Raleigh Harper / Emily Watkins (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
callmeemily) wrote2014-06-22 11:16 pm
callmeemily) wrote2014-06-22 11:16 pm
Can I pay you tomorrow for recovery today? (Dated Monday, 9:45AM) TW: Mentions of Violence/Torture
Trigger Warning: This thread contains mentions and descriptions of violence and torture. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to tweet @thestarsplay for clarification. Thanks!
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In the end, she'd handled it herself.
Raleigh didn't have family, didn't have an emergency contact. She'd watched Levi be loaded onto the gurney, and she limped to follow him - but one of the EMTs sat her down and took one look at her, and she was on one as well. She's got no phone - and she doesn't know anyone's phone numbers off the back of her hand, so she goes alone.
Concussion, hairline fractures in her left wrist (her fault) and right cheekbone (not her fault), bruised ribs - bruises all over really, and the 7 inch long cut along the bottom of her foot, from her heel to her toes -- had stitches.
Which meant she had crutches.
She knew she had to be at the hospital to get the stitches, but what she didn't know - or didn't expect, really, was that they were expecting to keep her. They were expecting to keep her, and she couldn't do it. She couldn't, not and keep thinking of Les' words. Of Joseph's, of her own. She'd been through it, after she'd fallen into the basement of that rotted old house. Two days, she'd been down there, and half the people who visited her informed her that They didn't even know she was gone.
Raleigh can't live through that again.
That's why she checks herself out once it's all done, the stitches and the lectures and the questions. That's why she heads back into town - the clicking of the crutches something that's entirely old hat to her, given her leg - and she's thinking about tomorrow. About working, and she draws herself up short before she sits heavily on one of the little tables outside the coffeeshop, nevermind that she hasn't bought anything, that she looks like a wreck and that she's wearing scrubs for pants and a cheap flipflop on her good foot because the exceedingly nice nurse realised that they had to cut her jeans off of her, and she had no shoes - her hoodie had blood on the sleeve and the hem, oddly brown now, but she hasn't realised it.
She sits, and she can't help it as she starts to cry, her free hand still holding the crutches so they don't clatter onto the ground.
--
In the end, she'd handled it herself.
Raleigh didn't have family, didn't have an emergency contact. She'd watched Levi be loaded onto the gurney, and she limped to follow him - but one of the EMTs sat her down and took one look at her, and she was on one as well. She's got no phone - and she doesn't know anyone's phone numbers off the back of her hand, so she goes alone.
Concussion, hairline fractures in her left wrist (her fault) and right cheekbone (not her fault), bruised ribs - bruises all over really, and the 7 inch long cut along the bottom of her foot, from her heel to her toes -- had stitches.
Which meant she had crutches.
She knew she had to be at the hospital to get the stitches, but what she didn't know - or didn't expect, really, was that they were expecting to keep her. They were expecting to keep her, and she couldn't do it. She couldn't, not and keep thinking of Les' words. Of Joseph's, of her own. She'd been through it, after she'd fallen into the basement of that rotted old house. Two days, she'd been down there, and half the people who visited her informed her that They didn't even know she was gone.
Raleigh can't live through that again.
That's why she checks herself out once it's all done, the stitches and the lectures and the questions. That's why she heads back into town - the clicking of the crutches something that's entirely old hat to her, given her leg - and she's thinking about tomorrow. About working, and she draws herself up short before she sits heavily on one of the little tables outside the coffeeshop, nevermind that she hasn't bought anything, that she looks like a wreck and that she's wearing scrubs for pants and a cheap flipflop on her good foot because the exceedingly nice nurse realised that they had to cut her jeans off of her, and she had no shoes - her hoodie had blood on the sleeve and the hem, oddly brown now, but she hasn't realised it.
She sits, and she can't help it as she starts to cry, her free hand still holding the crutches so they don't clatter onto the ground.
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He had Edbyrd to take care of, of course. The poor man had no family, no one to claim his body. So the homeless community pooled what little money they had to afford the man an unmarked grave. He would be laid to rest this week.
Jason went back to the boat on Saturday, only because he couldn't afford food if he missed another day. He's left Alfredo with Anna, a kind woman at the clearing where the homeless like to hang out, and he's making his way to the docks from the cabin when he spots her on a bench. Jason stops in his tracks and stares because he's pretty sure he's hallucinating this. She's on crutches and crying and he wonders if she got hurt and has been in the hospital, but her cheek. He knows injuries and that's no accident.
Jason rushes over and waits until he's closer before he lets out a slightly broken "Raleigh." He kneels in front of her, immediately grabbing for her hand. "I'm so sorry," he apologizes, his face full of worry as he looks her over. "God I'm sorry. I couldn't find you."
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What he said sunk in, and she gripped his hand. It was all that she could do not to pull herself out of the chair and to him, to just give into her need to not be alone. He says he's sorry, and she can't even think what for - later, she'd wonder if he told someone her name, maybe, but right now... "No, no, don't be sorry. I'm okay."
That's wrong, obviously. What she means by it is I'm alive, but those words when meant with sincerity brought up just how much not being alive was an option. How close she'd come to being completely and utterly dead.
Her face just sort of crumples, and what she says - he's the only person in the whole town who would understand. "They found me." The words are hoarse, and her shoulders hunch because that means that this? This happened because she changed. Because she stopped hiding.
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"Who did this to you?" His voice is low and oddly calm, but he's furious. He's mad anyone laid a finger on her, that she was put into danger. He's mad that Edbyrd lost his life, that Wulfric went missing. He's mad that Hollywood girl Corrine went missing as well, even if he's never met her before--he heard the talk around town. Someone is responsible for all of them and he's angry any of this even managed to take place. But he tries to keep that anger in check, focusing instead on Raleigh and just helping her in any way he can right now.
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That he'd think she just up and left, but he hadn't thought that. He'd looked for her.
"This guy pretended he needed help," she said quietly. She'd been through it with the police, with the doctors, with the psych consult at the hospital. "This old guy, and I... I help people, because I'm an idiot. Because when I hear somebody calling for help from an alley, I go, and then- He had a guy he was working with, and he grabbed me." She swallowed thickly. "I think- I think they're both dead," she pulled back then to look up at him, her eyes searching his. "He knew. He knew about me, he knew, Jason."
She paused. "He said no one would notice. That I was someone no one would miss, and then he locked me in a bathroom after he- he cut my foot so that I couldn't run away, and chained me in there and it was dark and no one was ever going to find me."
The last words were muffled, because she's gripping the edge of her hoodie tightly and her face is pressed against his shoulder because he's there. He's there and this isn't a dream, she's not still in that goddamned bathroom.
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The guy cut her foot? It's worse than Jason imagined. If he lured her with the needy act then cut her foot so she couldn't run away, he wasn't your every day attacker but a seasoned veteran. "God, I'm sorry. That had to have been terrible." He feels guilty that he couldn't even begin to find her. There were zero clues. It was like she just disappeared. It was Wulfric and Edbyrd all over again, and Jason was left feeling helpless.
The worse side of him feels angry that the men are dead. He has a lot of pent-up anger over Edbyrd's death and Wulfric's disappearance. Add to that what he's hearing happened to Raleigh and he wishes they were still alive so he could beat the hell out of them. It's probably why he was so easily provoked into a fight by that man at the clearing. He'd been a much more patient person the past year. But it's good they're dead. They won't hurt anyone again. He rests his head on the top of her chin. "They're dead. They don't know, Raleigh."
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"Thank you. Thank you for looking for me." She can't put enough emphasis behind the words because there's not enough power in this world to show him how important it is to her.
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He's shaking his head at her thank you's when he realizes something she said earlier. "Corry and other guy? How many of you did they take?"
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"Just- There was me and this guy - he was so nice, Jason, and- he's okay, I think. They made us - they said that one of us would die, and we had to choose, and Wulfric said- he said he was old, and that it made sense for me to live, and- and then it was all a joke, because they were going to kill us both the whole time-" And that's when she just has to stop, and she was trying not to cry but she was failing miserably, her tears soaking into the shoulder of his shirt even as she tried to wipe them away.
"But I'm here, right? I'm not-" Dead is what she was about to say, but she has to stop. "I'm here."
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He rubs her back, letting her cry it out. "I'm sorry any of that happened to you. No one deserves that."
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She takes a deep breath, her brows furrowed together. "But yeah, Wulfric's okay, and Levi will be okay - I think he's still in the hospital, and Corrine had Les, so I think- I think everybody's- I mean, they're dead, the guys who did it, so." She's babbling a little, and she forces herself to stop, shifting so her forehead is against his jaw as she forces herself to just breathe.
Finally, once she's gotten ahold of herself, she pulls back enough to look at him. "Do you know him?"
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He smoothes her hair, nodding. "I do. He's my friend, one of the homeless men that went missing right before my weekend fishing job. He and another guy Edbyrd. I told Levi about them. Ed didn't..." he looks down more because he can't believe it himself. "He didn't make it."
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They're in that weird limbo where they've been on one full date, two half-dates and made out against the pier, and she's not really the sort of girl who labels things - but after she's gone through this before, sort of, she's grateful she's not alone. That he looked for her, yeah, but that even now he was taking the time to be there.
"It'll be okay. I just have to remember I'm not there, and- I don't... deal well, with small, dark spaces where I know I can't get out, and I'm by myself." Huffing out a sort of laugh, she swallows thickly. "So, you know, that'll be interesting."
Sighing as he smoothes her hair, and she can feel the roughness of his hands and it feels more real. Wulfric's his friend. It makes more sense, now - how he knew, why he asked. Her brows furrow for a moment when he mentioned someone named Edbyrd, because the name made no sense, but then- "I'm sorry." She breathes the words, her brows furrowed together. "I'm sorry. He's- They were horrible men." They'd been so close to dying. It seemed now like it was a sort of obvious thing, how close. She'd been handcuffed and Joseph just went to go get the special knives or whatever, when Levi came in. If he hadn't....
She would have just vanished. "I think Wulfric might be at the hospital," she says lowly. "I know Levi is. Maybe.. .I wanted to go visit him, I don't know if you'd- I mean." She bites her lip, and sighs. "If you'd want company. I don't know if he knows about your friend."
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Jason winces a bit because he sees the face she makes at the name Edbyrd. "It's Edward, but he likes-liked birds. He wouldn't answer to Ed or Edward, just...Edbyrd." It seems a bit dumb now--this is at least the second time he's had to explain the man's name and he feels silly every time. But he'd call the man what he wanted to be called even in death, no matter how ridiculous it sounds.
"I'll have to visit him later. I should let his friends know he's been found. They'll want to see him." It would be difficult to tell Wulfric about Edbyrd, since the man seemed to be the unofficial leader of their little homeless community and looked at everyone like family. "He needs to see his family. I'm sure he'd like to see you as well."
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She thought about Jason, too. The way he always moved from town to town, and if he'd stay long. She wondered, not that she'd say so, if he would have missed her. That answer - it's obviously yes, and she knows it now but when she'd been trapped it'd seemed so far away. So far from everything she could ever reach or see again.
"That's good, then. Maybe- Maybe there's something we can do for him, with the birds. A memorial in the park, maybe?" She's sorry, obviously, that he'd died. That Joseph had managed to get someone, that they couldn't stop him. "When I stopped by before I discharged myself, he was sleeping - but... I'd like to go back." She paused. "He... insisted, that if we had to choose one of us, it should be him. He was going to-" Die, is the word she skipped. "For me. He was going to do that for me, and he doesn't even know me." She shook her head slightly. "He's a good man."
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Jason nods his head slowly, listening to her words. Definitely sounded like Wulfric. He hadn't figured out the man's story yet, why he's lived on the streets for so long. He honestly wondered if the man hadn't fallen on hard times at one point and decided to stick around to help the other homeless, those that couldn't take care of themselves, when he easily could have made a life again. He's definitely someone Jason admires. "Sounds like him to the T. He protects everyone." He smiles gently, thinking about Wulfric. He'd be heartbroken to hear about Edbyrd though.
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Deep breath. Deep breath, and then there's the question that she knows she has to ask, and she trusts him. She's asking because she trusts him. Trust is hard, and right now, she doesn't know who else she'd actually ask this of, but... she can at least ask Jason.
"Believe me when I say I don't mean this the way it sounds," she says lowly, "But- But.... I'm-" Raleigh has a hard time coming up with the words, and she bites her lip hard before she finally continues. "Will you maybe- Can you maybe stay? Tonight, with me- I... I don't think I can-" She stops again, and she looks down at her hands. "When I broke my leg, I was... trapped, for a while, and I just- I think I need someone, tonight?" Because she knew how she reacted then, the way she couldn't be alone in the dark.
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But then he thinks about where she lives and wonders what kind of arrangements they have there."Am I allowed to?" This is the first she's explained her leg. He doesn't need any further explanation. "I'll stay."
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He says she'll stay, and she exhales in a rush, and it's because the tension's just sort of... come off just a bit. "Thank you," she breathes, her eyes finding his. "Seriously, I... I couldn't do this alone, and I trust you, and.... thank you." She leans up, and very lightly kisses him on the cheek, closing her eyes as her forehead rests against his temple for just a moment. "You're a good guy. Special, like I said before." Before all this happened.
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Jason smile softly whens he kisses his check. He tries to reassure her that there's nothing to worry about. "I'm very sneaky," he says. "No one will even know I'm around."