the real word on dodge

who: Corey and Ethan
where: The tunnels
when: Early morning

Ethan left the diner, heading back towards the library with the take-away container of Corey’s breakfast in his hands. The bottom was still hot, the heat of the pancakes warming his hands as he hurried on. Alec’s offer was turning over and over in his mind--he could accept working for him at the steel mill, earning his own way to rent out a place of his own, but just living with him in his house... Ethan didn’t know. It didn’t seem fair, that he should ascend so many levels, to go from street kid to a free boarder at a millionaire’s house, while all of his friends were still living hand to mouth in the gutters.

In front of the library, he paused and looked out at the horizon, still glowing orange and smoky from the fire across the way. Looking at it made him feel sick--it was too close to the apartment, too close to the boys and to Dodge. But maybe he was just being paranoid. Even if it was close, Dodge would have gotten the boys out straight away, there was no doubt about that.

He headed back down into the tunnels, using the lantern to guide his way. When he reached Corey’s nest, he knelt down by her bed and opened up the container, so the scent of hot pancakes, eggs, and bacon would waft over to her, gently nudging Snow away when she became overly interested in Corey’s breakfast.

The smell certainly did rouse her from sleep, something that was announced with the loud growl her stomach gave first before she was even fully conscious. Then she was blinking, turning slightly with a wince to look over. She rubbed at one eye, blinking slowly at Ethan and food. "There's breakfast?" she asked, sort of still not fully awake yet. And wondering if she might be dreaming.

“Yep,” Ethan said, pulling out a little plastic fork and pressing it into Corey’s hands. “Courtesy of Alec goddamn Ravenwood.” It was still blowing his mind more than a little, that he had had such an insane chance encounter, when all he’d wanted was to get some air and have a cigarette.

She took the fork, and was still wondering what she was doing. but she sat up a little better. "...Alec who?" she asked, totally mystified. "I'm still asleep, aren't I." she concluded, taking the first bite of food, which she quite appreciated. Maybe she wasn't dreaming. She did smile though, after swallowing. "Pretty sure I love you." she told him, an impulsive decision, but god. Food. And she hadn't had food like this in...god she didn't even know. She couldn't remember.

Ethan grinned when she told him she loved him--he was pretty sure he’d been on the verge of telling Alec the same thing when he saw the spread laid out in front of him on the diner table. He sat down across from her, pulling Snow into his lap so that she didn’t bug Corey for her breakfast. “Ravenwood. They own the steel mills. Big money. Huge money. He bought me breakfast. Well, me and you.”

Corey felt like she was still having trouble keeping up with sense. "I...how did that happen?" she asked, figuring she might as well give up trying to work it out on her own and he could explain it to her. She realized belatedly that she had wolfed down half of the food already, in incredibly short order. But she was a homeless girl, who didn't get regular meals, she probably shouldn't feel a tiny bit ashamed.

Ethan hadn’t been ashamed when he’d inhaled his food in mere moments during his and Alec’s conversation at the diner. In retrospect, it might have made more sense to savor it, because who knew when his next meal would be, much less one like that, but hindsight was twenty-twenty, et cetera, et cetera. “I just went up onto the steps to have a smoke and he was jogging. He stopped to sit down and we started talking. And he... he knew my dad.” Ethan paused, swallowing hard for a moment as he quietly stroked Snow’s back. “And then we went to the diner. And Cor, he offered me a job, over at the mill. He wanted to me to live with him too but... I told him no.”

Corey's initial reaction was to frown. Strange grown men didn't go offering young homeless boys (or girls) places to live unless there was something they were expecting in return. something generally specific. Street people did it all the time, exchanged 'services' for a place to stay, or food. It was absolutely ridiculous to think that people just wandered up and said 'here! Let me fix all of your problems, for free!' So when he said he'd told him no, that flooded her with relief, even if the frown was still there. "Thank god." she said, shaking her head. Though her enthusiasm for the food had dimmed, and that showed, especially considering the source.

Ethan grinned crookedly when he saw the look on her face, knowing what she was thinking. “Yeah, I thought that too. Didn’t seem like he was into that though, so I think he’s all right. And it’s not like he wanted me to--he just offered.” Ethan shrugged. He had resisted the offer, though for much different reasons than likely what was on Corey’s mind. “He’s some kind of bible thumper, you know? Like he wants to be some kind of saint.” He chuckled and shook his head. “I’ll take his job and I’ll pay him back for breakfast, but, I don’t know... I can’t take a handout like just living with him. Not after sleeping on the floor in the apartment...”

He trailed off for a moment, the sick feeling in his stomach returning when he remembered what he’s seen off on the horizon. “There was a fire or something... over by the apartment. I could see it from the steps. I don’t think it is the apartment, but... I don’t know. I’ve just a bad feeling, Cor.”

Corey shook her head. "Yeah, and if everyone who was a sick fuck acted like that, they wouldn't lure victims in." she said, not buying it. People didn't just do that. they didn't. Not here, not anywhere. And the flipside of it was there was good reason for the normal people too--street kids were generally thieves, weren't they? They had to be. So either this Alec guy wanted a grateful little sex slave, or he was entirely stupid and not expecting someone to rob him blind. And she really couldn't believe Ethan was stupid enough to just be taken in by it all too, then laugh about it. Horrible, terrible things happened in scenarios like he was describing. There were a lot of people who took to living underground with her lot after shit like that. So she wasn't so apt to chuckle it off. Not at all.

The only thing that had her attention shifting was his mention of the fire. She set the food she'd been eating and now had no interest in down, and she looked at him. "It might be the apartment. Dodge came to see me yesterday. I'm meant to tell you when you hear he's dead not to believe it." she said.

Ethan shrugged a bit. The kinds of things that Corey was thinking about? They’d already happened to him. He knew what the face of that looked like. He’d seen it in his parents’ killer, and he’d seen it in Patrick. He hadn’t seen anything like that in Alec. And besides, he wasn’t a scared eleven year old boy anymore. If anybody tried shit like that with him again, he’d be ready for it. He wasn’t going to be that person again. Not twice.

But all of that immediately fled his mind when Corey brought up Dodge. His jaw slackened, Snow mewling in annoyance when his hand stilled against her back. “Are you telling me... that Dodge told you there was gonna be a fire?” The gears in his mind were turning, the thought that he had violently chased away returning to leer in his face. “That he set the fire?”

Corey shook her head. “He didn’t tell me what he was planning exactly. Just that he was doing what was best for everyone. Seems he’s finally recognized that he isn’t the leader he pretends to be. I thought it was going to be police or something, not a fire, but either way, he’s going to be playing dead. He’s even changing his name. Says Dodge is going to be dead completely. He’s going by JD now.” she explained. “He wanted you to know, said you’d tell Maddy.” She always felt weird about calling Maddy by name because she was aware she wasn’t supposed to know it.

“He set the fucking apartment on fire?” Ethan said, his voice raising, along with his rage. “How is that the best for everyone?!” He couldn’t believe that. This was not what he had meant when he told Dodge that he could try and be someone else. If it really was the apartment that was on fire and he really had set it, it wasn’t just his life he was fucking with--it was everyone else’s. It was all of the boys and all of the people in the building. It was just like always--like Dodge had only heard what he’d wanted to in what Ethan had said. “What do you mean when I hear he’s dead? He set the fire to fake his death?”

"Don't yell at me, I don't know what he did. Though if he'd said anything about a fire, I would have hit him, because you guys have more people living in that place than just your boys." she said, getting why he was upset. "I don't know anything about a fire. He just said the authorities. And that people are supposed to spread the rumor that Dodge died." Corey sighed, dragging her fingers through her hair, and she crawled out from beneath the table. "He's faking his own death and wanted you to know. That's about all he said. He didn't want you or her thinking he was gone."

“Why the fuck would he fake his own death?” Ethan said, getting up to try and disengage some of the growing tension in his body. “That doesn’t make any sense. It’s not like he’s gonna look any different; even if he changes his name, people are still gonna know who he is. How the hell did ‘change your name’ become ‘fake your death’?” He shook his head, tangling his fingers in his hair, pacing the few steps around the nest. “What about the boys? I mean, obviously he wouldn’t torch the place with them in it, but he wouldn’t just destroy the apartment without giving them somewhere else to stay, right?”

"I don't know, Ethan, I'm just telling you what I was told. It's not like Dodge and I have ever been friends. I didn't really ask him to explain it all to me in detail, I just got what he said he was doing. and that it was for the best for the boys. That's all. I'm sorry I don't have all the answers." Corey said, heading to walk across the nest from him, arms crossed across her stomach. She noticed that Snow started in on what was left of her breakfast, and God headed down to do so as well, but she didn't stop them. "I don't know everything. You're going to have to ask him."

“I know, I know. It’s not you. It’s... fuckin’ Dodge.” He grit his teeth, and for a moment his anger teetered on the edge, then toppled over the other side when his fist exploded forward and struck the cement wall. The wounds from the fight days earlier split open, along with new ones--unlike plaster, the wall down here didn’t give way to his violence. His hand throbbed but he ignored it, turning back towards Corey. “Did he tell you where he’d be, at least?”

Corey jumped, then swore. "Jesus!" she said, heading directly over to him, grabbing his hand to inspect it. "Why do you do that? Stop that." she said. "No, he didn't tell me where he would be. I didn't really care. Like I said, we're not friends, which I explained to him, but still. I'm just glad he isn't going to be ruining people's lives anymore." she said, frowning at the blood sliding down from his knuckle down onto the back of her hand. "Let me patch this up."

Instead of relieving his anger, the throbbing pain in his hand was only making it worse, frustrated that his outlet had had the opposite effect. He rolled his shoulders, shifted his jaw, anything to diffuse the anger, but the more he thought about it... “It’s not a big deal,” he said, tugging his bleeding hand out of Corey’s grasp. “I need to find Dodge. And hit him again.”

Corey tried to reach for his hand again, but she could see the tension in his shoulders and everything, and part of her still remembered exactly what it was like to get hit with that fist of his. And while she didn't blame him for it and all, she could see he was starting to head off of the rails. She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again, wiping his blood on the bottom of her shirt.

Ethan watched her, guilt striking him in the chest when he realized that Corey... was nervous. Because of him. She would deny it, but the proof was there that she was being cautious where otherwise would have been insistent. And it hurt, but... it wasn’t anything that he hadn’t earned on his own. “You really don’t know?” he asked again, taking a step back from her, putting distance between them for her sake.

"If I knew I would tell you." she said. "But I don't. He just said he wasn't going to be dead, that he wanted me to spread the rumor he was except for you, and that the boys would be taken care of. That's it. I didn't even want to know where he was. If I find out, I'll tell you." she promised, sighing again. "Why do you think I'd keep something like this from you?"

Taken care of? What the hell was that supposed to mean? It wasn’t like Dodge was sitting on some fortune, that he could have doled out huge sums of money to make sure all the boys were set for life. What the hell had he planned? Considering that it had been Dodge’s idea to kidnap Maddy and steal her bed, Ethan didn’t have a good amount of faith in Dodge’s plans. “I don’t know, Corey... maybe he’d asked you to. I just... fuck, I don’t know. I know he’s gonna be in a fucked up place right now, and I don’t know what the hell he’s thinking. If it was really him that torched the apartment... what the fuck else could he be doing right now?”

"My loyalty is with you." Corey said, frowning. "It always has been." She looked away, crossing her arms across her stomach. "I don't know what he could be doing. I don't know where he is or what he's up to. He seemed to me to be under the impression that he was going to be turning over a new leaf or something, and that's as much as I know." she said, kind of hurt. She kept it out of her voice, even if it was still in her posture.

Corey might have been trying to hide it, but Ethan knew her well enough to know when something was not quite right. Even if it wasn’t completely clear why she seemed hurt, he knew enough that she was. “Corey...” Fuck, his hand hurt. It was hard to focus on this now, on once again trying to fix wounds that he’d opened up, when he was angry at the same time. “I’m not... I’m not saying I don’t think you’re loyal. I just... I fucked up. I’ve been doing that a lot and I’m sorry and it’s just...” His hands flexed, but when he tried to tighten it up again, prepared to hit the wall a second time, it hurt too much to even clench.

"It's okay. Just...when would I ever take his side over yours?" she asked. "I get you've been through a lot lately, but jesus. You know me. You know I'm always here for you." She sighed, and looked at his hand again. "Can you please let me patch that up? You look like you're really hurting." she said.

“I know, I know,” Ethan said, his voice just a little tight. God, he really hoped he hadn’t broken anything on that damn wall. “I know, Cor. It’s just... sometimes people ask for favors, you know? It’s nothing against you.” It felt a bit like he was being stretched too thin. His anger at Dodge, the pain in his hand, the need to set things right with Corey, the sudden urgency when he realized that he needed to tell Maddy before wind of Dodge’s “death” reached her. “My hand’s fine,” he said, glancing down at the still-bleeding fingers before shoving it into his pocket. “It’ll subside.”

"If you don't start taking better care of that hand, you're going to wind up with fingers that don't work, and pain all the time." Corey said. "I know, there's enough people down here with that same thing. They've got hands like claws and can't hold anything right, even." she said. "But fine, if you're going to be stubborn, be stubborn, I guess. Just don't say you weren't warned, or no one gives a shit, because I do." she said. "I'll see you later." She was definitely feeling the need to get up and moving, especially since the conversation at hand wasn't going all that well.

Ethan could tell that, somewhere along the line here, he had messed up pretty badly. He normally had a handle on things like this, but for the past few days it had been so hard to keep it all together. There had been too much upheaval, too much change, and now it was about to get even worse. “I’ll fix it, Cor,” Ethan said, heading back towards the mouth of the nest. “I’ll fix it, okay?” And from the look in his dark eyes, hair shaggily covering his forehead, he wasn’t talking about his hand.