trade {mistakes} // stare

She looks at him like he's a ghost (sometimes he feels like one, but he's not about to go sharing his feelings with anyone, no sir) or maybe something even scarier, her eyes widening into disbelieving azure orbs and then narrowing as she reaches for something at her hip. Luke jumps back a little bit despite his knowledge that she's a tiny thing that he could easily overpower if push came to shove - years on the street have taught him that when someone makes a motion like that they're usually going for a knife - quirking an eyebrow when her hand comes up holding a book instead of a switchblade. A small huff of disbelief blooms over his lips in a white cloud against the chill of the night. Are things really this different in the world of the moderately privileged? Luke doesn't know a single girl in skid row who walks around without some kind of blade on her; knows that any female who didn't have something to protect herself would just be asking for trouble, but then there's this flame-haired angel-faced little thing who seems to have no idea that bad people exist in the world, with her confused expression and the tightly-wound words that spin through the air on a voice that's caramel sweet and much more palatable than the smoke-filled rasp of his usual girls at the bar. "It... it can't be you. My journal..."

His already-raised eyebrows drift even closer to his hairline, watching as delicate hands paw at the notebook's pages in a kind of desperate frenzy, cerulean eyes flying over the contents in a frantic search for something that apparently is life-or-death, judging by the look on her face. So jumbled, distant part of Luke's mind whispers to him that he might have had the misfortune to come across a madwoman. A very pretty and slightly familiar madwoman, but a madwoman nonetheless. Her hands and eyes finally stall on a single page and she looks back up at him with that odd expression again, almost as if she doesn't believe he's really there. "...Luke?"

"Depends on who's asking," he says warily, shooting her a searching stare. How on earth could some pampered little princess from the decent side of town possibly know him? He can't deny that he's definitely seen her somewhere before, those icy-blue eyes make something trapped in the foggy far reaches of his mind rattle around through the haze and screech familiarity. He knows her. He does. But how? She looks at him with this odd mix of wonderment and terror and Luke can't even fathom what would make her look at him like that, but there are several things over the course of his chemically-addled memory that he can't quite place and he's never been what one would call subtle, so maybe that's why he tilts his head inquisitively to the side and lets the words pass through his nonexistent mental filter and over his lips. "You look familiar. Have I slept with you?"

Probably not the best thing he could have said, but Luke's never cared much for first impressions and he really doesn't have all that much time to ponder how the angel-faced girl with eyes that haunt his memory feels about his morality or manners because two seconds after the words leave his mouth the collective of guys he's spent his evening running from comes crashing out of an alley further down the street, and it appears they've found a few more friends to join in the chase. Dark chocolate eyes widen in a growing panic that roars through his veins like a whole new drug and Luke curses under his breath when the leader of the pack spots him through the swiftly descending darkness and waves the others forward. Groaning at the prospect of even more running, he makes to turn around and hit the pavement before the realization hits him. She's still here and she'll never get somewhere safe in time.

For all he knows she'll slow him down and maybe even betray his location, but something in him won't let him just leave her here. Speculating about how he's probably fulfilling his nice-guy quota for the next decade, he wraps a steady (for once) hand around the thin column of her wrist and tugs her back down the alley he came from, praying to every force in the universe that she'll just go along with it instead of doing something highly unhelpful like screaming or making a fuss. They're down the alley and taking cover behind a dumpster when he stops, loosing the hold on her wrist briefly and turning around to be met with those startlingly blue eyes as they listen to the rabble of yells and crashes growing ever closer. "I don't know why the hell I'm doing this. I really don't. But if you know what's good for you, sweetheart, you'd best move it, because those are not nice guys back there and neither of us will be happy campers if and when they catch up. Now come on, this is a shortcut."

The dilapidated maze of the District's slums are marginally harder to navigate with someone else in tow - the has to find ways around the fences he'd usually clamber over and the crawlspaces that one person but certainly not two can shimmy through - but they make it back to Luke's block mercifully undetected, dodging the glow of the street lamps and sticking to the inky embrace of the shadows until he's forced to lead her under the flickering bulb that stands sentinel outside of the rundown tenement building that houses his apartment so he can fumble with the half-broken doorknob and motion her quickly inside, shepherding her up two flights of creaky stairs through the sounds of a million screaming matches and babies crying and plates breaking that filter through the paper-thin walls. He only allows himself a sigh of relief when his key slips into the door marked with a rusting 247 and he's finally in the safest place he knows (still not safe, it's a crummy apartment with shoddy wiring and a stove with only one heating element that works).

"All right, princess. I've got a few questions for you, namely who you are, how you know me and why I feel like I've seen you before," Luke says, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it over the back of a spindle-legged chair that sits next to the folding card table where he eats his meals. He's tired and his muscles murmur protest from all the running and he almost feels like crying when he remembers that he's got work in an hour, the guitar leaning against the arm of a saggy couch in the corner reminding him that it takes more than pushing drugs to pay for this dump. Hendrickson won't fire him, he brings too much business (both legitimate and illicit) to the old man's grimy heap of a bar, but Luke isn't feeling like another lecture on his lateness or occasional decision to not show up at all. Sighing, fingers roughened from the strings of a guitar and years of farm chores that have faded from his life but not his skin card through mussed locks as he feels the first unpleasant twinges of withdrawal begin to tingle in his veins like a whispered warning. Ah, well. At least going to work high would make things a bit more bearable.

But then there's the girl. The mysterious girl who tugs at the strings of something so far away and long ago that Luke can't even begin to fathom it. She's here, and yes, safe for now, but he knows he won't have time to escort her home before he takes up his guitar and goes across the street, and he's not very inclined to leave her in his apartment full of illicit substances tucked into every nook and cranny and loose floorboard. Shirking away from those blueblueblue eyes that tug uncomfortably at something rooted deep in his chest, Luke feels his face knit its way into an irritated scowl. Great. I've landed myself a babysitting job. What a night.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” she murmurs in an all but inaudible tone, voice mellow but eyes blazing with a silent defiance that Luke is slightly taken aback by – he’s living proof that the small can be mighty, but this girl seems to harbor a hurricane beneath angelic features and it’s more than a little surprising. Her expression leaves no room for argument, and he makes a decision against shooting a snarky retort back at her in favor of simply rolling his eyes and flopping noncommittally onto the sunken couch that creaks warningly beneath his weight, as close to grudging respect as he’ll ever offer to anyone. “My name’s Clea. Clea Jenivie. And you feel like you’ve seen me before because you have seen me before. We met several years ago, by the swimming hole. You took your little sisters, but only for a little bit. We talked. And then you left after we agreed… to meet again sometime.”

It all comes rushing back in fragmented, blurry flashes, a snippet of memory he’d all but forgotten. Ink and Imi’s laughter, the feel of the torrid sunlight searing into his skin, the glint of crimson locks against the deep blue of the water. Luke’s eyes widen to startled pools of tawny confusion and he props himself up on one elbow, searching her face and finding that yes, this is her, it’s that girl that he had all but pushed out of his consciousness, one day in a lifetime of more pressing matters but never truly gone.

“I waited for you,” he mutters, brows furrowing at the memory, surprisingly more distinct in his mind than even the one where he met her. It remains to this day the only time in his life he’s ever been stood up for a date, and that’s the sort of wound to Luke’s pride that isn’t easy to forget. “I waited for hours but you never showed up. And I kept wondering where you were and I told myself I’d find you again sometime, but then I…” He doesn’t want to mention that everything had gone to hell less than a week after that day at the swimming hole, how his mother had found his stash and how the yelling seemed to never have an end or how his body had gone into full revolt until he couldn’t take it anymore and ran, more desperate for his vices than his virtues. “I ended up moving out a few days after that. Dropped out of school, started making my own way. Probably never met up with you again because I don’t get out of this side of town much.”

The whole situation rings eerily in the back of his awareness, buzzing with something he can’t quite place. Luke doesn’t believe in fate (prefers to make his own luck in a world that’s never seen fit to give it to him) or karma or any of that malarkey, but the fact that he just happened to run into Clea on the street after years of shared anonymity seems to resonate a kind of displaced reassurance that maybe the world isn’t as big as it seems. But just because it’s not as big doesn’t mean it isn’t as bad, there’s enough sin in his little finger, much less his whole body, to prove that fact. Studying her carefully, he rises from the couch in a fluid motion that feels out of place with his normal inherent clumsiness. He doesn’t believe in any of that everything happens for a reason bullshit either, but Clea seems to find a way around his otherwise rock-solid paradigm and turn herself into the only exception. He didn’t find her for nothing. There has to be some sort of deeper meaning at work here. “This is really weird. Running into you like this.”

His vocalized thoughts are interrupted by the shrill screech of a faulty old alarm clock sitting on the grimy kitchen countertop, harsh tones and blinking, stuttering lights warning him that he has five minutes to get across the street before Hendrickson gives him the bitching-out of a lifetime. Grumbling a string of halfhearted obscenities, Luke stumbles over the clutter crowding his path and smacks the thing until it shuts up, turning and pulling his guitar case out from its place of honor against the doorframe. “Look, pri – Clea, I’ve gotta go to work, and I don’t want you walking home alone with those guys still running around out there. That said, my apartment building isn’t really the safest place to be alone either. In fact, it’s pretty damn sketchy.” A flickered gaze lands on the rusty hinges and paper-thin walls and the ceiling mottled with water spots, and for once Luke actually grimaces because it’s never really registered to him what a hole this place actually is. Poor girl probably feels like she’s in a cheesy horror movie waiting to happen. “I just have to go across the street for a few hours; you can come with me and then I’ll walk you home, does that sound – woah.”

The sudden onset of vertigo hits him with staggering force, sending the floor tilting at a sharp angle until Luke sways on his feet, free hand pressed to his forehead in an effort to quell the debilitating dizziness and phantom tremors that start to flicker beneath his skin. He remembers noticing the withdrawal earlier but is shocked to find that it’s progressed this far – he blames the stress. Luke looks down through hazy vision at his noticeably shaking hands and then back to Clea, pulling up a tremulous but reassuring smile.

“Dizzy spell. I haven’t eaten today, and uh… yeah. I’ll be right back.” The guitar case settles against the floor with a heavy thud, and Luke offers the smaller girl another unsteady grin before dashing into his bedroom and closing the door behind him, fumbling through his drawers until he closes his fingers around a packet of white powder that calls to him in siren song.

A few minutes later he reemerges with a wide smile and a distinct air of amiability preceeding him, quicksilver euphoria singing in his veins and making his steps weightless. Despite the amount of scowling at her he was doing before, Luke positively beams at Clea now, too far gone to feel things like wariness or animosity or the faint bitterness of long-ago rejection that still sits in an invisible stain along the backs of his teeth. A hand now wracked with far more pleasant jitters closes around the handle of the guitar case and heaves it back up into the air. “Okay, I feel fine now. Sorry ‘bout that, princess. Shall we?”

Spare me your judgements and spare me your dreams
Cause recently mine have been tearing my seams
I sit alone in this winter clarity which clouds my mind
Alone in the wind and the rain you left me
It's getting dark darling, too dark to see

"It's a surprise," Luke grins, hauling the door open with a shrill creak of rusty hinges that cuts through the stagnant, musty air of the cramped hallway. Down the shadowed corridor a baby is crying, and he thinks he can hear the Fialas warming up for another screaming match over who forgot to pay what bills. Some part of him starts into a half-formed question of what Clea might think of the slums - she's a class act and has surely never been here before. Luke knows a fish out of water when he sees one - but it's lost under the insistent buzz of euphoria that hums over his mind. He blames that same buzz for making him feel invincible and charming enough to slip an arm languidly around Clea's shoulders as they descend the creaky stairs, noting how she smells pleasantly of vanilla and jasmine as a wicked smirk pulls at the corners of his mouth. "C'mon, dollface, I'll show you where the real party's at on this side of town."

He has to pull her into a quick duck to avoid an airborne bottle nailing her in the head less than two seconds after ushering her into the bar (thank Ripred for coke actually speeding up your reflexes), a somewhat sheepish grin gleaming in the dim, smoky light of the cramped room as he shrugs in a what-can-you-do sort of way. "Yeah, it gets kinda rough in here. But if you don't bother anyone then they usually won't bother -"

"Marling! Where the hell have you been, man?" A clear, loud tenor cuts over the rabble of the bar, its source a lanky Asian boy that shoves through the crowd and reaches out a hand to pull Luke back to his feet. "Hendrickson was getting 'bout as pissed as I've ever seen him when you were late again; you better get your midget ass up on that stage before you find a boot in it."

Luke sighs, carding fingers through his already messy hair. "Nice to see you too, Sam. Heard your folks getting into it on my way out. Everything okay?"

"'Course my folks were getting into it. S'what happens when there's no money and nothing to keep 'em from being at each other's throats. Hey, who's the dame?"

"Sam Fiala, Clea Jenivie. Clea, this is Sam, he's my constant pain in the ass and occasional best friend and business partner," Luke makes a hasty introductions, gesturing wildly between them when he sees Old Man Hendrickson giving him the evil eye from behind the worn wooden bar on the far end of the room. "Listen, Sam, I know we've got, um... transactions to make tonight, but can you keep an eye on her while I do my set? This ain't exactly her end of town."

Sam shrugs like it's not a big deal (nothing for him ever is) and Luke nods, picking his guitar case up before turning to Clea with a half-smile that only looks a little worried. "Stay with him, all right? And if people give you any trouble, let me know. I'll be done in no time and then we'll get you home, okay, princess?"

He turns on his heel then, hauling himself up onto the ramshackle, small stage a few yards away on a tide of Dammit, Marling, if you're late one more time I'm takin' it outta your paycheck! shouted from across the room. Luke snorts amusedly as he pops the worn case open and slings the strap of his guitar over his neck, more than confident that it's an empty threat. After all, it's one he hears at least twice a week. There's something about the crackly microphone under his lips and his fingers brushing over the strings that feels like home even though he's all but forgotten the meaning of the word, and the sight of a head of copper hair and blueblue eyes looking up from one of the corner tables makes something glow across his skin that feels even better than the cocktail of questionable substances simmering in his system. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. As most of you know, I am here to provide the soundtrack to your excessive binge drinking. And this first one -" he pauses, shooting a smile and a wink in Clea's direction. "This first one's for a very pretty lady sitting over in the corner."

The notes bloom under his fingers with the greatest of ease, a melody that's happy and upbeat without being too fast, an easy swing of major seventh chords that gradually float into a lilting pattern. Luke knows he's a screw-up. He's been told enough times in his life that he's not good for much, but he'll be damned the day he lets someone tell him he's not a hell of a musician. He's strangely protective of that fact, after all, it's the only thing he's got going for him. Besides his looks. And his devilish charm. And his hair. Never forget the hair.

I'm a disappearing act done poorly
But if I ever get it right, you'll miss me sorely
I look like the cat that just ate the canary
Coughing up feathers
There's a "get out of jail" card if I can think of something clever
I plead the fifth on all of this

When your chips are down, and your drinks are all gone
I'll still be here, wishing and waiting for you to come on
Kaleidoscope eyes, sparkle at the world
My emerald city, downtown girl
In the sickness of you, I'm just a white blood cell
Fighting like hell for you

The rest of his set passes in a blur of smattered applause and slurred, drunken requests for songs he's played a thousand times but never seem to get old. Luke finds that he doesn't much care for any of his usual crowd of girls that are crowding towards the front of the stage - most nights he can take his pick of the litter easily, it's what being mildly attractive and being able to sing will do for a guy - but rather, he only has eyes for the timid form at the corner table, eyes flashing brilliant aqua even in the dim lighting as she sits through what looks like Sam trying to get her to try one of the cheap draft beers that are standard fare for sleazy dive bars like this one. There's nothing special about Clea Jenivie, he tries to tell himself as he packs his guitar away, empties the contents of his tip jar into his pocket and unashamedly swipes someone else's Scotch from a table since they're all too drunk to care. There's nothing special about her, no siree, not even that she's fallen back into his path after years or that she has a smile like sunshine or that she's kind of sort of ridiculously beautiful...

Okay, so maybe she's special. Maybe a little.

He shoves Sam out of his chair unceremoniously, ignoring the taller boy's cursing in favor of settling into the abandoned seat and flashing a winning grin at the red-haired angel across from him. That's another thing he's good at: girls. And even if this one is special in whatever way he can't quite place, it doesn't mean that she can resist him for too awful long. They never can. "So, sweetheart, I've been thinking. How 'bout you and me make good on that ice cream date before I take you home? There's a grocery on the corner that's open 'till midnight, and I have a feeling there's a gallon of Rocky Road with our names on it. You in?"

Game, set, match.

I was looking for a breath of life, for a little touch of heavenly light
But all the choirs in my head sing no, oh, oh
To get a dream of life again
A little vision of the sight at the end
But all the choirs in my head sing no, oh, oh

"This isn't exactly the best first date you could ever have," Luke laughs, the sound rolling off his lips in technicolor tendrils of air. It's a delayed sort of high, the euphoria humming through his limbs exacerbated by the fresh lungfuls of night air after the bar's smoky interior and the presence of the petite form beside him. "But we'll make it work, won't we, princess?"

A little red-haired angel that's never even been on a date, with a sort of naivete sitting palpably behind those blue, blue eyes of hers - Clea radiates a sort of effortless purity that makes Luke wonder if he should really be this close to her. Darkness always rubs off on light and it leaves a sort of stain that's nearly impossible to get out, a permanent mark of its residence that can sully a person forever. Maybe on a different night when he wasn't already high and well on his way to half-drunk, he might have had something vaguely resembling a moral dilemma (it's hard to have one of those very often since he doesn't have many morals to conflict with), but as it stands he can't bring himself to care all that much, smiling crookedly and grabbing Clea's hand as they walk under the guttering yellow luminescence of the street lights.

It's different from the desperate clutch of their hands as they'd gone running through the convoluted maze of shadowed alleys earlier, wheezing for breath and fueled by a tide of adrenaline and rapid heartbeats. Now it's effortless, bordering on calming, and Luke's struck again by how yes, maybe she's special. Just a little. Walking down the street with Clea's fingers all wrapped up with his is as easy as breathing. There's no sort of lascivious thrill in it, no torrid urge to impress like there always is with the other girls. It's nice. Just nice. Luke grins a bit wider at the realization. It's been a hell of a long time since he's had anything close to nice in his life.

The corner grocery is a raggedy, rundown little dump of a place, but so is everything else on this side of town, and the "open" sign on the door and a glimpse of what looks like a small freezer in the back are enough to serve their purpose. The girl behind the counter doesn't even look up from her worn copy of some Capitol fashion magazine that's a year old at least and they duck through the door, and Luke finds himself oddly thankful for that (she's not one of his regular... dalliances, but there were a couple nights last month that he really would rather Clea not hear about) as they wind back the narrow aisles of sparsely-stocked shelves to the back of the store. There is exactly one carton of ice cream witting inside the freezer he'd spotted on the way in - not rocky road like he'd promised, but vanilla works in a pinch. "Huh, last one. You must be a good luck charm, princess. Remind me to invite you to my poker game on Saturday."

Luke makes a concerted effort to pay for the stuff as quickly as possible (normally he wouldn't pay for it at all and just dodge out the back door when no one was looking, but there's a lady present and he remembers that the boy he used to be had at least some sense of chivalry) before the girl behind the counter - he thinks her name is Linda. Linda, Latrice, something with an L at any rate - can make any incriminating remarks, throwing a handful of tonight's tip money down on the counter and all but yanking Clea out the door before he even gets his change back. The high's starting to wear off, he notices, the sudden spike of color and sound that greeted him as he walked out of the bar dulling into a wan monochrome as his heartbeat slows closer to a normal pace (normal for most people, Luke feels strangely sluggish without a cocaine-fueled rabbit's pulse thrumming under his skin) and a ghost of a headache starts to prickle at the base of his skull. At this rate he's got about an hour before the withdrawal starts to get really uncomfortable, but the prospect of sneaking off to take a hit of something sounds like kind of a slimeball move while he's on a date A date. An actual date. Christ, he hasn't been on one of these in... well, ever, considering that a mile-long list of hookups happening in various and sundry stages of sobriety don't really count as romance. The reality of it makes him bark out another spontaneous laugh, the filmy weight of a plastic grocery bag in one hand and Clea's in the other, warm and comfortable and feeling like it fits just a little too well.

"You know, you said you'd never been on a date, princess. I just realized I haven't either. First time for everything, yeah?" Luke grins across the space separating him as he keys back into his apartment building. Nothing has changed since they left. A baby's still crying, the stairs still creak, the Fialas are still shrieking at each other down the hall, but in a way it manages to feel a bit more pleasant, a rose-colored veneer that Luke isn't sure if it comes from the drugs or the sudden development of what seems to be a ridiculous schoolboy crush coating his sight to the point that for once, everything seems to be nice. Just nice.

"Just go ahead and sit down, I think there are spoons somewhere..." There's a mountain of unwashed dishes swaying precariously in the sink, but a quick rustle through the rickety drawers rewards him with two mismatched but mercifully clean spoons. The same can't be said for finding clean bowls, unfortunately, so Luke shrugs noncommittally and turns on his heel, striding back to the table and sticking the utensils upright in the freshly opened ice cream. "We're real high-class here. Note the sarcasm. But yeah, I don't have a freezer, so we better get to work on this."

Luke can remember the last time he had ice cream down to the exact date, the cold-sweet taste that rolls over his tongue whisking him back years to hot summer days and the echoing laughter of wide-eyed little girls in whose sight he could do no wrong. There are days when the memories swirl and rise and threaten to make him come utterly undone, but these flashbacks are pleasant, an echo of proof that maybe he'd done one or two things right in his life before he screwed everything up.

"So what happened, all those years ago?" he asks, toying absently with his empty spoon and taring at Clea across the table. There's something behind her eyes that just looks so dreadfully, tragically lost, something he can't place but calls to him like a puzzle waiting to be solved. Luke's got a penchant for lost things, he realizes. He's been lost for so long that he would have had to gravitate to something and aimless as he is eventually. "Because I waited for you. I waited for hours, and you just never showed up. And now here you are."

Here she is, indeed. Here she is, and he makes him feel a little bit like he might be alive again, an echo of who he was rather than something so broken and abandoned that he can hardly function. Here she is, after years of absence and almost-forgetting, and okay, maybe she's the kind of beautiful that makes his heart hurt in the best way and maybe her voice sounds like summer and maybe, just maybe, Luke likes her a bit.

So maybe she's special. A whole hell of a lot.