selfish motivations

Who: Dodge and Maddy
Where: Dodge’s Apartment
When: Midday

Maddy went back to the theater after breaking the news to Marian. She spent the walk back trying to force a tear, a sob, anything to remind herself how much she missed Roy. She did miss him. She missed him an awful lot and she felt guilty and lonely and sad without him. Maddy could understand that desire to just give up. She’d felt it just a few days ago, but Dodge’s words of survival, Roy’s past horrified reactions at her admitting to those feelings... well, Maddy thought he wouldn’t do it. Perhaps she’d just reached her limit of being able to deal with things. That sounded like a possibility, especially adding on the fact that Ethan had disappeared too.

Still, it left her feeling subdued and more than a little unsettled while she pushed the little cart full of boxes through the city to the Apollo. There were pillows and blankets and makeshift curtains and some other things she’d gathered up for his apartment. It had given her something to do. Something useful. Something distracting.

It was true, then, she realized as she guided the cart into the alley and tossed a pebble up to his window. They really were the only ones left.

Dodge had loitered a little outside of the building that he’d led the woman too, but after a while he gave up, heading back to his apartment again. When the pebble hit his window he was on his bed staring at the cracks in the ceiling, pretending they were shapes but knowing that they didn’t have a specific shape. At the noise he looked up, slowly, then eventually drug himself to the window, opening it and slipping onto the landing. “What are you doing D?” he called down, not calling her by her real name out in public.

Maddy had been a bit nervous that he wouldn’t be in, especially after she’d carted these things all this way. “It’s Maddy now,” she called back up to him and gestured to the flat cart with the boxes on it. “Housewarming gifts for some guy named JD. You know ‘im?” The smile she gave him was pleased but there was still a bit of subdued-ness to it that she couldn’t quite shake.

Dodge dug out the cigarette case he hadn’t let go of and pulled one of the cigarettes that he stole. It took a moment to light one as he knocked head back a little, trying to get the dark curls out of his face. “I might. Whatcha got down there?” he asked as he leaned over the railing of the landing.

She hopped up to sit on one of the boxes and shrugged. “He’s got some digs that I’m itching to decorate. So we’ve got some pillows and blankets and other special surprises but they’re just for him. Do you know where he is? I could use some help carrying all these up.” The smoking habit as new and Maddy wasn’t sure how she felt about it, if she should say something or not. Smoking hadn’t been Dodge’s thing before. Then again, this was ‘J.D.’, not Dodge.

Dodge didn’t really have a point to the habit yet. Part of it might have been that the smell reminded him of Roach, which had always been a safety thing for him. Maybe it was just something to do with this hands. Whatever it was, Dodge was still working on the original set of cigarettes he’d gotten in the case. “I suppose I could help out. For this JD guy at least.” He swung down, coming down the ladder of the fire escape, dropping onto the ground near her.

Maddy hopped off the boxes and lifted one with a little grunt and shoved it in his arms. “Happy housewarming,” she said, that subdued smile still on her face. At least she wasn’t on his window sill crying and threatening suicide like she was last time.

He took the box but stumbled back a bit, cigarette still hanging off his lips. “Happy housewarming. You don’t seem very happy,” he observed. He shifted the weight of the box a little looking in it to see what was there. “Pillows. These are your pillows?” They were familiar and more than that the musky smell of her hair and the attic hit his nose even with the cigarette lit. “I can’t take your stuff Mads.”

“I have plenty, you know that,” she reminded him. There were four more boxes and she took another one, this one packed full of sheets and some more blankets to pad out his bed. “Will this stuff be okay while we take these upstairs? I don’t want anyone stealing this stuff.” She didn’t answer that first comment, letting it just hang in there air like that to hopefully be forgotten. She didn’t want to talk about that yet. “Unless you can handle another one?”

Dodge thought about it for a moment and then nodded. “Give me another.” In the old days he’d just whistle and one of his boys would have been there. That left him with a little pang, but he looked away from her for a moment then dropped the box a little so she could set another on top of it. “You not saying anything, is that you saying you’re not happy or are you ignoring me on principle?”

She set the box on top of the one he had so she could avoid looking at him. She snagged the handle of the cart and started pulling it behind her. “Can we just get this stuff upstairs first?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at him. The only ones left...

He hesitated for a moment then followed after her. He had no idea what that mean, that tone or the way she just walked away, but he supposed she’d explain herself once they were upstairs. They moved around the building, and he waited at the door for her to open it since his hands were full.

Maddy opened the door, thankful it was big enough that she could just push the cart in but she held it open for Dodge to go in and she followed behind. “This’ll be fine here, right? ‘Cause it’s not mine. I’m just borrowing it.”

“Under the stairs,” he said, motioning towards the little space there with the boxes in his hands before he started up the steps. Thankfully it wasn’t too far because by the time he got to the top of the stairs his arms were starting to hurt a little. “Alright we’re upstairs.”

Maddy was struggling after him with the last two boxes and she was astonished that she’d made it without falling back. “Apartment now?” she grunted and sort of toppled against the wall with the boxes. “I’m not as strong as you are.” Her grip was starting to slip and she was doing a damned big job of trying to get out of telling him the troubles. Maybe she could just distract it from his memory.

“Set them down there.” Dodge went to the door of the apartment, going in and setting his two boxes down then coming back into the hall for her two.

Maddy gratefully set them down -- dropping them to be more accurate but there weren’t delicate -- and trudged inside to start opening the boxes. “If you can scrounge up a hammer and nails, we can put these curtains up to keep the cold out and you can take them down when it’s too warm,” she said, finding the box of sheets and dragging it over to his bed. “How cold does it get for you?” she asked, since when she’d slept over, there’d been shared body heat and it had been in the middle of an icy cold thunderstorm.

Dodge grabbed the last two, setting them down inside before looking at her strange. He almost asked her why the hell she’d brought curtains but forced himself not to get caught up in what she was saying and focus on what she wasn’t saying. “Maddy, you’re avoiding.”

She shook her head slowly and sort of ended up staring at the box as she sat back on her heels with a sigh. Everything was swirling in her head in this foggy kind of haze. How ironic that in the end, the person she thought would leave her was the only one who ended up staying. Then again, they were two of a kind, right? And everyone just got sick of them in one way or another. “I can’t cry,” she finally said. “I keep telling myself that these are the right reasons to cry. These are times when tears are good but I can’t cry. I can hardly even feel it and I don’t know what that means.” It still wasn’t really answering his question. It would probably spur on a multitude of others but for now she was staring at the sheets wondering if maybe they could help her cry.

Dodge pushed the door to his little room closed, moving across the space to her and sitting down behind her, rubbing his hand over her back. “Crying’s not always a good thing. Makes you seem weak. What would you think of me if I started crying?” he asked her. “What reasons are there for crying?” he added.

The hand on her back was soothing and Maddy relaxed a little bit. “I’ve never been a big crier but lately all I want to do is cry. Like everything just keeps going wrong and I can’t keep it in like I usually can. I stopped drinking so much because it was making me sick all the time and I got scared I’d be passed out drunk and someone would come in and take me away.” She was rambling a little but recognized it and stopped herself. “I went into the tunnels yesterday to ask Corey if she’d seen Roy. No one had seen him since the other day.”

Dodge got confused about halfway through that, not sure what she was going on about but it seemed like she just needed to talk. “Our Roy?” he asked, catching on to the last part. “Did you ask his sister about him?” That wasn’t good news.

“I was waiting around for he by Nighthawks because I wanted to tell her that I gave the boss her name as my reference for the job I applied for. Apparently Roy cut things off with her too so I said I’d go look around. I went by his work, they hadn’t seen him and he wasn’t at his usual spots so I went in the tunnels to ask Corey.” She turned her head to look at Dodge and nodded a little. “She said some people saw Roy heading down to the deeper tunnels.” The kind no one came out of. “And I stood there like an idiot and didn’t feel anything except this hollow, empty feeling and I thought ‘well, how come I’m not surprised?’. Roy was like my brother and I couldn’t feel anything about it. I told Marian about it today and I think I made it worse because I wasn’t crying or visibly upset that he was gone. Just ‘Oh, Roy went down into the tunnels, I’m sorry’. And I am upset. I’m upset that he left but it just isn’t coming out right.” It was bothering her and she wondered why she was processing it all the way she was. It was wrong, right?

“He went...” Dodge started but trailed off as it dawned on him. “That fuck head. How stupid is he? Why would he do something like that?” It was too hard to wrap his head around. Dodge had killed himself essentially but he didn’t actually want to die, it was an unfathomable concept to him. “Just because you’re upset doesn’t mean you have to be crying. What can we do about Roy doing something stupid?” It was strange though, thinking of Roy as gone. It wasn’t that he wished the guy any ill will, he didn’t, but it wasn’t like losing a friend for Dodge.

Maddy shrugged and shifted, pins and needles pricking her feet. “Could you just stop saying that about him?” she asked quietly but her voice had an edge to it. She didn’t want to hear it, not when Roy was gone for good.

“About him being stupid?” Dodge asked shifting with her so his hand was still on her back. That didn’t seem fair, since what Roy had done was stupid, but Dodge checked it. “Alright, I’ll stop. I’m sorry.” The apology wasn’t for the comment as much as it was for her friend being gone.

“Thank you.” She reached up to rub her face tiredly, feeling a tenseness along her shoulders and back, like her muscles were being wound tight or something. “I should’ve had you stop doing that awhile ago, really. Roy was like my brother.” Was. It felt strange to say it but there it was. “And quite frankly he put up with a lot and I know you didn’t like him very much, but he was there for me a lot and I didn’t appreciate him as much I should have. Maybe that’s why I can’t feel anything about it. Because I’m still guilty.” It was rhetorical. Maddy didn’t expect an answer. “Ethan’s gone too.” Might as well rip that band-aid off too. “I asked at the mill. They said he’d gotten an advance on his paycheck and then never showed back up.” Which... explained a lot actually.

“Maddy you aren’t guilty. Whatever Roy did, he did not you.” Dodge sighed, leaning against her a little. “Brother or not, he made the decision. Not because of something you did. You didn’t tell him to go down there.” At mention of Ethan he felt his spine stiffen and his breath go out of his lungs. He got up, letting go of Maddy as he crossed the room back to the window. “Never showed up?” he asked hating that his voice sounded shaky.

Maddy watched him get up and move away, unsure of whether or not she should get up and go to him. “He was always acting weird these past few weeks. I wasn’t sure why and then on my birthday he was kind of insinuating things that made me uncomfortable, not to mention how much money he spent on me. It was just uncomfortable. I asked him to leave. That’s the last I saw of him. The foreman at the mill said that the third day of work, he asked for his month’s wages, then he showed up with a new coat for my birthday and then I guess never went back to Corey’s.” He’d acted oddly ever since the separation from Dodge and Maddy felt uncomfortable as she began to realize what it was.

Dodge rubbed his face, not sure of what to think as he looked out the dirty window. Roach acting weird. He thought it was weird that his friend left, even though he told him not to go, but apparently Dodge had given him a reason to leave. “Corey hasn’t seen him either then?” He thought about it for another long moment then turned back to Maddy. “What did he do, tell me all of it and explain what happened.”

She looked confused for a moment as she tried to figure out what he wanted to know. If Ethan had actually done something, or just a rehash of the whole story. “Well, it started right before my birthday. Friday, I think. It was the day I left Roy’s after our thing happened. When those apartment buildings near your old one were on fire. He was in a darker kind of mood. He was telling me to sit down and everything then said that you were faking your death and the boys had been sent to the orphanage. He was upset about the whole thing cause he hated the orphanage. I was defending your decision. I thought it was the right thing to do if you were going to start over. I think that made him upset. Defending you. He ended up ordering me to stay in bed for the weekend because I was getting sick and he mentioned that he’d been given this job and there was this thing about Alec Ravenwood himself offering him a place to stay and I called him an idiot ofr not taking it. He left. Came back on my birthday with this brand new coat and medicine and a cupcake. I was having a hard time that day because I was thinking about Jack and you and he was just looking at me weird. Like, I’d seen him kind of look at me like that before but it never really clicked? And then I asked him if he was happy and he pretty much said that if I was happy then he was and he tried to explain how I wasn’t defining his happiness? But it really sounded like it and he just kept looking at me and I got scared by how he was saying things so I suggested that he go and get some rest. Then you came a couple hours later and there was that.”

Maddy looked at Dodge, nervousness etched on her face. “I started thinking about it a little more after that. About everything that had happened and I started wondering about his issues with you. You were his best friend. Sure him and I had a friendship, but you were like his brother and he just walked away and that didn’t make sense to me and with the way he was acting around me... I’m starting to wonder if I made him crazy too. I started wondering if he was liking me and I wasn’t really comfortable with it, which is why I told you, remember? When I spent the night? Well it was more obvious after... well, everything.” What did that say about her? The effect that she had on people.

As she talked, Dodge moved closer, sitting on the squat mattress across from her. “I should have made him stay,” he said softly, running his hand through his curls again. “I wanted to, so bad, I told him he didn’t have to go, but he didn’t want to stay. You know that punching me in the face wasn’t enough for me throw him out. But he left because of you.” It was a steady flow of words, nothing too laced with any emotion than regret. “I’m sorry, that he made you uncomfortable. I should have...kept an eye on him or something. I’m not sure.” He stopped thinking about it and shaking his head. “What have we become Maddy?”

“You don’t make people do things,” she reminded him and got to her feet to sit down on the bed next to him and leaned forward to rest her elbows against her knees. Because of her. At least he didn’t sound like he was blaming her. If Ethan had wanted to do something to her, no one was going to stop him, but he wasn’t that kind of person. “No, there was no need. I handled it. He’s not that kind of person.” As for his last question she straightened up a bit and shook her head. “I don’t know, Dodge. I do know that I’m the common thread in all of this. At least you’re trying to change your life, right? I’m trying to be a better person too but everyone is gone. It’s just us.” Her mouth twitched into a bitter smile. “Serves us right?” she asked. “At least we have each other.”

“Serves us right? What have you done?” Dodge asked her, leaning back so he was laying down and grinning. “I guess it is just us. That’s never good, everyone wanted us to be apart and now it looks like we’re stuck with one another. Funny how that works out huh?”

As Dodge laid back against the bad she turned so she could still look at him. The feeling had returned back to her feet and she tucked them up on the bed with her after toeing off her shoes. She couldn’t help but turn from the bitter smile to a more genuine, amused one. “I don’t mind,” she teased him. “At least we know how each other works. We make a pretty decent team.” Did that change things? She wasn’t sure.

“When you listen to me yeah,” he teased back grinning. “Which apparently is next to impossible.” He tucked his hands behind his head, propping up a little to see her better. “I figure we’ll get by right?” Dodge couldn’t help but hope that was the case. He hated them being lost without hope even if he didn’t want to walk the straight and narrow.

Maddy rolled her eyes when he complained about her never listening and pinched his side. “Depends on what you’re asking me to do,” she said vaguely. She became slightly more serious at his next statement. She used to have a plan. Buy a house, move in with Roy and maybe Marian. That wasn’t happening now. “We always do, don’t we.” It was more statement than question and she met his eyes. “We should come up with some sort of plan. I’m hoping for the job at Nighthawks but it’ll take some time to get enough money to do whatever I probably will end up doing.” She reached up to brush the curls off his forehead and lay back and propped herself up on her elbow to keep looking at him. “Us against the world and all that.”

“It doesn’t matter what I’m asking. You rarely listen. You never have,” Dodge chastised her. He’d liked that about her, her spunk. “Survivors, we always survive. But I don’t want a plan. I don’t like plans.” Schedules yes, but not plans Plans sounded formal.

Maddy gave him a positively angelic smile at the chastisement and picked at the thin bedspread. “We always survive,” she repeated. She was a survivor. Nothing had gotten her yet, no matter how close it came. “Maybe ‘goal’ would be better?” She walked two fingers across the bedspread, back and forth with nowhere to go. That’s kind of what things felt like at the moment. Nowhere to go and trying to figure out what to do. “Like I had my goal of wanting my house. I just needed a plan on how to get money. I still want my house, but I think a house would be lonely now.” And they didn’t like being lonely.

Dodge didn’t like her talking about that house. It was a sore point for both of them, since he was sure he wasn’t invited, especially when she didn’t include him just a moment ago. In addition, she’d come up with the idea for Little Angels for money for the house. None of it had led to anything good. “Goal’s the same as a plan,” he pointed out. “I’m not in the mood for a plan. I have no idea what I want, where I want to go. I got some ideas of where I don’t want to be, but the rest is too up in the air to make a decision.”

She kept walking her fingers back and forth over the blanket and chewed on her lower lip as she thought about what he said. “I could be in charge of the plan,” she ventured, the choice of wording meant to include him too. “And you wouldn’t have to worry about it. Like... I was thinking instead of a house, maybe an apartment. It’s cheaper and not as big and empty.” Her blue eyes flicked up to meet his after a moment. “Unless you already like this place?” She wasn’t sure what she was asking fully. She knew that if she was going to upgrade, she didn’t want to do it by herself and it was just the two of them so it would make sense to go in on something together. The house wasn’t their idea and they were a team.

Dodge looked at her curiously then shook his head. “I dunno. I hadn’t thought about it. I don’t like it here, but it works for now.” The only problem was, he hadn’t thought past what now was. “What’s so bad about your attic?” he asked, having not really understood why she wanted to move from her home. She had a bed, clothes, things most others didn’t, but it didn’t seem to be enough.

“I think you should start trying too,” she suggested to him and walked her fingers over his elbow. “There’s some times when you need to but I think for you, you need to start thinking about the consequences things have or the ram--rep-- um, the effects that some of your actions can cause.” She arched her left eyebrow but focused on her walking fingers. “Like being careful who you flirt with and just how flirty you get. I don’t mean doing it to everything in your life, but you’ve gotta start somewhere.” It was Friend Lesson Number One that she’d come up with and if he needed her help, there was the first big helpful thing. “I like the attic because I have all that, and I’ve got the lock, but I’ve told you before it was lonely.” He understood what it was like. She’d told him how difficult it had been to get used to after being surrounded by breathing and sounds and now it was even more lonely upon the fact that there was no one else.

Dodge scowled at her suggestion. “I’ve not been flirty with you have I? I’ve kept my distance like you said.” A little late though his thoughts drifted to Arienne and her brother, the scary guy with death in his eyes. So maybe he could cut that part back, just a little. It wasn’t his fault that she’d turned it around so he was insulting her. That hadn’t been his intention at all. “Alright fine, I’ll work on it. I still think you’ve got a good thing with the attic. It’s nicer than most places. Like here for instance. Here is pretty damn miserable.” He sighed, giving up the argument. What could he say to lonely? Not much because he felt it too, in his bones every evening before he fell asleep and every morning when he woke up. “You really think it’d be that much better? An apartment?”

“I thought the stopping the flirting between us was more because we’re trying out boundaries since we’re working back on being us,” Maddy said in reply to his scowl. She liked the flirting. She liked him and he knew that and so she wasn’t sure what he was thinking on that front. “But it’s different with us so... just be careful who you flirt with and how far you go. You don’t know if the chick you flirt with is some mob boss’ daughter that could take it the wrong way. I don’t want you dead for real.” She flicked her walking fingers against his arm and looked away from him. “I know I’ve got a good gig with the attic, but it’s not... private, I guess. It’s not a home. It’s a storage space the theater lets homeless kids have. I think I’ve only gotten away with keeping it to myself for so long because other street kids knew to stay away.” She picked at a loose thread on his sleeve and tilted her head so her hair fell and hid her eyes so she could avoid looking at him. “I think an apartment would be better,” she murmured carefully. “Not having to share a bathroom with strangers, a kitchen, ice box, bedroom. No one can come in without knocking.” Hypothetically, but they could certainly handle any break-ins.

“Aren’t they two in the same? Not respecting boundaries was what got me into the trouble in the first place,” Dodge explained. He knew it was different with Maddy, much like it was with Jessie, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t the same in the end. He sighed, thinking of Arienne again and falling back against the mattress. “I guess it would be. I don’t know. The idea of living in an apartment and not having the boys there...” That felt worse. Living where he was now was part of his own punishment, like Eris and her hole of an apartment. You moved out and you suffered because what you did was wrong. “All that sounds like a hell of a lot more than a street kid could need.” He turned towards her, watching her for a moment. “Maddy, if you want a family I’m sure you could find one. What about that cop and his wife? She seemed like she liked you.” It felt like that was what Maddy wanted, a family and somewhere safe and warm to live. Dodge knew, even if part of him wanted to, he couldn’t give her those things.

Um, yeah, you were the one that groped me. I think that’s different... “Maybe. I wouldn’t know since I completely lack boundaries to begin with,” she sighed dramatically and pulled the loose thread from his sleeve. She lost the dramatic flair at the rest of what he was saying. “We’re starting to get too old to be street kids. Two more years and I’m in homeless territory.” She thought about Janey and Danny and the visions of living there. A little house with the smells of fresh cooking. “They’d put me in school,” she said absently as her walking fingers went up his arm.

“Three months and I’m homeless,” Dodge pointed out as spring was coming soon enough. Not that it mattered, he wasn’t going to change things now that he was eighteen. He’d just stop worrying about being put in the orphanage. “School wouldn’t be bad. The kids there seem to enjoy it.”

“Yeah but you have an apartment,” she reminded him quietly. “I know how to read and write and do numbers. I’m not on the same grade level as Jessie.” At least on the street she was better than the school kids. She could survive. “You’d still... you’d still be my Johnny Boy if I was living with a family, right? My homeless level isn’t the only reason we’re friends, right?” She didn’t want him to leave her too.

“I have a room that I’m technically squatting in,” Dodge pointed out. That was all the little room was. Space that no one else needed which he got in return for not causing trouble. “And it doesn’t matter if you’re the same level as Jessie. It’s not a competition. And of course I’d still be around. As much as your family would let me, I’d be around.” He wondered if he’d stop, if he would eventually pull away from her, but he didn’t focus on it. If he did pull away it would be for her, because it was the right thing to do for her to live a happy life.

“I’m not in competition with Jessie, I’m just not on the same school level as her. I think I’m on the grade level of a twelve year old. I’d be the homeless kid who doesn’t know anything except an extraordinary amount of knowledge of all the different versions of Shakespearean plays.” She couldn’t look at Dodge because part of her was wondering if he was telling her to do it. “I’d sneak out to see you,” she said, still not looking at him. Was he telling her to leave?

Dodge shrugged a little. “Maybe school would be good. I know Oliver Twist backwards and forwards, and basic numbers, but that’s about it.” On the streets he was one of the smartest though he supposed in a classroom he’d be at the bottom of the class. “Of course you would. How could you not.” He was teasing, the cocky grin there as he spoke.

“I’d hate it. Sitting in a building all day being told to do things.” How bothersome, not being able to move around at her whim. At least on the streets she could be considered ‘scholarly’. “Some days I think that would be nice to live with them. Maybe if it was only me, I would... but I like my life for the most part. I like the freedom.” She looked at him from behind her curtain of hair as she walked her fingers up to his shoulder. “I don’t think Danny would want me to see you. He’s a cop, you know.”

He scowled a little, frowning a touch as she talked about school. That much he understood. he liked structure, but his own structure, not someone else. He didn’t do well with lectures and forced authority. Authority had to be earned in Dodge’s book. “Who else would it be if it wasn’t you? Do they have other kids?” He didn’t think they had other kids, but he could be wrong. “I know he’s a cop,” Dodge said with another frown, but it shifted to a smile. “His wife seemed to like me well enough though. I could charm her into letting me hang around.” Though being invited over for dinner didn’t really make sense to Dodge. He wasn’t that type of guy.

She had meant him. That if it was just her on her own, she’d probably not have any problem but she couldn’t leave Dodge like that, even if he did say he’d still hang around. She gave him a withering look and flicked his ear. “You know, I’d think you’d be smart enough to realize that when wanting to hang around a girl, you shouldn’t ‘charm’ the parents. You show respect and good manners and leave the bad boy behind closed doors.” Another lesson that she knew Dodge had a hard time with. He never really had to deal with any type of authority figure. Maddy was very good with dazzling adults. “Trust me on this. Besides, him being a cop means you have to be on wonderful behavior.”

“Ow!” Dodge yelped as she flick him putting a hand over his ear and scooting out of range. “Charming, being on good behavior. Same thing. Works the same way. She likes me, and not like that, though if I had to guess, he doesn’t pay nearly enough attention to her,” Dodge mused. “And I promise not to steal from him.” It wasn’t much of a concession but it was giving the cop some space.

Maddy rolled her eyes and kissed his ear in apology. “No, they’re not. Charming is how you are when you need to delight people you need something from, like at some kind of function, or maybe even to impress a girl. Good behavior is best manners, saying ‘yes, sir, no ma’am’ and bowing to the authority of the adults who you’re trying to get on their good side. You don’t have to be serious about it, but you’ll get positive results if you are respectful. Let’s say you had a daughter and some dashing ruffian came to your door wanting to go out with her. As her father, and knowing what teenage boys are capable of, would you like to see him be the way you are to adults, or would you rather see your daughter with a guy who shows you respect because you’re the father.” She rolled over his comment about Danny in her head and had to agree with it. He seemed kind of distant, although at the hospital they were too busy engaging in a stare down than anything else. Janey loved him.

Dodge still swatted at her when she kissed his ear, not happy about the flick. “That doesn’t work either. You show up either way he accuses you of being in the mob.” At least that was what Jesse had done. And here, he actually respected Jesse James. “Seems silly in general. Still. I can charm her, convince her that I’m great and between the two of you he’ll go along. Guys are suckers like that, but you didn’t hear it from me.”

“Oh, I have no doubt about that,” Maddy agreed with a little laugh at his swatting. “I just don’t want you get thrown in jail because he thinks you accosted me. Not that I’d mind, but I’m sure he would,” she teased him but eventually she sobered. All joking aside, it still sounded a lot like he wanted her to go play happy families with the McKinnons. “You just want me to go to school so I can take you as my date to school dances and you can pickpocket everyone, right?” she joked although underneath it all the question was a bit more serious.

Dodge was not amused by her threatening to have him thrown in jail, but her question had him sitting up, looking at her seriously. “No Maddy, I want you to be happy and warm and healthy and you’re not going to get any of that here.” He sighed and ran a hand through his mop of curls. “Of all of us, you should have been adopted ages ago.”

She looked up at him in surprise when he sat up and she followed at a slower pace so they were still face to face. His last statement had her looking at the ratty bedspread between the two of them. She used to be happy that she hadn’t been adopted. It meant that she’d be free when her brother came back. It meant that she wouldn’t have to leave Ethan. When the abuse started to worsen, she thought that maybe people who were interested in adopting her could tell that there was something wrong with her. That she was damaged. It wasn’t just because she would get sick all the time. “I am happy though,” she told him, still tracing the bedspread. “I’m going to get a respectable job at Nighthawks and I’ve got you and a roof over my head. I’ve got my freedom. I’m on top of the world.” Part of it was exaggeration and that old false bravado, but if she didn’t stick to the good things, the bad things would be overwhelming.

Dodge didn’t believe her for an instant. She’d showed up at his window a few nights before talking about dying and wanting to die. That didn’t speak much in the way of happy, but he didn’t correct her. There wasn’t any point in bringing her down. “What about the other two?” he asked. “Warm and healthy?”

“Weather’s nice,” she nodded to the window before turning her head to look at him. She as having a hard time figuring out if the conversation as still on him or on her and Dodge was doing that thing where he as being sweet and worrisome that knocked her off guard because for as much as she wanted him to be like that, it still surprised her hen he actually was. “I get sick no matter what, but I’m stocked up on cold medicine. And if it gets too cold again well maybe I’ll bunk with you and then we’ll have twice as many blankets,” she tacked on with an eye roll and a quirk of her lips. Still, there was this feeling that he didn’t want her around and it was a confused feeling because of him knocking her off guard like that. Dodge cared about her. He could twist her heart up, but in the end, he cared about her. She was the same way.

Dodge sighed and ran a hand over his face. He still felt dirty and grimy despite the wash up he’d done this morning. It felt like the city was just dumping it’s excess dirt on him for no reason. “You’d get sick a lot less if you were getting three meals a day and sleeping somewhere with real heat,” he pointed out but it had the air of him giving up the argument. She wasn’t going to convince the cop and his redheaded wife to adopt her. Not with Dodge still around. He was going to bring her down because he’d let her know he was still alive. In the end he’d still been selfish. “What else did you bring with you?” he asked nodding towards the boxes.

Maddy watched him give up his argument and she felt something inside crack a little bit. The realization that she was going to destroy them both because she had a problem with letting go. By all rights she should’ve just walked away after how he treated her but she couldn’t. He was her friend, the one who got things that others couldn’t seem to get. The way their minds worked and how they could see things. Still, Maddy knew the wisdom in what he was saying. Danny and Janey might take her in but she wasn’t sure how Danny felt about her. A warm bed, no fear of being taken in the night. Someone to care for her when she was sick. “Did you mean all of that? That you’d stick around if they adopted me?” she whispered, ignoring his question about the things he brought. How many times had she told him how she felt, how sorry she was and how much she cared about him? In his own way he’d returned it, right? But this was more than that. He was the last person really left who she had any connection to. “I don’t want to lose this... We’re it. I don’t want to lose you too. I’ve lost everyone else.” The hardest thing about saying that was that he wouldn’t return it. He wasn’t that kind of guy and that made it so hard.

Dodge had gotten up, moving towards the boxes to dig in them so that when she spoke he had to look back at her, crouched on his floor. “Yeah I would. As much as I could at least.” The idea though, would be that eventually she wouldn’t need him. She’d be safe and happy and he’d miss her terribly, but she wouldn’t need him like Jessie didn’t need him. “You won’t lose me Maddy. You’re all I have left too remember.” Selfish as that was, he’d held on tight to the person whom he’d hurt the most.

She sniffed a bit and gave him a little smile. “We’re horribly selfish, aren’t we?” she asked him, unknowingly voicing his thoughts. After a moment she got up and knelt on the floor beside him to look through the box. “Blankets and pillows for the most part, but the curtains are for the window. The wind whistles through the cracks and it’s almost as good as having a gaping hole in the wall. A curtain will help block out the wind and keep what warm air you have from escaping.” She cleared her throat and rubbed a hand over her face much like he did before digging through the box and pulled out a little box. “Some medicine, bandages. General first aid kit. There’s a little bottle here. Last of my whiskey.”

“That’s what they tell me,” he answered with a shrug, avoiding her eyes so as to now show off his surprise. He wondered what she was being selfish about since she wasn’t taking the offer he was putting in front of her. Dodge dug around in the boxes, taking the blankets and the curtains. The pillows he tossed on the bed. The last few items he went through then packed back in a box and set it by the door. “You take that with you. The medicine and things. I’d rather it stay with you.” It was safer there plus she’d need it. He wasn’t going to take it. He didn’t steal from people who couldn’t spare what they had.

“I’m not an invalid,” she said, snapping a little bit but she wasn’t angry. “I’ve got plenty of stuff to hold me over if I get sick. I’m giving it to you.” Her hands needed something to do and she went back to the bed to start sorting out the pillows. She wished they weren’t talking about this, that they were forgetting about the rest of the world but that had nearly destroyed them once and she was trying to be adult about this. It was just so hard. “Besides, if I’m going to go make Danny and Janey adopt me, then I’m not going to need it.”

If? Dodge turned, not moving the box from where it was. “I’ll take it then. Less likely to get stolen at your place anyway. You have a lock.” Which he didn’t. He had a door which was good, and he’d found a straight back chair to stick under the door. He’d taken to using the window to get in and out most of the time, but for the most part he was still vulnerable.

Maddy shrugged a shoulder and fell back against the bed like it was hers so she could look at the cracks in the ceiling. She didn’t have cracks in her ceiling. She could dimly recall little cracks in the bedroom at the McKinnons. “Do you want the attic? If they adopt me, do you want to take over the attic?” She could only say ‘if’ because what if the McKinnons didn’t want her? Or they weren’t able to take her. “I don’t think I can take it if some stranger moved in there. Or you having other girls over but I’m not going to think about that because I’m an adult and not a jealous child.

Dodge tried not to breath too loudly. She was actively thinking about it and for the life of him he didn’t want her to change her mind. He hated it, the idea of losing her, but he knew he was bad for both of them. They wouldn’t have had such a talk about boundaries if he wasn’t. And she was right, she got sick, she was getting older and he wanted her to be safe. Safe from the monsters that haunted him. “Maybe. If it works I might?” It would be weird being there without her. It fit her better than it fit him, but it was an improvement on the squat room they were in now.

“I can’t do it if you’re not going to be there any more,” she continued as she invented connections between the cracks, turning a single split into part of a landscape. “I don’t know if that makes me weak or silly but I can’t take losing you too. I’ve lost everything else and you were the one who I thought was going to leave me. You had every reason too. I wanted to say yes so badly that day when you said that we could stop playing the game but I thought I wasn’t supposed to. I thought I was supposed to end it and I had to leave because I never wanted to put that look on your face and so maybe you should let me go but I don’t want to let you go and I don’t know. I just want to do what feels right and you’re right. I should go to them. That’s the right thing to do. I’d be safe there but there’s something inside of me telling me that I can’t because I want to stay here with you where there’s no question that we’ll always be here together. No people getting in the way.” Roy was gone. She’d fucked it all up and was horrible to him and he slipped through her fingers like smoke. Maddy couldn’t identify what had happened with Ethan, but with Dodge... She sat up so she was looking at him again, eyes big and face open. “I don’t want to give us up again. If moving in with them means that I have to give us up, I don’t think I can do that. I’m sick of boundaries between us even if it’s only been a couple days. It doesn’t feel right.” She made a frustrated sound and rested her forehead on her fists so she didn’t have to look at him. Selfish and self-centered and lost. No one was there to point her in the right direction anymore. Roy was able to do that and it wasn’t there any more.

Dodge didn’t look up right away. He stayed where he was, across the small room from her and tucked his hands in his pockets. “Maddy. I don’t want you to go either,” he admitted. “But I can’t bring you down with me. I don’t know where I’m going or what I want and I’m a horrid person who hurt you over and over again and you’ve already said I’m not really fixed. Having the boundaries goes against my nature, but I can’t go back on that. Every bit of advice has said to not go back on them. I have to listen to something.” He sighed, looking away, over her to the window. “You should have left and stayed gone. I shouldn’t have come back for your birthday but I was selfish and stupid and I couldn’t give that up. I was selfish and terrible and I wasn’t going to change over night. I’m trying, but I’m not fixed. I’ve gotten myself into trouble left and right and technically I’m dead.” He brought his eyes back to her, softening a little. “I think you should talk to them. If they take you in, I’ll be around as much as I can, as much as you need me. And you’ll still be able to find me.”

She listened as he spoke and with each sentence she felt worse and worse and she wondered if she sounded like that. She still didn’t lift her head from her fists, unable to look at him. “You’re trying so hard to get better though and I’m always sitting here telling you to make the exception because of how I feel. Because of what I want. That’s horrible and selfish of me. I am not good for you. Or maybe we’re not good for one another. I don’t know.” She moved her hands to run through her hair and looked at the floor before finally getting up the courage to look at him. “Would it make you better if I lived with them? If you had to deal with me having a curfew and parents to please?” She wasn’t sure if that made sense, but they were boundaries in a way. “The problem between us is that I wasn’t the only one and you saw nothing wrong with it because for some reason that made sense to you. You shouldn’t do things like that because it hurts the people involved. I wasn’t going to be ‘the only one’ simply because all the other girls found out you were trying to play all the instruments. That was the problem I had with us. That you thought it was okay to play with more than one girl. That was the biggest thing that I think is worth repeating. When you flirt with someone, there’s a line that you don’t cross. You don’t go all out like you’re trying to pick them up. God, why the hell am I even getting into this again.” It always made her feel terrible and she rested her head back against her hands. She’d said it enough times. She just wanted it to be just them. No other girls in the picture.

“That wasn’t the only part,” Dodge pointed out, not going into how he felt about things, where his head was at. He’d already explained it and been told multiple times that his logic wasn’t logical. “You didn’t like the way I treated you. Like I owned you.” He remembered those words because they’d been close to true. He had felt that way about her. “So maybe yes, maybe you having a curfew and parents and structure would be better.”

She nodded again and finally brought herself to look at him. She wanted to ask if he’d walk her home from school but bit her tongue and just nodded again. “You’ve got a good heart,” she said softly.

Dodge made a bit of noise at that, rolling his eyes. “Hell of a lot of good that’s done me,” he mumbled, then reached for the curtains. “I think I can borrow a hammer and some nails from the super if you want to stick around and help me hang them. You don’t have to though.”

“Can I?” Maddy asked and she perked up a little bit at the invitation. “I can hold things. I’m good at that.”

Dodge nodded. “Of course. Get ‘um ready and I’ll go see if he’s around.” He handed them over to her before striding out the door, off to either charm his way into tools or just steal them when no one was looking.