Opinions

Who: Dodge and Pepper
Where: Dodge's street
When: Late morning

Pepper walked with Maddy along the road to the Kitten Club as far as where it skirted past Dodge's place, and then she peeled off, complaining to the other girl about something in her shoe, even though Maddy knew full well that she was looking for Dodge. She didn't say anything though and Pepper sat down at the side of the road, in the gutter, fiddling with her right shoe and trying to figure out what she was going to do to find the boy.

Dodge had spent most of the morning following Maddy around and he'd seen her go in the soup kitchen, as well as emerge with Pepper. Once Pepper moved away from Maddy, Dodge let his other boys take over following her and he hung back, dropping casually onto the curb next to Pepper. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes," he commented with a wicked little grin. If he wanted information out of Pepper about Maddy he'd probably have to tone back the flirt inside him, but it was just too tempting.

Pepper looked round with a start as the very person she'd been trying to work out a plan to find just dropped out of seemingly nowhere to sit next to her. Out of sheer habit, she shifted a little more away from him and busied herself putting her shoe back on again, as she worked out what to do now. "Am I?" she asked, challengingly.

"Always," he told her, sounding genuine about it, which he was. "Saw you with DG," he told her, looking past her in the direction Maddy had headed, just in time to see a slightly familiar figure head in that direction. Had he seen that guy before? Shaking his head a little he focused back on Pepper.

Pepper shrugged, defensively. "So what - we were talking. Anyway, 'parently you've ditched her, so what's it to you?" she asked, ready to take the girl's side against anything, for all that she hadn't liked the job she'd been going to choose.

"I haven't ditched her," Dodge answered, almost as defensively. "I gave her a choice. Although the way you're talking, my last ditch attempt to keep her safe didn't work." He frowned, tugging at the brim of his fedora a little.

"What choice?" she asked him, eyeing him. Currently her own predicament was put aside in favour of finding out exactly what had gone on between Dodge and Maddy now. She leaned forward, crossing her arms over her knees as she looked at him.

Dodge studied Pepper for a moment, not sure what to say. If she commenting on it though, then Maddy told her something about it, which meant it wouldn't hurt saying something. "Me or that place. I couldn't be part of her life if she's going to start working there. I just couldn't."

"That's not a choice - it's an ulti... It's a 'my way or the highway'," Pepper said, wanting to use a long word that she couldn't quite remember, which was really damn irritating. "Maybe she needed to do that for a reason," she added, though she couldn't for the life of her think what that reason could ever, ever be - she'd rather die than do that. She'd starve first and Maddy's stupid reason of wanting a house was no reason at all in her opinion. Still, she wasn't going to tell Dodge that.

"It is a choice. She can decide if she doesn't want me around. Which apparently she doesn't." Dodge had hoped she'd cared about him more than that, but he was probably wrong. "And she doesn't have a good reason. All she wants is money, there are plenty of other ways to get money." He paused for a second chewing on his lip a little. "She said I was jealous Pepper, jealous of those creeps. No one who cares about you says something like that." It didn't help that he felt jealous anyway.

"How else do you get money if you want money?" Pepper asked, knowing that that wasn't something she had the answer to. There weren't a whole lot of options for girls who had no home, she knew that. It was one of the reasons she was so scared to end up just like that - because there was so little else to choose. Her option was to stay homeless and to go hungry - and it was an option she commonly took. But not everyone could do that. She might argue the point with Maddy, but she would defend the girl to Dodge. Possibly just because it was Dodge.

"There's plenty of ways to get money," Dodge told her. Of course she was talking to the self proclaimed Prince of Thieves, so his methods were rarely legal, but he knew of legitimate ways to get money. "She could start with getting a real job. She's a smart girl, there are other options. Ones where you aren't putting a pricetag on someone's soul. Hell, if she really needed it, I'd steal it for her, anything to keep her out of that horrible place." The pain he'd been burying was starting to show a little on his face, adding years to the mere seventeen he'd already survived.

"Not everyone wants to be dependent on you, Dodge!" Pepper exclaimed, overreacting in that instant. That was her buttons right there - the idea that you needed someone else for support, coupled with an awareness that she was here right now simply because she needed his help. It made her twitchy and defensive.

"I didn't say anything about her being dependent on me," he said, a little surprised at Pepper's outburst. "I was just saying I'd help her if she needed it. It's not like she'd owe me or anything. I'd rather me be in trouble than her laying on her back for creepy old fucks." It was a sacrifice right? That's how he saw it.

"You'd just help her and never wanted to get anything in return?" Pepper asked in a tone which was definitely questioning there - she didn't believe that. Especially not from Dodge. THat was one of the reasons that she'd held off for days before finally coming to him. She didn't think anyone got anything for nothing. "I don't buy that. You might not want the same thing that they would, but - if you got in trouble for her. Or even if you didn't. If you were providing for her, then yeah she'd be dependent on you, wouldn't she? She'd need you to survive."

Pepper somewhat had him there. There would be something Dodge wanted: Maddy. Not in the inappropriate way she'd hinted at when she called him jealous, just as his, his only. He wouldn't have to share her with others, not with the men on the street, not with Roy, not with anyone. "Don't tell her that. She'll swear she doesn't need me. Hell, if she needed me she'd change her mind about this job." Dodge realized he was changing what Pepper meant, but he wasn't about to explain his desire to make Maddy his own. Not dependent on him, just strictly his, loyal to him only.

"If she changes her mind about the job, it'll be because it's not what she wants for her, not because of you. You can't control people, Dodge," Pepper told him, in the knowledge that Maddy had already changed her mind. She could see Dodge deciding that it was all because of him, another win. "But I'm not going to tell her anything. Nothing to tell - not that she doesn't already know."

Dodge frowned at that, looking away from Pepper, into the street. "I just hate to see it all end. DG and Dodge..." They could have ruled the city together. She would have never given in enough to be his Princess, but they were quite the duo.

"If you don't want something to end, don't make it all or nothing," Pepper suggested to him. "Choice like that, it's no choice at all - cos if she gives in, then you'll know that that works and you'll just try it again next time. You start giving in and you've done for. So, gotta choose the other way," Pepper told him. That was her approach to things, anyhow. It was a point of principle for her.

"I wish I could Pepper, I really do. I can't though. I can't have her hold that job over me like she did. I won't let her. I wasn't gonna let it come to that, I was gonna storm through those doors and carry her out of there, rescue her, but not after what she said. Not after telling me that I was like them. I won't let her make me the monster." Dodge shrugged, pulling his knees up to rest his arms on them. "What brings you down my street anyway? You get your spot worked out?" The change of subject was a little desperate but he couldn't talk about it anymore with admitting to things he didn't want to admit out loud to himself, let alone to someone else.

"So if she hadn't said that, if she'd just made her choice, you were going to basicaly kidnap her for doing something she wanted to do and you didn't like? Nice move. Smooth." Pepper rolled her eye and picked a pebble out of the gutter, weighing it in her hand for a moment before tosing it out into the street, watching it bounce and settle. She tried to look nonchalant before responding to his subject change. "Y'know, just passing. And no - not got that sorted yet. Kinda, yeah... Not yet."

"Why exactly is everyone siding with her on this thing? Why am I the only one who seems interested in her not doing this?" Dodge grumbled a little. It really didn't make sense that whenever he tried to talk about it, he wound up being the bad guy, instead of Maddy making a wildly stupid decision. "You know the offer still stands. I can 'round up some guys if you want." She'd yelled at him last time he offered, but that didn't mean Dodge didn't want to help if he could.

She bent and picked up some more gravel, seding piece after piece rolling into the road. "Not siding with her, just siding with her right to make up her own mind about her life. Dodge - you know how I feel about... that." Pepper had never made any bones about her distaste for prostitution and her determination not to end up like that. "If I... If you round the guys up. I'll pay you back for your help. When I'm back on my feet," she told him. Never got anything for nothing after all.

"And what kind of friend would I be if I let her walk into a life like that?" Dodge countered. "The thing is Pepper, and I don't think she knows this, but if she does end up working there, if it does kill everything in her that's good, if she comes back to me when it's all over? I'll still be there for her. Even if she's just a shell of DG." He hated that about himself, that she meant that much to him, that he'd take her back even if all the life was gone from her. "Yea, I can get some troops together. Might be tomorrow though. We're spread a little thin today. Plus we're headed over to the school this afternoon. And we'll talk payment later, that is, if you don't mind owing me a favor." Dodge didn't need anything from Pepper at the moment, but he might eventually. "You got somewhere to crash tonight?"

Pepper did mind owing him a favour. In fact, she hated owing anyone anything, but in this she knew she didn't have much choice. "As long as I get some say in when it's called in," she told him. She didn't want to end up backed into a corner by this guy who always seemed to her to want to own people, even if he had the best of intentions.

"Of course," he told her nodding with the statement. "I'm not going to make you dohttps://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AUoz9mmfilvdZGh0ZmNwbXpfMTk0aGJkbXBtZ3I&hl=en_GB something horrible Pepper. You know me." Eventually he'd had a use for her, and he'd call it in, plain and simple. "You didn't answer the other question, you got somewhere to stay? Until I can pull this together?"

"Yeah, I know you," Pepper agreed, though she left it at that. That she knew him was the reason she'd added the addendum - because he'd just given Maddy an ultimatum, and because he liked telling people how to lead their lives. "And I'm covered - I can find somewhere to stay," she assured him. She didn't want to be in to him for too much. "And tomorrow's fine."

"Figured as much," Dodge told her. "If you do get stuck though, you know where we stay. I'll tell the boys to let you in. I'll be out late tonight I'm sure, so my room's yours if you need it." He gave her a smile, genuine and understanding.

"I am not sleeping in your bed!" Pepper exclaiming, jumping further away from him in a classic Pepper overreaction.

"Pepper," Dodge said as calmly as he could without laughing. Reaching out he caught her arm, giving her a gentle tug to get her to move back towards him. "I'm not going to be in it. If I get back and you're there, it's all yours. I was just assuming you'd be more comfortable with a door you can close between yourself and the boys." The grin he was feeling tried to break through but he managed to check it to just a smile.

"I'll find my own place to sleep," Pepper told him, shifting out of his hold. "Thanks for the offer, but I'm good," she told him. There was just something creepy about sleeping in someone else's bed.

"Of course," Dodge told her with a wink, letting her pull away. "Just trying to help." Stretching a little he stood, offering her a hand to help her up. "If you need anything else pretty girl, you know where to find me."

She had to wonder if he was purposefully winding her up now - he knew she hated being called 'pretty girl'. But, for once, she held it in, mindful of what Maddy had said to her earlier. "I'll see you tomorrow," she told him, face set and watchful - that was as good as she could get.

That was different, usually he got yelled at for the compliment. Of course that didn't stop him from telling her how he felt, because it was the truth in his eyes. "Tomorrow it is. Come by here about midday. We'll be ready." Dodge tipped the edge of the fedora at her, grinning broadly. "I'll be seeing you," he said before striding off.