Work Text:
"Why didn't you just leave me there?"
She asks this question a lot, screams it at him. Sometimes she cries it, the words dissolving into sobs. It happens when she's at her lowest - between spits of venom, slamming doors, locking herself in the bedroom, leaving for walks past midnight.
He's learned to shrug it off, give her some space. Anything but give her a straight answer. Because - the truth is - he just doesn't know.
He spends so much time looking out for himself. Why didn't he leave her there? What drew him to the girl crumpled up by the side of the road is a total mystery.
And besides. There's no use arguing with someone as bullheaded as he is - it gets them nowhere. She should be grateful, thanking him - no. Worshiping him. Every waking moment for saving her sorry ass. But he knows when to back off.
Just because he makes a point to ignore her doesn't mean the words hurt him any less. But he lets her stay because he feels sorry, so sorry for everything that's happened to her.
He sleeps on the sofa like a pushover, giving her the bed like he usually does. She's too skittish when it comes to sharing. It isn't until the next morning he realizes she never even locked the bedroom door. He peers in, and she's curled up on her side, burrowed into the pillows. It's hard to think someone as volatile as her could be so quiet, so peaceful.
It vaguely reminds him of the hospital. When he brought her there, carrying her through the doors to the ER in his arms. She was quiet then, deathly pale from loss of blood and barely breathing. He didn't know a thing about her except that someone - or thing - had left her worse for wear. He lied and said he was her brother, that she was in a horrible accident. He sat with her in the room for days, sleeping whenever he could in the chair by her bed, until she woke up.
She stirs in the bed, the sunlight creeping in through the window making her grumble. He makes himself scarce, quietly closing the bedroom door over.
She doesn't apologize for the outburst, merely asks for enough to get a pack of smokes with her open palm. She needs to get out, walk to the store around the corner. He gives in like he always does, making an off-hand joke about how he's adding it to her tab. She doesn't laugh, merely forces the briefest of smiles as she stashes the cash in the pocket of her sweatshirt, her blue eyes darkened from the circles beneath them.
It's expected, for her to brush off her mood swings just as easily as he does, make like they never happened in the first place. Whenever they strike, whenever she asks him the question, it's the same song and dance with different combinations of steps in between, all culminating in her crying herself to sleep.
But he lets her be. It's another day.
There isn't an apology - for anything and everything - until days later. Possibly weeks. He's not the one to keep track.
It comes when they're in the car, speeding down the empty highway toward the apartment they call home, the sun creeping up into the sky, the wind whipping through the open windows and quieting the radio. It comes after the food they grabbed at the 24-hour burger joint along the way, where they pulled up to the window splattered with blood and guts and paid for everything with a mess of soggy bills and coins and toothy smiles. It comes when she can hardly keep her eyes open anymore after eating straight from the wrappers and screaming Queen along with the rock station, the trials of their wild night out starting to take their toll.
His eyebrow arches, and he glances briefly over to the passenger seat, not wanting to take his own weary eyes off of the road for too long. "What was that, kiddo?"
"I said I'm sorry," she says, her voice a bit louder, her feet kicking at the crumpled up fast food bags on the floor as she curls up on her side. Her eyes open, and she wordlessly peers up at him while he drives.
Their eyes meet briefly, and he redirects his attention to the road, finding himself squinting in the sun, looking pretty impressed with her sudden bought of politeness. He nods a few times as he lets the words wash over him. "Alright. You're sorry. I'm cool with that."
He pauses, swallowing.
"I'm not," he adds a moment later.
"Mm?"
He gives her a sideways glance. The girl is practically asleep, lazily rubbing at the traces of blood on her face with her shirt sleeve.
"Never mind you. Get some shut-eye. Still have a ways to go until we're home."
She doesn't say anything else, doesn't question his strange choice of words. She simply does what she's told and drifts off in the passenger seat, lulled by the wind through her hair and Don Henley promising to love her - even after the boys of summer have gone.
Why didn't he just leave her there? Because. Leaving her there in the middle of nowhere wouldn't have given him moments like this. it would've been one of the worst mistakes to make. And there's no amount of apologies in the world that would have made it better. He lives for the sleeping girl beside him, she lives because he let his guard down. They rely on each other. And he'd never be sorry for it.