darker_london | Prove it (Deirdre, Flynn)

Deirdre and Flynn were in Paris and the second Deirdre caught sight of the Eiffel Tower she knew she shouldn't have come. It was too soon. There was too much she hadn't worked through. In fact she hadn't worked through much of any of it. She had buried it under layers of seeming bravado and loud boisterousness that people expected when they talked to Deirdre. She had learned to ignore it. To pretend it didn't happen. But she had not gotten to the point where she could live knowing what had been done to her. She could only live pretending it hadn't been done to her. So many people looked at her and asked her how she did it. She talked about it frankly in public. The fact that she had been raped. But it was so much more than that. She had been sold. Over and over again, first at the auction and then at Madam Butterfly's. She had had a monetary value set on her. Someone had said how much she was worth and all in all, that made Deirdre feel more than worthless.

Somehow, Deirdre had convinced Flynn he would be okay to take a shower. That she could be alone for five minutes. He didn't seem to believe her, but when she insisted that if he didn't she would rip his balls off, he gave her the benefit of the doubt. Even if he probably shouldn't have. He liked his balls... And the second Deirdre was alone, she headed for the mini-bar, grabbing as many of the little bottles of alcohol (that always reminded her of New York and Jude) as she could in her arms before heading out on the balcony.

The night air was both soothing and chilling up there, high above the city. Deirdre took a seat on the ground, ignoring the perfectly good chairs that were sitting there useless. It took her all of thirty seconds to down the tiny bottle of Bailey's and from there she moved on to a tiny bottle of whiskey and then one of vodka. She wasn't even paying attention to what the bottles contained, she was just drinking them. She needed to numb herself somehow. Nothing shut out the pain here. She couldn't pretend here. She had to face what she had been through and she didn't want to. Flynn had been right. Being here wasn't worth it. At least not sober.

Midori.

Bourbon.

Red wine.

The cocktail of alcohol in Deirdre's stomach was probably not the best idea, but she was a demon and even though she didn't often drink, it took a lot to get her numb.

Scotch.

Gin.

And finally Deirdre felt her head spin and her stomach lurch. But she didn't feel peace. There was no peace to be found at the bottom of any of the little bottles that were now littering the balcony floor. "Stupid...drinks." Deirdre slurred at them and she sighed, pulling herself up using the balcony railing. She leaned against it heavily, curling her body forward so she was bending over the metal barricade, red hair twisting and flying in the wind.

Images of what had happened to her in that place bombarded her. Instead of numbing them away, she had broken down the floodgates and in they rushed, clear as day. Things she had never told anyone, not even Peter. The things some of them did. The things some of them made her do. The fact that by the end, she was helping them along, just to be done with it. All of it made her sick to her stomach, but not in a way that could be fixed just by running to the bathroom and being ill. Nothing could fix it. Nothing to block out the pain. Alcohol and denial weren't working. There was nothing left to try.

Except.

Death.

Not that she wanted death. She didn't. Deirdre wanted the pain to stop and after so long ignoring it, she hadn't remembered it was still there. If time didn't heal wounds, what else could beyond the absence of everything? Her heart felt like a black hole, and Deirdre stared down at the ground, so far below, and she remembered Antanasia Dumitra and her angel plunge that had been all over the newspapers before someone had 'proven' it as a hoax, just like they always did even when the truth was right in front of their eyes. Antanasia Dumitra had jumped from a building, her wings taped up to keep herself from flying. She had survived the fall, of course. She hadn't let go.

Deirdre could.

She knew she had only minutes to go. before Flynn re-emerged from the bathroom, so if she was going to do something, she had to do it soon. And here, in this place where she had had everything taken from her, she felt she still had nothing left. It was stupid and selfish and completely outlandish, but Deirdre didn't care. All she could see now, was that no matter how far she tried to get from the events in Paris, they would always be there. Waiting for her like some sort of nocturnal creature, coiled in anticipation. And just when Deirdre felt joy in her heart again, her memories would strike her where it mattered most and she would grow cold and loveless. For it to all end was better.

Deirdre raced into the hotel room, but she could find no tape. Instead, she ripped the blankets from the bed and she let her wings appear, great and black, folded in close to her body. She removed a sheet from the bed and she tied it around herself as tightly as she could, several times. Her wings ached as they were bent to conform to a shape they didn't belong in, but she knew the pain wouldn't be for long. Quickly, she raced for the balcony and she started to climb the railing.

Flynn emerged from the bathroom, toweling his hair dry. He caught sight of his friend, scrambling up the railing of the balcony and he didn't even pause to make a sound. He dropped the towel and rushed to her side as quickly as he could, his entire body urged forward by fear and adrenaline. Deirdre had reached the top of the railing by the time he reached her side, but Flynn managed to grab her by the wing and yank back, hard. Deirdre let out a cry of frustration and anger, but suddenly she was falling back instead of forward, and when they crashed to the ground together, Deirdre landed on top of Flynn, her elbow slamming him right between the legs.

Flynn let out a pitiful whimper and the moment Deirdre rolled off of him, he curled up into an impressively tiny ball as pain washed through him like a tidal wave. Deirdre seemed to realise what she'd done to him and her eyes widened in shock. She said nothing, however, as Flynn didn't look capable of responding. By the time Flynn could speak again, she was sitting with her back against the wall, her legs drawn up to her chest. "So...you were going to take my balls from me whether I took a shower or not?" Flynn finally managed to grunt, in order to lighten the situation that had just transpired.

"Heh..." Deirdre took a deep breath and then she inched forward. "I didn't mean..."

"Small price to pay." Flynn whispered and then he started to uncurl, though he did so slowly as the pain was still quite acute. "It's not like I was ever going to procreate with Quinn anyway." He was still taking deep breaths. They helped. Both the pain and the panic. Flynn knew what Deirdre had been doing. "Deirdre. Don't." And Flynn pointed to the railing. "Don't you dare fucking do something like that."

Deirdre lifted her eyes to his, her expression haunted. "Flynn...I wouldn't have..." She sighed and buried her face in her knees. She was kidding herself thinking she would have let go. She was drunk and devastated, but she didn't want to die. She just wanted the pain to ease. "I would have stayed."

Flynn was grateful for that, but it didn't mean he wasn't still freaking out. "You were going to jump anyway." He knew what the sheet around her body meant. She had bound her wings.

Deirdre sucked in her breath and let it out again, slowly. "Mmm."

"Doesn't that hurt?" Flynn lifted himself up then, so he could crawl towards Deirdre. Her wings, bound in the sheet were bent back painfully and it hurt him just to see. He reached out to release her from her makeshift binds and she flinched away. "Deirdre." Flynn said calmly. "I would never hurt you. I'm not trying to tie you up. I'm trying to set you free." When he reached out again, Deirdre didn't inch away from him, and Flynn was able to remove the sheet from her, and Deirdre's wings stretched wide before disappearing completely.

"I didn't feel it." She said, answering his question long after he had asked it. "Flynn."

Wordlessly, Flynn wrapped his arms around Deirdre and she sobbed into his shoulder as the night wind whirled around them. And then Deirdre spent the next four hours telling Flynn absolutely everything she had been through while in the clutches of Madam Butterfly's. She told him things she had told no one else on this Earth, because he was here and he listened with such love written across his face, and he didn't judge. She told him how she had hurt and begged and pleaded and how nothing had mattered anymore and how they had kept her hungry so she couldn't fight and then, defiantly, she had stopped eating altogether because if she was going to die there, she wanted it to be sooner rather than later. Stories and words and images and memories of pain tumbled forth from her mouth like a waterfall of anguish and at the end of it, she watched him quietly and whispered, "I just want to know it didn't ruin me." Since that day, she had felt like she was nothing but a husk. She existed and tried and sometimes she felt happy, but it wasn't real. It was an illusion. Her humanity had been robbed of her in that room just outside of Paris and what she had filled up the loss with just wouldn't do anymore.

"Nothing could ruin you." Flynn said firmly. "You shouldn't be jumping off balconies, Deirdre. You saved that girl in Canada, remember? You saved me yesterday. You saved Spectre and god, you saved Quinn. If you hadn't faced Amaris, she never would have admitted to attacking him and if we hadn't heard that, we wouldn't have known we could bring him back... You saved me, Deirdre. You save everyone." He wished to god she could save herself, but he would try his best for her. "You should be smiling. Spending time with the people you love. You should he happy."

"I just...it all feels like a punishment. Anything remotely...sexual. Not with my girls, because they're not men. And I haven't been with a man since...because almost every time I've been with a man now, it's been unwanted, it feels like that kind of thing is always rape. Like when I joke around about it, but I'm screaming inside. I need to know I could be with a man without it being a terrifying experience. That that kind of thing could be loving. Flynn, I need to know that!" Deirdre was on the verge of tears again, and close enough to a panic attack that she was breathing quite heavily. "How am I supposed to exist if I'm on edge all the time because something so simple and something that is so wonderful for most people is terrifying to me? Everyone talks about it and jokes about it and they include me because I'm there and it's rude to leave someone out, but I am freaking out inside and I just want...no, I need someone to prove that I have no reason to be scared, and-"

And then Flynn cut Deirdre off with a kiss. He hadn't meant to. It had just happened. Out of nowhere. And instead of freaking out, as Deirdre would have with anyone else, she melted against him, deepening their embrace.

If there was anyone who could prove to Deirdre that things of this nature didn't have to be scary, it was Flynn. At that moment, no one else in the world mattered. Abolutely no one. It was Deirdre and Flynn and the world could go fuck itself.