Dawn Waits for No One

Who: Dodge and Maddy
Where: Dodge's place
When: really really early in the morning

He'd been up all damn night, tromping through the damned tunnels looking for information on Doll Girl's brother. Now as dawn peeked up over the edge of the buildings he was finally finding his way back into his apartment, with Roach and Mud in tow. The three were a motley looking crew, dirty, bruised and exhausted. Dodge's fedora was sitting a little lopsided and his shirt had a tear in it. The best part was the black eye that was blossoming under his left eye. Damn bastard who thought Dodge was getting short with him had a hell of a right hook.

Crossing their apartment he pushed open the door to his room. It had originally been Patrick's, and Dodge used to sleep in the common areas of the apartment which were littered with hammocks and makeshift bunk beds. Once Patrick left though, so few of the boys would even go in his room that Dodge just took it over. It was small, but he had his own bed, a chair and a bookshelf. The shelf was just inside the door, littered with books and trinkets, small things he'd lifted off people over the years. Most of them were worthless, but he was attached to them. He would have added Evie's compact to the collection if he hadn't given it back.

His collection of clothes, neatly cared for were stacked in drawers in the tiny night stand that he called a dresser. The bed was merely a mattress on the floor but it was larger than anything the other boys had. Without even thinking and with the first rays of sunlight shooting in through the small window, Dodge tossed his hat on the chair and immediately started to pull off his jacket vest and shirt. He was almost done unbuttoning his pants when he realized he wasn't alone in the room.

Maddy hadn't slept so while she didn't look as bad as Dodge, she was fairly pale and dark eyed. The boys were quick to untie her before running out of the room and locking the door to keep from being hit, so she'd been free to do what she pleased. It had been hard not to destroy everything in sight, so she settled for cleaning instead. Dodge was fairly neat so she dusted, made his bed over, straightened his shelves, organized his clothes according to color, and had managed to get some soap and water and scrubbed the floor clean enough to satisfy her.

She'd also gotten one of the boys to get her paper and Maddy had spent the rest of the time sitting on Dodge's bed drawing. dozens of pictures were scattered around her, some ripped, others crumpled and flattened out again. Some were dark with dead bodies laying in the park. Some were of ballerinas. There were familiar faces scattered in there too. Dodge, Finn, Roy, and Jack were most common. Her boys.

Maddy didn't say a word when Dodge came in and seeing the state he was in, she felt the unfamiliar and hated feeling of guilt settle in her stomach. She may have admitted (just a little) to herself that she shouldn't have fought Dodge so hard. Dodge was so good to her and nothing but nice. But she hated feeling guilt or that she was in the wrong.

"Hi," she said, uncharacteristically quiet.

"Hi back at you," Dodge answered. He'd stopped taking off his clothes but hadn't bothered with putting anything else back on and despite his smaller build confidence just rolled off his skin. "Forgot you were here." Rubbing the hurt eye a little he winced and then ran a hand through his hair. "Where'd my bed go? All I see is artwork." Some of his very cheery demeanor was lost, but that was to blame on being exhausted, dirty (he really hated being dirty) and somewhat not amused that he wasn't alone.

Maddy nodded slowly, still uncharacteristically quiet and grabbed the pages, not really caring if they ended up ripped or crumpled. With his bed space cleared off, Maddy stayed awkwardly where she was, unsure of what to do. She despised not knowing what to do. It was lame. But Maddy didn't know if he still wanted to keep her there and while she could totally take out anyone between her and the front door, she was too tired to do so. "Do... do you want me to get you something for your hurt?" she asked.

"Doll," he told her, taking some of the drawings from her and setting them on the floor in a neat stack. Mostly it annoyed him that it would just be a mess. "These are pretty good," he held up one of himself, "especially this one." The grin he gave her was halfhearted because he could barely see straight. Kneeling beside the bed he was still a little taller than her, but able to get a good look at her. It was obvious she'd gotten just about as little sleep as he had. "You don't have to take care of me." Dodge rested a hand on her head gently. "Thanks though."

Maddy exhaled slowly, not shaking the hand off like she usually would. She... owed him at least that. "I'm..." Sorry. Yes. She was sorry but she didn't exactly know how to say it. Madeline Keyes did not say she was sorry. She was, perhaps, sorry people weren't as good at avoiding trouble like her. But there Dodge was still being nice to her. Not yelling or swearing and he'd gotten hurt. "Dammit," she mumbled. Lame. This was so lame.

So she leaned forward slightly and wrapped her arms around his neck. Careful to avoid the impressive bruise on his face, she gently kissed his cheek with cool, chapped lips. There. She didn't have to say anything and Dodge would hopefully keep his mouth shut and not tell anyone that she was getting soft.

Dodge tugged her into a full hug, one hand in her hair. "I'm sorry too, princess. Hell, I'm the one that had you kidnapped." She didn't have to actually say it, he already knew. It was the same reason he'd tried so hard while he was down in the tunnels. He'd hated that face she gave him when they carried her off.

"Noted. Dodge is a jerk," she teased quietly, her head resting on his shoulder, deaf ear against his shoulder. Then, suddenly, "My name's Maddy." She said it so quietly, so softly, that if her voice wasn't right next to his ear, he probably wouldn't have heard it.

He bit back the grin. In the span of three days he'd collected three names, all valuable, and with minimal effort. Of course, Dodge wasn't the type to hurt his friends, Maddy being one of them, but it was still information worth having. "Well hi Maddy," he teased. "I'm Dodge." No he stuck to his nickname, the real name didn't exist, hadn't existed in too long. "My boys take ok care of you while I was gone?" He'd made no shift to move her, just played with her hair a little. Maybe Maddy wanted to be held, and Dodge could do that, he could be that guy.

"They're scared of me good," she said. "They were fine. Left me alone." She pulled away slowly, rubbing her face quickly. "You should get to bed. You look like hell's bitch." She did too, but she didn't have a face someone used as a punching bag. "This is your one chance so are you sure you don't want me to get you anything?"

"Of course they are," Dodge teased, tickling her a little. "I would very much like to go to bed, and thank you. I feel like hell's bitch." He crawled around her once she was away, stretching out on his bed. "One chance huh?" The lazy tease was back in his voice, laced with innuendo and more.

Maddy arched an eyebrow. "S'what I said." She grabbed the blanket from the end of the bed and spread it over him, almost mothering in a way. She was used to Dodge's innuendos and teasing. Sometimes she wasn't sure if it was teasing, but she played along anyway. It was fun to pretend that someone thought her attractive that didn't creep her out.

When she pulled the blanket up, he caught her wrist, holding it fast. He was too tired to really follow through and drag her in like he normally would. Honestly he wasn't sure how he felt about Maddy, she was cute, but younger than he usually went after. It didn't stop him from playing. From teasing and pushing buttons to get a reaction.

Maddy didn't move to get closer but she didn't pull away either. She was too exhausted to do either, really. "Do you want me to stay, Dodge?" she asked gently. Needless to say, she felt a little bit awkward, but for some reason she felt that Dodge needed someone around. Maybe. And she'd stay with him if he wanted her to. If he didn't, she didn't mind. She saw a pile of dishes that needed done and a kitchen that needed to be cleaned but as she was locked all day and night in the bedroom, she couldn't.

He was too tired to hold back the flinch that caused his grip on her arm to tighten. They never asked. Usually he just wore them down or they told him to get bent like Evie had. Never before had someone asked. "Um, I dunno..." he started off in a rare moment of awkwardness which he shoved aside quickly. "You wanna?" The attempt at the tease was there, but not much came through.

"I'll sleep with you but I'm not going to have sex with you," she said quickly. "I..." No. That was something she wasn't going to talk about. Just because you told him your name doesn't mean you're going to go all 'this is my life story' on him. Uhg. Whatever. She reached down and pulled off her shoes and shucked off her jacket. She looked down at her gloves, the green and yellow stripes, unsure of what to do. Uhg... dammit.

Dodge chuckled at that. "Love, look at me, I can't even sit up. Sex is definitely not an option." He shifted a little, making room for her and wondering what she'd stopped short on telling him. Not that he worried, he'd find out eventually. When she got hung up on the gloves he reached out and tugged them off for her.

Maddy's mouth was still open, frozen at the beginning of her reply. She looked stricken, eyes wide while she stared down at her bare hands. She was like that for a few moments before she slid her hands up in her sleeves and crawled under the covers beside her. It had been years since she was in bed beside someone, the last one being her brother so long ago at the orphanage. "You're not a cover hog, right?"

Dodge rolled to his side to make certain she had enough room, not making a comment on the way she was looking at her bare hands. "I'm not a cover hog, no," he told her. "I am a notorious for snuggling close to whomever's in bed with me." To accent his point he slid up close to her, just enough to see if he could make her glare at him. He was crawling all up on her without a shirt on and only half his pants on.

She did not disappoint. Maddy did give him a glare and she would've pinched him was she not so scared about sliding her hands from her sleeves. "So does that mean you like to suffocate people in their sleep?"

Laughing Dodge rolled back away from here, on to his back grinning at the ceiling. "Don't tell me you won't be curled up next to me when we wake up sometime this afternoon." Ugh. That was going to completely mess up his schedule. He was pretty dedicated to the format of his day, acting as if he did more than just loiter around the city.

Maddy shook her head. "Nope. Go to sleep, Dodge. Your minions will be a-okay without you for a couple of hours." She felt her own eyes drooping and she barely had the chance to stifle her yawn.

She'd hit a nerve there. Dodge took the kids under wings before, but now with Patrick gone he'd started filling the guardian role more than before. Some days he wondered if he'd taken on too much. He didn't answer, but stayed awake listening to her breath even off. He'd sleep once he was sure she was.

Maddy didn't notice any tension from him and drifted off. And she proved him right because as soon as she fell asleep, she rolled over and curled herself up around his arm. Yep. She was a clinger.