Broken Souls

Nobody ever stood up for her like that. Octavia acted like it was the most obvious thing in the world to do so. She acted exactly how Raven expected Finn to act two years ago. She defended her even when Raven told her to let it go. Raven felt so many things at once, half of those feelings she hadn’t felt for nearly two years. She hadn’t let herself get close enough to someone for it to happen, yet it did happen. She tells herself it’s because Octavia merely caught her off guard. Either that or it was the alcohol that was making her heart and brain all mushy. That, however, would be a lie and she knows it. There’s no alcohol left in her system.

She can’t do this. She can’t let herself be vulnerable. She cannot risk the chance of getting hurt again. She cannot depend on someone only for them to shoot her down whether it’s by proxy or them pulling the actual trigger. What if Octavia expected something in return now? What if she’s just a means to some kind of end? Raven takes a deep breath and wills herself to let her anger toward herself overcome all other feelings flooding her body. The only person she can truly depend on is herself. All others are bound to hurt her eventually and she rather skips past all that and lock everyone out.

"Fuck!" She takes her anger out on her steering wheel. “FUCK!” A tear escapes and it isn’t long before she cannot stop the stream of tears flowing freely.

She forgot to actually drive off, and Octavia caught up to her car. Raven doesn’t notice the younger woman until she hears someone open her door.

Right; she also forgot to lock it. It’s almost like she wanted Octavia to come and find her.

“Scoot over, Rae. We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, but I’m not letting you drive in the state you’re in.” Octavia resists the urge to wipe away Raven’s tears; resists to hug her again; resists the urge to make her focus on her and her alone. She resists it all for she knows that it will only drive Raven away further.

Raven is pretty sure Octavia isn’t talking about the alcohol in her system but doesn’t comment on it. She wordlessly does what the woman is asking of her which is proving a bit difficult with her leg not cooperating. Octavia waits patiently while she sits on the edge of the driver’s seat. Raven silently thanks her for her ability to know that she doesn’t want to talk about anything.

When they both settled in, Octavia drives off but it isn’t until she stopped the car that Raven sees where they are. It’s Octavia’s apartment. They look at each other and have a whole conversation in a series of glances. The younger woman nods in defeat when Raven cocks her head to the side and raises her eyebrow. When Octavia restarts the car to drive off again, Raven wonders when they got so good at this silent communication. It’s barely a second later that she realizes they always have. It’s just that Raven preliminary cut off any moments for that to happen.

They come to a stop and Octavia gets out of the vehicle before Raven does. She opens Raven’s door and offers her a hand. When Raven sees nothing but sincerity in Octavia’s eyes, she takes her hand. Still not having spoken a word since they got into the car, Octavia guides them to the apartment and patiently waits until Raven opens the front door.

Raven can tell that Octavia wants to come in. She wants it too. Her mind, however, tells her she’s going to regret this as everyone is bound to hurt her at some point. Her body is still swarming with all sorts of feelings and she’s getting tired of fighting it. She pushes her door open all the way and walks toward her bedroom. She gives Octavia the choice to enter the apartment or leave as she cannot find it in herself to voice her preference. She’s not even sure how it would work anyway.

She hears the door close softly as she stood still in the middle of her bedroom. She lets out a sigh and quickly changes into her sleeping attire. There was always hoping.

When she goes back into the living room, now clad in shorts and a tank top, she almost stumbles over her own feet – again. She catches herself and freezes when she sees the younger woman basically plastered against her front door. Now she’s the worried one.

“O? You OK? You can eh… Come in, you know? This time, I let you in as opposed to you breaking in and now you won’t stop hugging the door. I’d rather you h-.” She stops herself when she realizes what she wanted to say. They’re not there yet. There was a time she could say things like this, but she’s pretty sure it isn’t OK to do so now.

Octavia calms down at Raven’s words. She decides to quip back with a smirk. “You’d rather what?”

OK fuck it, Raven thinks when she answers honestly. “You’d hug me instead.” Although she’s not even remotely drunk anymore, she knows she can play it off like that if the need arises. Octavia doesn’t know that the alcohol doesn’t stay as long in her system like it does with regular people.

Not wanting to wait for Octavia’s reply without some sort of distraction, she starts rummaging through her freezer. When the younger woman doesn’t reply and she finds the item she’s looking, she holds it up and speaks.

“Put this on your hand.”

She closes the freezer and stands face to face with Octavia. Holy fuck, I did not expect that. “A little heads up next time, oh wise ninja?”

Octavia smiles and grabs the frozen peas and holds it against her fist. “Thanks, Rae,” she says softly. She settles in on the couch while Raven watches her from the open kitchen.

Raven observes her and comes to the conclusion that she needs to give Octavia her bed as she basically dragged her out at four in the morning.

“Hey, O? You can have my bed.” She barely even finished the sentence when Octavia answers easily.

“Only if you join me.”

It isn’t like they haven’t slept in the same bed together numerous times before. Even when she was with Finn or Octavia was with Derek, they still had their movie nights followed by a sleepover that both men kept insisting were just them cheating on them with each other. It was all in good fun and no one was really bothered by it all. The idea of having O for herself without any form of restraint was getting more and more something Raven actually wanted as time passed. Of course, there was no way that Octavia would ever feel the same way.

But now… Although she isn’t completely sure how much of this banter is just Octavia being glad they’re trying to get back to something akin to friends again, and how much of it is this… This gravitational pull Raven seems to have toward Octavia, because, it surely cannot be mutual, right?

Raven shakes her head and doesn’t bother with a reply when she goes to find Octavia something to wear. She puts it in the bathroom and re-enters her living room. Octavia is sound asleep with the bag of peas atop her outstretched hand which in turn lies atop of her stomach. The woman looks so peaceful, so angelic; so damn gorgeous.

She takes the cold bag and puts it back in the freezer. She contemplates on whether to move the woman to the bed or leave her there. She knows the couch isn’t that comfortable so she does something she might regret as physically touching Octavia always does something to her.

Raven takes a deep breath and scoops the younger brunette up. There’s a moment in which she thinks Octavia is going to wake up and her heart beats out of control at that realization. She stands still, already trying to come up with some sort of excuse – which is silly because she really wants Octavia to be comfortable. Why make up an excuse for that? Also, what excuse could she even make?

Octavia doesn’t wake up until right when Raven tucks her in haphazardly.

“Stay,” she says.

Her eyes are pleasing and Raven cannot find it in herself to decline so she doesn’t. She takes off her brace and slips in next to Octavia but keeps a respectable distance; one Octavia clearly doesn’t approve of. The woman shuffles sideways until their bodies are slightly touching and slings an arm around Raven’s torso.

Raven tenses up at the touch, but Octavia makes no move to remove her arm. If anything, it seems that she tightens her hold slightly. When Raven realizes that the woman isn’t going to let up, she tries to calm down. She eventually settles down and puts her own hand atop Octavia’s when she’s certain the other woman is asleep.

Raven wakes up with Octavia’s legs entangled with hers – or the other way around. No, it’s definitely Octavia that has no regard for personal space. The fingers of Octavia’s left hand and her right hand are also entwined and it’s something she didn’t do last night. She feels Octavia’s breath tickling her side and she can’t help but smile at the feeling of Octavia all over her body. It feels amazing and she revels in it.

She gets lost in the moment. Lost in what if’s and alternate universes. Her fantasies get interrupted when pain shoots up her leg; a physical reminder of everything that went wrong. With a heavy heart, she carefully untangles herself from Octavia. Thankfully, the woman doesn’t wake up.

Raven takes a quick shower before leaving and decides to not come back until at least midnight. She doesn’t want to talk to Octavia about what happened or didn’t happen – or should’ve happened. She just wants everything to stop and go away. For the world to leave her be. For all feelings to go away. There’s a split-second Raven thinks that she herself should go away but she quickly waves away that thought because she’s not a coward. Although, maybe in a way she already is.

**

Raven looks at her phone now ringing in her hand. It has been going for quite a while now but she can’t find it in herself to answer it or to click it away so she just lets it ring. She watches it until the backlight turns off again. The whole process repeats one more time before a text message appears not long after. Raven is hesitant to open is but does anyway after contemplating on it for nearly half an hour. It’s ridiculous really because Octavia can’t even see whether she opened the message or not.

|| Missed u when I woke up. Borrowed a shirt. Thnx for letting me stay. I’m off to work. xo

She grins while reading the short sentences. That’s something they did when one of them was sporting a hangover back when they still hung out frequently. It is familiar; nice even. Yet it isn’t who she is anymore. Figuratively but also literally as she isn’t hangover; not even close.

She glances over the message again. It’s different than the one she received the day Octavia was fixing her brace. This one is way less formal and it makes Raven weary. She isn’t sure if she could or should be friends with the woman again. They would have to talk about things she’d rather keep hidden in the back of her mind.

Returning home, she almost falls over boxes that are littered all across the hallway. It’s probably a new neighbor moving in or something. She just hopes they won’t knock on her door in hopes of borrowing fucking sugar or something. Closing her front door behind her, she wastes no time to flop down onto her bed. The duvet still smells like Octavia and so does one of the pillows. She hugs it tightly against her chest and curses herself for how the woman is able to break through all her carefully built walls.

She wakes up not three hours later due to her phone ringing again. Looking at the caller ID, she decides to pick up the phone. She mostly listens, and grumbles back incoherently before the call ends. She needs the money, so she rolls herself out of bed and makes her way to Hogarth’s office.

It catches her off guard to see a new assistant at the desk ‘what’s her name’ used to sit at. OK, thinking it over again, she doesn’t give a damn at all. Except this lady looks at her with something she can only describe as pity. The blonde flashes her a fake smile and is about to let Mrs. Hogarth know that she has a visitor. It makes Raven furious as she doesn’t need an introduction, doesn’t need fake smiles and certainly doesn’t need any pity from anyone. It only takes one look from Raven for this woman to sit back down in her chair and occupy herself with whatever it is that assistants to lawyers do.

She’s in and out the office in less than three minutes. Hogarth doesn’t like her and she doesn’t like Hogarth but somehow they can use each other and that’s all there is to it. She opens up the envelope Hogarth handed her and studies the picture inside it. Her job is to serve this asshole with papers. Apparently, he refuses to pay child support and thinks his nightclubs are more important than his own kid of barely two years old.

Some people are really disgusting.

It’s not difficult to find this guy but it might prove an annoyance to get near him. She tries to get in the club but one glance from the bouncer and she’s being stopped before she even entered the building. Apparently, she’s not wearing appropriate attire (she’s pretty sure it’s because of her brace, though).

“Look, I’m looking for Michael Swanson; the owner.”

She gives the bouncer a pointed look and he presses on his earpiece to relay the information. She hears him talk in another language which she guesses is Russian. Figures. Hogarth sending me to the fucking Russian mob. What kinda name is Swanson anyway for a Russian dude?

To her surprise, the bouncer signals to her that she may pass. He grunts “V.I.P. section,” and turns away to continue his work. Of course, the V.I.P. section is located on the first floor of the club and of course there are only stairs to get there. With a little bit of effort, she gets up there. Another bouncer blocks her way but when he looks at her brace, he steps aside.

The V.I.P. section is disgusting. There are two men seemingly discussion some kind of business while there are more than half a dozen girls dancing around them. Raven can’t even tell if these girls are legal or not. Maybe it’s for the best that this guy is not raising a kid.

“Michael Swanson?” She calls out but no one seems to listen.

She takes a step forward, hesitates for a moment, and confidently walks up to the table. She slams her hand down on it.

“Which one of you is Michael Swanson?”

They both look up at her now, amusement clear.

She really doesn’t have time for any of this idiocy.

“That would be me,” one of them eventually speaks. “What can I do for you?” Before Raven can answer he adds, “I don’t do charity,” while he looks her up and down.

This again?

She grabs him by the collar with one hand, while she rummages through her pocket for the papers. They’re all crumbled up but they should still do the job nonetheless.

Two bodyguards rush into the section but Michael tells them to back down. “A feisty little one, aren’t you? I like it. I could use someone like you.”

She pushes him against the wall in reply, grabs her phone and takes a selfie with the guy while holding up the papers. This should be enough for Hogarth.

“No, thanks.” She replies and lets him go.

When she’s about to walk away the two butch men block her way.

“Really?” she asks Michael who just shrugs in reply.

“You did wrinkle my suit.”

She rolls her eyes dramatically before pushing the slightly lighter looking bodyguard into the heavier one. The heavier man stays on his feet and pushes his colleague off of him with a grunt. Raven is determined not to let them know the extent of her strength and grabs a chair to throw at the guy. He doesn’t even try to dodge it and it lands on his head. It only seems to spur him on and Raven feels a sudden rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins.

When he rushes toward her, she smiles and his expression gives away his confusion but he doesn’t falter. How can he? This is his job and he’s not about to lose it to some girl.

She ducks as he rushes to land a punch on her face. She uses his velocity to her advantage and grabs his legs to throw him over her shoulder and back and into the ground. As she was standing near a wall, he effectively landed with his head on there as well. He’s not out but out of it enough as to not come at her right away so she uses the time to walk away.

More bodyguards and bouncers show up but Michael throws one hand into the air to signal them to let her pass.

As she walks away, he yells.

“Come back anytime. Like I said, I could use someone like you.”

She ignores him and doesn’t stop walking until she’s a block away from the club.

Her phone dings with a message and she smiles.

|| The money has been deposited into your account.

This is easy money and she likes it a lot. All that walking wore her out and she quickly realizes that it’s because there’s no alcohol in her system. It’s probably going to take a day before she has access to the money so she sucks it up and goes home.

She’s glad those stupid boxes don’t block the way to her apartment. Closing the door behind her, she flops down onto the couch with the intent to get a few hours of sleep.

The smell of pizza wakes her up. She can hear two people talking in front of her door. The anger bubbles up from within as her frustration guides her toward her front door. She catches part of the conversation as she gets closer.

“Is that for me?” He pauses. “I... Mean... I didn’t expect you here. I’d love to take you out sometime if you’re still available.”

“I don’t know. This isn’t for… I-“

Raven recognizes the voice and doesn’t want her to agree to go out on a date with some guy. No way! She opens her front door rather roughly and she’s surprised to see who it was that Octavia was talking to. Of all people in the entire world, of course, it had to be this guy that felt the need to move in next door to her. It’s just her luck.

She realizes the conversation fell silent and they’re both staring at her now. She quickly clears her throat.

“I thought it was the delivery boy being stood up. Thought I’d take the pizza off his hands. Carry on.” And with that, she slammed the door shut.

Surging into the couch she puts in her earbuds and tries to block out the rest of the conversation. She clicks on a random song on a popular Spotify playlist. The country guitar in the beginning of the song calms her down but the lyrics do the complete opposite. The chorus makes her heart race and ache at the same time and the instrumental breakdown almost makes her burst out into tears.

She can’t help it if she projects the lyrics onto herself. Should she brace it all for her? Should she put her own heart on the line? Should she let her love rage on, or let her mind turn it into a raging hate instead? A raging regret filled with what if’s.

She's so lost in that Kygo song that she is oblivious to the fact that Octavia is standing in front of her. The smell of pizza seemingly coming from inside her apartment, makes her open her eyes in confusion.

Octavia kneels down and reaches her hand forward toward Raven who flinches slightly. The younger woman stops moving mid-air and their eyes connect. Octavia silently communicates for Raven to trust her and the only thing she can do in return is slowly nod as she’s unwilling to trust her own words now.

She doesn’t understand the caressing gesture she feels on her cheek. It isn’t until she sees the wetness on Octavia’s thumb that she realizes that those are tears. She wasn’t even aware she was crying. Raven tries to stay calm and control her breathing as Octavia continues to dry her face. It doesn’t take long before she can’t take it anymore and gets up.

Raven quickly wipes the remaining tears with the sleeve of her shirt as she asks the younger brunette what she wants to drink.

“What do you have?”

Damn, Octavia’s voice is so soft and she wants to capture it somehow and roll around in it. She’s glad that the woman doesn’t make a big deal out of her crying and forcing her to talk about it. Raven opens her fridge but is embarrassed to admit that there’s only a milk carton in it. Judging by the looks, it’s maybe a month overdue.

“Uhm… Tap water or whiskey?” she asks uncertainly.

“Whiskey will do.”