like Chester stopped talking to you, and I came all the way over here to find you."
He sighed heavily then, raking his fingers through his wet hair and leaving it in sloppy pieces against his cheekbone. "I did hear you. No matter what you may think, I heard your reasoning. And I don't think you're a bad person. I don't want you to give away your stuff, or stop using what motivates you, unless the truth is that now that you don't have to do it anymore you don't want to, but that's another story. If you can remove every other reason why you're obligated to use your runes or your cards and you still want to? Then you do it because of love and you shouldn't stop even if it turns out its not an infallible thing. Isn't it your guide, or something? Why would you give that away? That'd be like me giving away my tattoos." He laughed softly at the absurdity of the idea.
When the breath ran out from his laugh, he finished with a slow shake of his head. "What I mean by getting on with it, is not letting this whole thing take away our Wren. If we're going to hang out with you, it'll be because of you, the person who's learning stuff and developing now. Why would we want you to stop because of one bad event? You haven't been out in this world long, and yeah, there is a steep learning curve, but you'll figure out how to make it. Even if you decide you'd still do the same like you did with the stocks next time, at least maybe you'll have our ideas mixed in with yours. I mean... I guess I'll be more careful about who I volunteer up for a fight."
He still didn't understand, that much was clear to Wren. He still wasn't hearing her. Which just made her feel more frustrated, though it also felt like the internal pressure in her eased back. She gave up. It felt even more like her voice didn't matter. Like what she said wasn't valid, like it made no sense, because it probably didn't. Never in her life had she had such trouble being understood. It reinforced the idea that her voice didn't matter in the first place.
Her urge to explain again, to try to get him to understand that it wasn't anyone disagreeing with her that triggered this, it was the utter dismissal of her on top of specific reactions from both Leandro and Chester that did it. That urge sank back into the deep waters she felt like she was drowning in.
When she spoke again, her voice held the defeated quality that she was feeling. "It isn't because of you two not liking something I did." was all she said.
Leandro had expected a bigger response for everything he'd said, having worked himself up pretty well and letting out a lot. It was a strong effort on his part, but the way Wren just sank even further make his own stance wilt. His shoulders slumped, hands sliding into his pockets to match the hang in his head.
"Then what?" he asked, having nothing more to try. Whatever had hurt her the most, he was running out of ideas on how to fix it. At least, good ones.
"With you, you didn't want to hear me. I don't care if you don't agree with me. I'm okay with being wrong. I'm okay with that because I trust your judgment, more than I trust mine. But you said things to me, you told me how you viewed it all. How you viewed the circumstances, and when I shared my perspective, you said...awful things, about someone who would think things like that. I accept being wrong. But I don't feel differently. I just know I'm wrong now. There's a difference. I lack the higher understanding. Knowing I'm wrong means I will take steps to not continue to make mistakes. I will no longer weigh in on things. But it doesn't change who I am, it doesn't change how I think. It just means I'm going to take myself out of the equation."
"You said the words, that you'd had faith for half a second. I killed that. You said you'd rather die like a man. And nothing you've said to me then or now shakes my belief that the only way you can see in your world is through violence. And if that's all you know that will be all you receive. That terrifies me. That you're going to...go that way because that's how you want it, when it could be done some other way and you simply don't want to try. I am not a person who is built for violence, as you witnessed yourself." she said, making a motion towards the bruises still prominent on her face.
"I have gotten off point. I'm sorry." she said, realizing she'd said other things in there that didn't have to do with what she was addressing. "You two not liking what I did wasn't upsetting. What was, was everything surrounding it. I have never felt so...devalued. So dismissed. I've never felt like some...disconnected idiot with nothing to say worth hearing before. But that's how I feel now. And that is not all your doing, so please don't think that I'm blaming you. It isn't your fault. I hold no ill will towards you, whatsoever. I even miss you, even if it's not been long since I walked away. I'm grateful for your trying to make me see the errors in my view. But all those things that you said, all that...hatred you hold in your heart, you're talking about people like me, Leandro. You might not have said it directly, but I heard you loud and clear. You wouldn't walk away, because you're a better man than that. But I care about you too much to force you to be around someone you hold that much contempt for. I can't imagine why you would continue to wish to be in my presence. If you have an argument for me, I will certainly listen. I'm more lost right now than I have ever been in my life. So if you have something for this, something I can't see? Please tell me."
Had that really been true? Did he not want to hear Wren? When she said it so certainly, Leandro had to ask himself about it. He stood silent and motionless for a time, considering. He'd been very angry, yes, and he had condemned a certain type of person in no uncertain words... but had he really meant Wren? He squinted hard at that, at her, as if to try and see through that demeanor of hers that he found so sweet and to the inside where that type of person might lurk.
"No," he said at last. "When I was talking about those things, I never meant you. I would have never said you were a coward, or that you didn't care about defending others, or worst of all, that you were only interested in saving your own hide. You're not like that, so how can you be what I was talking about? Look, I was really mad, and I was concerned that letting everyone off the hook enabled those people who were like that to keep on being that way. That it's going to become okay to be a shit, on the ends of both the staff and the people in here. You know how fast gangs and mobs can form in prison, especially without guards to intimidate people? Of course you do. That's what you were trying to stop. But imagine if a mob had formed in the other direction? A mob of people unwilling to let anyone stand up for themselves in case the staff deigns to show up for once and smack people around."
Leandro huffed a breath and stared down at his toes for a second. He didn't really want to spread around the motivation for his anger at that type of person, in case it came back to him, but it seemed like he couldn't avoid explaining further for her. When he looked back up, his face was drawn in an expression of reluctance. "Look... I don't normally like to talk shit like this, but I really wasn't talking about you. I was talking about someone else I'd had a fight with right before I went outside. He was actually doing what I said, being a coward and even telling other people to shut up, and he really made me mad. I didn't want to give him squat, let alone the pleasure of getting his way. It's like he had no conscience. I just don't like the guy. Would you be okay with that? Honestly. I didn't think you were the kind of person to go along with no reason. Maybe with reason, but not for no reason, and definitely not because it's inconvenient for you to do what's right. If you can say that, then you're not the person I was talking about."
At the last, Leandro sunk his teeth into his lip and looked away at the window again. The greenery had a way of capturing his gaze. "Nobody chooses a world of violence, Wren. It comes to you. It doesn't leave you a choice, either. You either fight with it or it kills you. The real world is ripe for lots of truths but that's been mine. I miss you too, because you're outside of it. I don't have to worry so much with you, and it's a nice break. You're soothing. But yeah, you're right. As you can see, not everyone's going to think as I do about it... and you can't really change them. Not all of them, not all the time. I still want you to be you, but you could do with accepting that some parts of the world are just naturally violent and the best preparation is to protect yourself."
"If people did that sort of thing, I would have been inclined to do my best to get in their way." Wren told him. Just because she had her own beliefs didn't mean she didn't know all about how things went too far. She knew it all too well. But, much like Leandro, she wasn't going to neuter it just because it may head in that direction. When he asked the question, she didn't really have to give it a lot of thought, because it wasn't something that required it. "I'm not okay with anyone not being allowed to have their say, so him telling others to shut up isn't okay. But he's still entitled to his opinion too. But I never do anything without reason. I'm not a creature of impulse, even if I've been told I need to learn how to do that. It isn't natural for me. I always have my reasons. Just like I'm sure others do too, and I like knowing what theirs are. One thing I do know about the world is no one can see it all. No one can look out, and see everything, and know everything. There is always going to be some input from someone else that will be of merit. An alternative point of view, a piece of information you didn't have before, so on and so forth."
Wren exhaled. "I think we both know I did nothing out of the idea that things would be convenient." she said, again motioning to her face. If she'd done what was convenient, she would have done nothing. She wouldn't have done anything she did. The path of least resistance hadn't been what she'd wound up doing. And it had never been a motivating factor, which Leandro seemed to understand.
She had to pause a moment, him introducing a concept that while she was aware it existed, she'd never personally thought. "I've never considered changing people." she told him honestly. "I...what I always did was give them what guidance I could, and it was up to them after that. It was never something I aspired to do." She also looked down, then pulled her sleeves up, the wet cloth seeming colder on her skin as it bunched. She showed him her scars, even if she knew he'd seen them before. "I know the world can be a violent place." she told him. "I remember. I'm not naive to that fact. I just don't think I've ever seen it achieve anything. I know my view is limited. But in prison, I saw people fight, but no one ever really won. Or if they did their victory was short lived at best. I would understand it better if I could just see how it helped anything." She looked at him, knowing he would have a better answer. "Does it?"
It wasn't long before Leandro had an answer to her question, his eyes like black stones disguising the roiling behind them. His mouth curled sourly over the words. "No. It doesn't usually help. It's a means to an end, and it's absolute. That's the appeal to it, for those that do it. That's the thing, though. Once it's been done to you, it doesn't give you a choice of whether or not you want it. I know you felt that, when you were on your back on the ground having the crap beat out of you." His eyes went cursorily to her scars, knowing very well what they were and what they meant. He was very familiar with those. "You didn't have the choice to rise above being beaten. It's what was happening to you in the moment, and you either make it through or you fall to it. It's not really violence that's the way of the world then, but that. That shit happens and you react to it. It's not stable out here, or easy, and only the most powerful people get to change it. But if you get lucky, you get to cling to little bits here and there."
He shook his head then, as if he'd lost all the taste for his own words, and fully turned away. He was wandering towards the window to put his warm fingers on the cold glass. A steamy sheen formed on the clear surface between them. "Every once in a while I think you might have been lucky not to have to face it for so long. Maybe you're at a disadvantage now, but you have your memories."
It seemed that what she had said about herself reassured him at least in some measure of his trust in her again. He was speaking personally once more, and without the bite of the previous moment. "I don't have that many. Just a few. But I hold them very, very close. Do you remember about two days ago, when you pulled a card for me? You gave me the Hierophant, and said I might get something from a dream. I had a dream and that's why I came out here."
Wren listened to him, taking in every word, even if she still wasn't sure why he was so on board. She wasn't even sure it sounded like he was, deep down. She saw his eyes tick to her scars, and she looked down at them herself, turning her arms over, showing them all.
"I don't think I would want to be powerful, if that was how I had to get it." she said first, though it was just a statement, no reflection on him. "My memories...they're...jaded. Jaded because of what I know now, and...I feel so stupid, sometimes, Leandro. That I just..." she trailed off, sighing, because it wasn't the point. "What was your dream?"
Leandro glanced over at Wren with a small, crooked smile. It wasn't a happy one, but one of recognition. "Yeah. That's right. I mean, look at me. Bottom of the damned barrel. I don't have the guts for it." He looked away again then, as if he was barely present in the room. As if his mind was really out there in the rain. "Maybe they are jaded. So are mine. But they still exist. They still have that clarity to them, kind of a purity. Something that's not coming back again, I know. But at least it existed even once."
It was a long time before he said anything more. Though his body was still, he wrestled with himself about what he wanted to say, if anything. Talking about it, about her, was like coughing in church. It was breaking a kind of sanctity, doing something inappropriate. Still he felt the need to make it up to Wren, make her see that even if his life had been shaken by violence that he himself was not like the other boys who had never known anything else. He, amongst so few others, remembered love.
"I was having a dream about the most beautiful woman in the world," he murmured softly, almost hypnotically. "It was storming a lot like it is now, and I didn't like it, but she was holding me and telling me not to be afraid. She's my High Priestess, and I felt like I wanted to be what she told me I was. Sometimes I don't remember her well, so I don't remember what she said to me, but then sometimes she's just there, clear as a bell. Like she's burned into my mind."
Wren was pretty sure her past didn't quite include 'purity', though she didn't argue with him either. She was more interested in listening to him. She got closer, walking up next to him. Her eyes were on him, watching his features as he spoke. She felt like she should have been able to suss out who he was talking to. "Who was she?" she asked. Clearly someone incredibly important. Her own voice got softer in response to his clear reverence.
Leandro broke his gaze with the window to look down at Wren. He focused on her face, her curiosity. He greeted it with demurity in a slight shake of his head. He could not make himself go that far.
"Someone who loved me," he explained quietly. That was enough. "It wasn't always like this. I don't know if it can be again. But look... what you said, it made me come out here and face you. You reminded me of her, and thinking about her makes me better." His smile came back but it was, like his gaze, not all present in the room. "I haven't even smoked a cigarette since. I'd hate to see you give what helped you do that away. I didn't think that when you did it, you were just doing it because you had to. I really thought you felt it."
Wren accepted that explanation, still wondering who it was, but the most important part of the issue was given, so she felt no need to try and press him about it. She wasn't sure how to take the comparison, that she reminded him of that person, but she felt honored. She hoped it was a worthy one, and she hoped she lived up to it. She did feel slightly lost at the end, though, so she asked for clarity, wanting to fully understand. She didn't want to miss anything he was saying to her. "When I did what? And I really felt what?"
"When you took that card for me," Leandro added when Wren asked. "I hope you weren't doing it just because it's what you know to do. I hope you really felt into it, like you loved doing it, and I hope you'll change your mind about giving it up. It's too bad you can't draw cards for yourself, or else maybe you'd feel better about some things. If it were me I don't think I could resist doing it anyway. But whether you think so or not, you did what your cards managed. They guided you in what to say but you made the connections and they were meaningful to other people."
There he smirked softly, maybe a little fondness creeping in. "As much as I like Kyle, you know he's not going to be able to do with them what you can do. To him, they're going to be pictures. Maybe he'll make incredible expressions out of them, but they won't be like what you'd do. Give up the absolutes, sweetie. Just because your vision's not foolproof doesn't mean all is lost. Faith doesn't belong in the cards. They belong in your intuition and the energy you put into them. If that's the part you doubt, then fine, but you know how you make that better? You keep trying. It's a process."
Listening to him, she desperately wanted to latch onto it all and say yes, she could go back to her cards. God, but she wanted to. It had been so hard for her not to run and get them when Adam had been feeling so out of sorts. It was her first port of harbor when she knew people needed answers. "Why should anyone listen to anything I have to say?" she asked. "I...I've always believed, and I've stopped believing I was a prophet, or anything of the kind, but I still believed in them, but..." she drew in a breath and let it out slowly. "I don't know." she said miserably. She looked up at him, really wanting to know what he thought, how he saw her, or how he felt about things. It was important to her.
Thinking about it seemed to push Leandro back into the present moment. It took him away from the window, turning to face Wren again and meet her eye.
"You're being too hard on yourself," he said. "You don't have to be a prophet or have all the answers to try to say something good to someone. Being wrong once or a million times doesn't discredit that you've ever been right. There are perfectly average human beings who are just as dedicated to making the world suck a little less. Maybe what you need is to stop thinking about how to fit into the mold," He paused to lift one hand and gently tap her chin. "And start thinking about where you would be happy. Screw anyone else and what they think. If people come to you and like what you say then nothing else matters. It doesn't have to be magic. Now you can live in the world of practicing what you love every day, getting better gradually, and taking risks."
He smiled a pale smile briefly, shifting his weight to let his arm lean against the cool glass to refresh himself. "You know, the most profound person I ever met was just a doddery old man. Good old Padre Pablo. He preached in a run-down church in the middle of the city and he knew what happened around him, but he was always out there at every night at the soup kitchen or midnight mass, and if you ever needed to talk at any time of day or night you just went to his quarters and he'd always let you in. He never wanted to be anything other than human, because that's how God made him. He'd never say he was more special than anyone else. He just said he took his job because he wanted to spend his life listening. Listening to God, listening to people." Leandro shrugged slightly with his free arm. "It made him happy, and he did well."
Wren wasn't sure how to articulate how she was feeling. Words failed her. But she listened to what he had to say. It had never occurred to her to tell people something good. She'd always concentrated on the reading and what it was telling her, which wasn't always great. It was more about helping people for her than placating them. She didn't argue, because she was going to have to think about that long and hard. She also didn't mention that she wasn't worried about being wrong. So far, people didn't really tell her she was wrong about anything. Or, at least, she wasn't that she knew of.
The tale of Padre Pablo, however, that really resonated with her. She liked the idea, and understood it entirely, about spending a life listening. It made her smile a touch, something that was more sure than she'd been looking since the conversation began. "I like the idea of listening." she told him.
"Good," Leandro agreed once it was apparent that Wren was looking better. He nodded with satisfaction after that. "He was a good man, and he meant a lot to our neighborhood. I hope he's still out there doing well. You could do the same, if that's what you felt meant the most to you. So... Promise you won't give away your cards just yet?" He broke the space between them one more time to lay his hand on her shoulder.
Wren paused, then nodded. "I promise." she told him. She'd been having a hard time thinking about doing it in the first place, so maybe she should just not for the time being. It was probably sound advice regardless.
Leandro smiled for her, hoping that if she saw him perking up that it would make her feel a little more secure. "Hey, listen," he started again, taking a step toward her. He lifted his hands and placed them both on her shoulders in a cautious squeeze. "I promise I won't ever be freaked out enough not to be your friend, okay? We can fight like cats and dogs but don't ever think about disappearing again. You're more than a few opinions. And you know what? One time, I asked you if someone else could read your cards for you? Why don't I do that for you? We could do it together."
She smiled at that, and nodded. "Okay." she said. "I'm glad our friendship isn't so fragile." she said. She'd still need time to get past things, she needed time to process, but she felt slightly less awful. Maybe it would all be okay.
Leandro let his smile linger at that, giving her shoulders one last smooth over with his hands before dropping them back into his pockets. He shrugged vaguely then, lowering his chin for a moment. "Thanks, I guess... for talking to me. I'll get going and let you relax, but I'll come and see you again. Whenever you want, we can dig into those cards."
"Soon. Maybe this week sometime, we can kind of make time for it." she said. "And when we're both dry." she added, since if they stood around much longer all soaked it probably wouldn't be good for either of their healths. She smiled. "We'll see what it is you come up with for me."
Leandro nodded gently. "Fair enough. Send me a message or something. I'll come back over to see how you and the plants are doing." Smirking, he brushed away his wet hair and added, "Maybe I'll see if there are any books in the library for me to practice with. I'll make sure I give you something good. See you then." He turned to go then, tenting his hands over his head at the impending downpour outside.