Tomorrow I officially go back to school, which is unfortunate to say the least. I keep hearing how this is going to be my hardest semester yet so I am really going to try and keep up with this story but I don't want to make promises I can't keep. However, I do have twelve chapters pre-written so I am going to scale back to every other day uploads which will get us through the middle of February. I hope you all enjoy the chapter and I will see you all on Friday!
Raven's POV
There's some slight Deja vu waking up on Wick's couch. The sun is still high in the sky, promising her that the entire day hasn't been slept away this time. There's a weight on her left hip and a fogginess in her brain. (The one thing she notices there isn't is a pain in her leg. She almost cries in relief that for once she feels like she's not weighed down by the near constant ache.)
She runs a hand down her face and pushes up on her elbows, looking down to find the source of the weight was Wick, folded over and using her less than comfortable hip as a pillow. It wasn't an unpleasant pressure, she thinks, more like a comforting anchor to hold her where she belonged.
The fondness she feels for this stupid boy with his grand ideas and ridiculous jokes is greater than she ever thought she would feel for someone again. It had been forever since the last time her heart swelled with affection for someone. It had been a lifetime since she'd felt a quickening of her pulse and a warming of her skin because of another person. It had been an eternity since she'd had someone look at her like she was not just good enough, but she was a first choice.
Out of pure desire and happiness and instinct she reaches out, curling her fingers through his too long hair. It was softer than she'd imagined. The hairs slipped through lose grasp, and she smiles, tangling her hand further into his hair as she lies back down and stairs up at the ceiling.
He grunts and stirs, his hot breath against her hip as he snuggles his face against it. Raven wishes she doesn't love the feel of his stubble on her bare skin or crave the feeling of his nuzzling nose. Closing her eyes, she absorbs every touch and caress, all too aware that soon real life will come crashing back in and she'll have to let this go. People didn't touch Raven Reyes. She didn't let them. And she certainly didn't ask them to.
It's obvious the minute the smallest form of consciousness returns to Wick. He bolts up, probably realising for the first time that he was nuzzling the exposed skin of her hip and waist. The movement must be painful as he groans, hand reaching up to rub his sore neck. "Damn," he mutters as he shifts it from side to side.
Raven smiles, pulling her body up into a sitting position and stretching her arms up and out. Her legs are still thrown across Wick's lap and she points the toes of her good leg in a stretch, the bum one lying there useless, as per usual. "You know, this is a pretty decent couch you have here," she tells him, half expecting a cheeky comment about trying out his bed in return. He must worry about boundaries though as he doesn't answer.
The moment is awkward between them as they both try to regain their footing.
"Sorry," he mumbles, clearly still half asleep. "I didn't mean to fall asleep on you."
She waves him off because she misses the warmth and also because she can't actually say that. "Don't worry about it." That's as close as she can get to an admission.
He nods, looking to the clock under the TV, it was nearly two in the afternoon, and then standing. He walks over to where she threw her brace last night and holds it out to her in offering. "I'll go find food," he says whilst she yawns widely.
"Wait, Wick," she stops him when he's only three steps away. He turns back to face her, eyes still glazed over and posture still loose and sleepy. It makes her lips quirk. "I need to ask you a favour." They were some of her least favourite words but she remembers their conversation last night and she revels in the absence of pain in her leg. It was worth a shot, this whole concept of letting him help. At least, here in this moment of their own little utopian life that consisted of sleeping on couches and massages.
It doesn't take a genius to recognise the dopey smile on his face or the way his eyes soften as they watch her. She tries not to feel the effects of his gaze but it's damn near impossible. That look…she didn't know if anyone had ever given her that look before. "Anything."
It would be so easy for her to turn it into a joke. Saying something ridiculous like, try not to burn the bottom of my pancakes this time or pass me a towel so I can wipe all your damn drool off my hip, but instead she garners her courage. "I need you to take me home," she says, the words weren't in the same context as the last time she'd been here. By the end of the night she had felt so stifled as she fought back every hope and dream and fleeting brushes of joy. It was exhausting fighting the good so she needed to escape back to the bad. No part of her was exhausted currently. She was well rested in a way she hadn't remembered feeling in so long. "I think I need to go check on my mom."
She doesn't want to label the passing expression on his face as relief, but it's the only word that comes to mind in that moment. "Of course," he says with a nod. He runs his hand through his hair and immediately moves to go put his shoes on.
"We can eat first, idiot!" she calls after him, securing her brace tightly and trying not to think about his reckless abandon when it comes to her.
He offers her a sheepish grin when he walks back over, feet only half in his shoes. His shirt's still all twisted around his body and the hand he ran through his hair made the situation worse, not better. "Well unless you want to eat hamburgers for breakfast, I suggest we go out."
She laughs because he looks like a six year old who's stumbled out of bed on a Saturday morning in search of cartoons and because he doesn't understand that she'll eat anything at just about any time of day. Hamburgers would be more than sufficient, but that sentence would only make him sad so she holds it back.
Pushing herself to her feet she steps out cautiously, walking over to where he stood and taking it upon herself to reach out and tug his shirt so it fit him properly. Then she stands on the tiptoes of her right foot to reach up and muss his hair. "As if I'm going into public with you looking like this." She tries to joke but has to pull her hand away after a minute. She looks up at him through her eye lashes as she settles back on her flat foot. Though she doesn't stumble, Wick's hand reaches out to steady her. "I'm good," she promises in a whisper.
"I know," he answers in a way that sends her everything out of rhythm. Pulling away she clears her throat, hoping it will equally clear her mind.
"Well then you should also know that your breath is abysmal." He rolls his eyes but she catches him checking it as he walks down the hallway to the bathroom. Running her hands down her face Raven tries to collect herself. Too fast, she thinks as she considers his eyes and his hair and his lips. She wasn't ready for any of that. She wasn't looking for someone to love her like that again. She'd been loved once before and it had ended with a crack and a snap. Someone who had been so endlessly dedicated to her just forgot everything they had in favour of making something with someone new.
In the past she'd been on the receiving end of loving gazes and gentle touches and the sort of commitment she always thought must be fake. That sort of love had a way of tainting everything. It ended whatever goodness came along with it in favour of further destruction. One can't feel that strongly without things shifting.
"Ready?" he breaks her out of her thoughts as he re-emerges from the bathroom. He stops to blow his breath in her face in teasing and she wrinkles her nose in disgust, though he smells of nothing but mint now. "Are you happy now?"
"Please," she says with a dramatic flourish of her hand as she works to get her foot into her boot. There's some comment lingering on the tip of her tongue of how his stupidity is the highlight of her day, ready to poke fun of the time that he suggested they shift the fixed engine mount ('Jesus Christ, Wick, did they not teach you basic vocabulary in that engineering school of yours?') but the words die off. Because they're a little too true to be spouting out in jokes first thing in the morning. Instead she bends over to zip up the side of her boot and takes her coat that he offers out.
The opening statement dies out. The only words that came to her were either to true or too much of a lie.
The cold has become so routine that Raven doesn't even flinch when they get outside. She hoists herself into the truck with relative ease as he turns the engine over. "Sissy," she mutters when she sees how he trembles.
"Excuse me for having basic physiological reactions, Raven," he retorts, holding his hands up to the heat vents even though the air blowing out is as cold as the wind outside.
"Do you want my coat?" she asks in a mocking pitying voice. He flips her off and throws the car into reverse. She laughs, forgetting her anxieties as he drives towards her home.
"You should grab your work clothes while you're there," Wick suggests and she tries not to focus on the fact that he knows her schedule without her ever having told him. "That way I can just give you a ride from my place."
A smile finds its way to her face once again, wiped away when he turns into the trailer park. For the first time in what feels like an entire lifetime she cranes her neck, trying to catch a view of where the boy she once loved used to live. She didn't even know if his parents still lived there. A part of her felt guilty for not keeping in contact. A bigger part of her knew she couldn't have even if she'd wanted to.
She forgets to answer him, her thoughts consumed with what waited for her inside. It was the eternal struggle warring yet again. Hope to see a living, breathing body; fight back the disappointment when you do.
Though she doesn't say for him to, Wick unbuckles his seatbelt and climbs out of the truck, following after her. She doesn't miss the way his eyes scan the property or how he lingers half a step closer to her than he usually does. Once again, he seemed to know things she hadn't been able to tell him.
It was a familiar pattern, her fast beating heart as she slid the key into the lock, her directionless prayer that if something terrible has happened, she won't be in the cross hairs. Even the way her hair stands up on the back of her neck is common.
With a push that consists of more strength than she has, she opens the door and peers through, head poking into the living room before she swung it all the way open and stepped inside.
No one's lying on the couch; there isn't a body on the floor. There is, however, still a pile of cigarettes and she hopes Wick doesn't question how damn cold this place still is. He walks in behind her, his eyes looking around in a completely different way than hers did. She was checking for signs of death just as much as she looked for any semblance of life.
His hand rests on her side as the two of them fully enter and she tries to remember that he's attempting to comfort her, nothing else. He's smart enough to remove it as she walks further in. The kitchen is in its usual state of disarray. A bottle of Whiskey sits on the counter and a collection of dirty cups sit in the sink. There's a line of white powder on the table and she tries hard not to consider what Wick is thinking when he sees that.
"Wait here," she tells him, hand wrapping around his wrist for a second before she walks away down the too tight hallway towards her mother's room. The door is cracked but no light comes through it. Taking a deep breath she looks inside.
There's just a singular small form, huddled beneath the less than sufficient piles of blankets. Raven notes the space heater is off and she isn't sure if she should be glad that it wasn't left on to burn this place to the ground or worry about her mother's state.
Raven crosses over to where her mother rests and sits on the edge of the bed, pulling the space heater near and switching it on. Even in the dim light that just manages to break through the curtains, Raven can see the bruise forming on her mother's cheek. It's dark and angry and when Raven reaches out to run her fingers over it her mother flinches. A flash of guilt runs through her when she realises that she'd been the one to leave her mother behind with the man who did this. She'd been running away like a child and now her mom was paying the consequences.
With careful hands she lifts the blanket, not missing the goosebumps that appear across her mother's skin from the exposure. She's naked and Raven doesn't really know what to make of that. The woman groans as the covers are further removed. Her ribs look like they took a bit of a beating too but Raven doesn't see any signs of bleeding at least.
Moving to her mother's drawers she opens the ones that hold the warmest pyjamas, getting socks and underwear while she's at it. "G'off," her mom mutters as Raven works the under wear around her feet and then does the same with the pants. She inches them up a little bit at a time. Her mom was small, but she was also deadweight at the moment.
"Do you need any help?" she hears Wick ask from behind her.
She turns in surprise, horrified and embarrassed that he was standing there in the doorway. "Get out!" she shouts and moves to chase him away. He's already backed up and swung the door closed by the time she gets there. For good measure she swings out her foot and gives it a good kick, as if he might still be standing on the other side and she could scare him off. This wasn't his business. There had been a reason she'd told him to stay put.
Turning back around she finds her mother unmoved from her original position. The rest of the progress is slow and hard, but she finishes. Her muscles burn when she lowers her now dressed mother back into bed and covers her once again. For a brief second Raven considers shedding her jacket and wrapping it around the still shivering woman as well but instead she just pushes the space heater a little bit closer and steps away. She had to go back out in the cold after all.
With a deep breath she faces the closed door again, trying to collect her thoughts. Her mom was alive, the wounds she had would heal, Wick wouldn't judge. She tries to repeat the optimistic mantra a few more times. That doesn't stop her from giving him her dirtiest glare when she walks out. It might be easier if she couldn't see his breath each time he exhaled.
"Raven," he starts and she holds up a hand to cut him off.
"Don't," she warns as she buries her hands deep in her pockets and make a beeline for the door. "Let's go eat breakfast."
The truck ride is awkward. That doesn't dissipate when they sit down at their breakfast table at some diner or another.
Wick stares too intently at the menu and Raven stares too intently at Wick. "What you saw-" she starts but he puts the menu down and leans toward her. The words die on her lips.
"I'm sorry," he says and it reminds her of that day in his truck when she'd felt so mortified that she didn't know if she could ever look him in the eye again. "I'm sorry that's the way life is for you, but I'm not sitting here judging you for it, okay?" She nods dumbly. There had only been one other person who had ever seen her mom like that. Finn was best at coaxing the woman back into bed when she was too inebriated to do so herself. "Your mom is sick," he says as if she needed reminding. Dressing her unconscious, naked mother was generally a reminder enough.
"I know that," she bites back at him. She had always known that. Even when she was three years old and being tucked into bed by a stranger or when her stomach went empty for too long or when books were flying across the room instead of the words off the page being whispered to her sweetly. Her whole life she had known that her mother was sick. Her whole life she had been trying to make her better. "She's still my mom."
"I know," he parrots back, his words much more gentle than her earlier ones. "I wish that was enough."
He says the words she's spent years thinking but never breathing to life. Because she already had her answer. It wasn't enough. And it never would be.