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Alex feels dirty as she climbs up the stairs. Flashbacks of years of abuse behind her lids and not. Holograms no longer part of her reality still right there, before her, unmovable, unstoppable. She'd taken yet another john during hysterics. The barrier of the rubber had done nothing to ease up the sensation of the wetness of the man's release. She can imagine its whiteness, running down her thighs.
Sweat drops journey from her hair-line, down her brow, down her back like her long hair. Her hands and back feel clammy and uncomfortably numb and sore from being slammed against the wall. She wants to scrap her skin raw, take the layers of disgust off until she feels like herself again and claw at the insides of Barry's corpse, make sure the bullets are still there, where they should be.
A bath. She needs a bath. Just one would do when a thousand couldn't burn the burden away. As she leaves the money on the desk carelessly, one of the folded paper notes decides it wouldn't make a difference if it fluttered fast to the ground instead.
Alex listens the shower running; sees Nic's back, the tribal tattoo tainting across his broad shoulders. Sees Worick's nails, blunt and uneven as they are, scraping the ink and bare flesh. Doesn't need to look at the old, scratched looking-glass coated with fogginess to see Worick's twin tattoo on his own nape.
She watches silently, in reverence, embarrassed in being, albeit with no ill intention, spying on something so intimate between these two people who are so close, so intimate physically, emotionally. Watches the back of Nicolas' black, short, spiky hair and knows his forehead is touching Worick's even without being able to see so. They fit effortlessly: Worick's taller, somewhat tanner frame draped over Nic's in not a hug but a sibling, clearly an embrace that reeks of a lifetime of partnership.
She feels the sleeve of her dress falling, sliding all the way down from her shoulder to her elbow and pulls it up. Starts taking a step back when the long, soaked mane comes into view, of colors of sand and pallid ginger, and that blue eye locks on her as Worick rests his chin on Nicolas' shoulder. He doesn't look surprised to see her and she flushes slightly. It's dark, both the lighting and her flesh tone, so Alex doesn't think he can see her cheeks growing warm the way she can feel it. He's shaven already—it does happen, rare as it might be—, and it makes him look so much younger, makes him look like the boy he was once, more than two decades ago.
They are beautiful, she thinks; all leans frames, compact musculature, alarmingly combat-ready. All old scars, new scars, deep scars, shallow scars, far too many scars. She looks up again, finds Worick's face and focuses on the eye that isn't there, on the eyepatch that's missing. He smiles at her. She can't help but mirror his gesture, still rooted to the spot. Worick gesticulates for her to come, beckons her with the curl of an indicator, mouths Al-chan, doesn't make a sound with his lips brushing Nic's ear even though Nic wouldn't hear it if Worick yelled with all the force his lungs could muster. She shakes her head no, mouths Idiot back at him. He smiles more, noses at the tendon on Nic's throat once, and again, until Alex can see Nic's big hand twitching briefly before raising backwards, palm up, open, real, waiting.
Alex sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, so, so glad he's finally accepting her, acknowledging her, maybe even starting to trust her a little bit. This time, when she takes a step forward and her sleeve slips again, she shoulder-shrugs the other off as well, lets the fabric slide along her curves, all the way down her body. The minimalist piece of cloth pools at her bare feet and she steps on it and reaches out.
Their fingers touch hesitantly at first, intertwine firmly soon after. Nicolas pulls her near, neither gently nor roughly, and her dry, voluptuous chest collides softly against his moist back. She skims her eyes shut tightly, swallows back a tear and a sob, wraps an arm around his waist, the other hand delving into Worick's hair. She breathes them both in; the Hospital-smelling soap and the natural body scent and the blood that hasn't gone down the drain yet and cheap woman's perfume and cigarettes and the gun powder that never leaves—perhaps their bodies, perhaps her nostrils, perhaps the two for the price of one.
Alex doesn't think of Barry or pills or bruises or black alleys or non-consensual brain-washing for a moment. The water purifies the mind and the flesh. It feels like the home she never had. The home she'd never had until she met them.