It's exactly a week and three days later when she comes back. He's not counting or some bullshit, but he's just picked up a fresh harvest, and has no trouble keeping track of that, at least.
She's haggard, and he can tell that she's been fighting this since the first hit wore off; maybe because she can't pay, maybe because she's afraid of getting addicted. She's probably told herself that she obviously doesn't need it, it's been over a week, and-
"I just, um, need something to take the edge off, you know?"
Her eyes beg him to understand. He just smiles, a generic expression that for some reason makes relief wash over her face. She should probably be gauging her patterns of behavior by somebody who isn't a drug dealer, but, then again, it isn't really his problem. He hops off the dumpster easily.
Somebody- he can't remember who- told him she'd been locked in her house all her life. Then her father died, the only person she'd ever known, and now she's stumbling around like an abandoned puppy. He sighs a little, inwardly, at that. She won't last long.
Shame.
"Cash first, sweetheart."
"I- I can't… I mean, I don't have any…" she stutters, a deep blush staining her cheeks.
He catches her eyes, and it throws her off guard, but not nearly so much as when he taps her chin playfully with his knuckle. "Sorry, kid," (and he knows he sounds it, because he perfected sincerity years ago) "I gotta eat, too…"
It's a good line with the younger ones- it humanizes him. Building rapport, he'd heard it called.
That tremulous, dead-eyed smile crosses her face again, and this time it's edged in desperation. She twists the hem of her sweater in her fingers, then catches herself and looks up at him through her lashes, hiking it up an inch or so. "I- Maybe there's something else I could do?"
Her voice wavers, and the blind hope in her face makes him feel like he's been punched in the gut.
She hasn't got a goddamn clue what she's offering.
It shouldn't matter. It hasn't stopped him before, and she could do a hell of a lot worse -he's no sadist- he could make it good for her. He opens his mouth, preparing to accept her offer, when his eyes meet hers.
Oh fucking hell.
Big dark eyes, doe eyes, looking up at him like he'd hung the fucking moon, begging him not to steal the stars away, filled with such resigned horror that he can't rip his gaze from hers.
"Where you sleepin' tonight, kid?" comes out instead, and if he could stare at his own brain incredulously, he would.
She tilts her head, confused and maybe a little suspicious. "What?"
"I said, 'where are you sleeping tonight?'" he repeats, enunciating a touch sardonically.
"I, um… why?"
"Because it's fucking freezing out, that's why."
Following his logic, she still looks more than a little shocked, and the barest hint of a frown crossing her lips, but she shrugs slightly. "Dunno."
"Don't you have a house?" he asked, wondering why the hell she wouldn't just go sleep in a proper bed, a house with heat and probably a full pantry.
"I can't go back there. It's too- it's too quiet. I just… I can't." she mutters, staring at the ground.
He nods. "Well, congratulations. You just got yourself a room for the night."
"Are you, um…?" she's completely at a loss- she had obviously expected to blow him in an alley, get her hit, and be done with it. Now he was offering her a place to stay? She looks wary, even more than before, about to say no-
But she catches a glimpse of the blue glow, faint from the inside of his pocket and nods mutely instead, eyes fixed on him like she's in a trance.
They're halfway to a motel before he realizes that he hasn't got a fucking clue what he's planning to do with her. But something in him rebels at the thought of finding her corpse in the morning, frozen, or worse. It's somewhere around where he figures his conscience should be, and it twinges. She's just too damn small.
Flickering greenish streetlights throw weird shadows onto her face, and she almost looks like a ghost.
