Orange juice & the truth

Who: Dorian and Tensiel
Where: The Lockwood Residence
When: Early Morning

It was cloudy and dark, which was why it took Tensiel a little while to work out that it was actually morning when she finally woke up again. She'd lain quietly, peering at the small gap of light that slipped through Caleb's window, for what felt like an hour - and then, remembering with a hot prick of anger Mathias' visit earlier - had begun the slow and injurious business of getting back on her feet.

Luckily Caleb had finally, completely, fallen asleep next to the bed - propped up awkwardly against the wall so she could get past him. Not that she managed that quickly. After managing to sit up, Tensiel had just looked at him silently in the dark for a long while. A long while. Then she'd shaken her head and made herself move, because that was another and better reason to get back on her feet.

It had been slow, tough going, and she'd bitten her lip pretty hard indeed to keep from letting any sore sounds out as she eased along the wall to the bathroom and then in turn to the kitchen. That was pretty much the limit for the moment though, as she gave a sigh and kept a hand on her stomach, then just sat down on the floor in the kitchen next to the cupboard. Give it a minute and she'd make a go for the fridge. Victory would totally be hers.

In a minute.

It was Monday morning and Dorian had to go to work. He'd failed to do so on Friday, skipped out on Saturday, and had had Sunday off. After three days of sleeping in, he'd been slow to pull himself out of bed, shower, and then head into the kitchen for some breakfast. Being lazy, his hair was still wet, he was shirtless, but at least he'd pulled on a pair of jeans over his boxers, otherwise he would have been mighty embarrassed running into Tensiel in the kitchen.

Or not. There was the distinct possibility that she'd not have noticed his state of dress at all, considering the fact that she looked like she'd passed out there. "Tensiel?" he asked, hurrying over to kneel at her side. "Are you okay? Wake up." Had she walked in there herself? She shouldn't have even been out of bed.

"Mmawakes!" Tensiel declared, flicking her eyes open and peering over at Dorian. Okay, that hadn't been a minute. Because it was lighter now, oh bogeys. She gave Dorian a smile that - while still weak - was far stronger than any expressions she'd summoned the day before. "Hiya Dorian."

"Hey," he said, smiling softly at the way she jumped. He hadn't meant to surprise her, but she'd surprised him. He hadn't even considered the fact that she might be sleeping. "Are you okay?" he asked again, "You shouldn't have been out of bed." There he went, parenting again. It accompanied the worry that seemed to come with having her and Caleb in the house.

Unable to keep back a small yawn, Tensiel shook her head a little bit and blinked a few times. "m'fine," she told him, silently working out the best way to get up back to her feet again. "I wanted to move some..." she gave him a slightly pale look, and a half smile that lifted the shadows under her eyes a bit. "...don't like staying still. Are you going to work?"

Dorian moved to help her up, putting his hands under her arms to lift her. She wasn't big by any means and this prevented her from straining too much in an attempt to get to her feet. "Just be careful, okay? You don't want to pull any stitches," he said, then smiled. "I have to go in sometime, so yeah. I've got a bit though. Want some breakfast?"

Dorian's help was very much appreciated, and in a moment Tensiel was balanced (a bit precariously, but balanced nonetheless) on her feet. She appreciated Dorian was worried about her, but it was a bit easier to push herself when he wasn't packing her straight back to bed (she knew if Caleb caught her out here he'd pick her up and carry her back) and she gingerly leaned back against the counter.

"Breakfast sounds good," she said, looking up at Dorian gratefully. It was kind of funny seeing him shirtless, with the weather outside being soun -tropical Tensiel thought it was odd to be reminded of back on the islands like that. Hardly anybody male wore a shirt where she'd spent time growing up. The clean t-shirt and old shorts she had pulled on in the bathroom were enough to keep her warm inside at least, but outside she doubted they'd cut it. She blinked her eyes against a little dizzy swell in her vision again, and turned her head to the fridge. "Can I help do something?"

It was warm enough in the house for Dorian to go shirtless, but the one thing it did was expose his scars. Though not nearly as numerous as Caleb's, Dorian had quite a few, some far more faint than others. The one that stood out the most was to his shoulder, scrapes similar to hers, though there were four lines, rather than three. He'd been lucky enough to avoid any major injuries to his torso, or those had healed much more nicely.

"You can have a seat at the table," he said, amused though commanding as well. "I'm not sending you back to bed, but you're crazy if you think I'm gonna put you to work." He wasn't entirely pleased about her being up, but if she was careful and moved slowly, he was okay with that. She could stand if she wanted to, but she wasn't going to be cooking anything, not when she looked ready to fall over.

Giving Dorian a half-quriked sort of expression, Tensiel nevertheless didn't argue. It was Dorian's house, and yeah... maybe he had a point. Still, it was irking Tensiel to remember that she was meant to be helping out with food around the Lockwood's house and she could barely move.

"Okays," she agreed, taking it very slowly with her hand on the counter-tops as she made her way bit by bit around the circumference of the kitchen and towards the table. The bit where she had to cross without support would be an adventure, but so long as her eyes stayed a little bit fuzzy she could pretend she didn't know how many steps it was. Challenges, after all, were the point of being out the bed, right? Right.

As she made her way, she paused to talk to him, like she always did in the mornings if they were both in the kitchen. "Thank you, by the way," she said, looking over to him with her unfocused but sincere eyes, and a grateful look. "For helping me all this time, and... the other night."

"You're welcome," he said, turning to look at her and immediately realizing that maybe she couldn't make it to the table on her own. Taking her arm in his, he began to help her over, hoping her eyes would focus if she took a seat and wasn't in so much pain. "I'm just glad you're okay. I wouldn't normally be okay with Caleb playing doctor, but I guess you're an exception," he said, lips twisting in amusement.

Tensiel wound up leaning more on Dorian than she'd have liked to admit as they made their way over, and with all her concentration on step by step movements without having to worry about balance it was far easier to move forwards. As she eased into a seat she processed Dorian's words and looked up at him, catching the outline of his smile and smiling a little bit back. "He did a really good job. It'll heal soon." Her throat seemed to dry a little at the way Dorian said about her being an exception, and mentioned Caleb, but she couldn't think of what to say so she said nothing and instead just rested a hand on her cut stomach and leaned back against the chair. "My mom would be proud if she'd done sutures like these," she found herself saying quietly, without meaning to.

Dorian stood by the table as she took a seat, then nodded in agreement. "He did do a good job. And I'm proud of him for it. Though I'm a little floored he could do it in the first place," he said, then went to get her a glass of orange juice. Her next comment didn't escape him, but he took the time to process it, returning with juice before he started up again. "Do things like this happen often?" he asked, walking around the kitchen as he retrieved bowls, milk, and cereal for them. It concerned him that her mother would need to be giving her stitches as well, and made him wonder if she had the same knack for danger that he and his brothers had. It was so hard to tell and he should probably be watching her more closely, but she seemed far too nice a girl to be any part demon. He just couldn't imagine it.

Watching the orange juice sit quietly in front of her in its glass, Tensiel felt a sudden lurch of homesickness. She hadn't said anything out loud about her parents in a while, and she hadn't heard back from the postcards she'd sent. It was still early days for that, but sitting at a kitchen table and looking at the makings of a very standard and normal and homey American breakfast made her think of where and what her parents were now. What they'd be eating. With whom, and why.

She blinked her eyes and rubbed her temple a little bit in a fidgety movement to push the thoughts away. For now, she had to eat and she wanted to talk to Dorian. Homesickness could come later, it would have to. Her eyes tracked over to his best they could - still fogged a little with light-headedness and drifting pain - and she bit the inside of her cheek.

"Oh, no," she said simply, the hand on her stomach pushing ill-advisedly against the cuts at the thought. "I just... my mother's a medic when it gets called for... she showed me how to do some first aid." And no... she didn't get into fights for her life with demons often; she never had even seen one before the other night - at least, not that she'd recognized.

Giving stitches wasn't usually considered basic first aid. Basic first aid generally included calling 911 in situations like she'd been in. But seeing as how that had been discouraged, they'd done what they could. "Do you know what attacked you?" he asked her, casually pouring them each a bowl of cereal. He had the feeling that she did, but it seemed easier to go into the subject this way. Eli had pulled the description from her mind, so she knew it wasn't human to begin with.

Tensiel watched the cereal fall into the bowl, and listened to the sounds it made, and decided it would be better to keep trying to keep Dorian and Caleb from knowing about scary monsters. She wasn't sure why... but in the very back of her mind (or maybe the back of her heart) she perhaps thought that if the didn't know about demons they wouldn't know about angels. Both of which could be scary monsters.

"It was dark... I couldn't really see," she offered quietly, eyes still on the cereal bowls. She had a flash of white lights in her mind, the raking feeling in her spine that voice had brought up. "It was a he. I could tell by the voice."

Inwardly, Dorian sighed. He couldn't figure out why she'd hide the truth, but if it meant pulling it out of her, he would do so. "That's not what Eli said," Dorian said softly, pouring the milk. Easy tasks to keep them occupied. Food for thought. "I was hoping you might be able to elaborate on the description. There are lots of different demons and I'm not familiar with the one that attacked you," he said, watching her carefully to see her reaction.

And there was a reaction to watch. Tensiel held quite still. Might even have been holding her breath. If her wings had been out, had been visible, they'd be tensed straight out behind her back in agitation. Her bluish eyes widened slightly, and then she just whacked her open hand off the table in front of her in a weak burst of temper which she quickly tried to reign in. "Eli!" she reprimanded sharply, even though he wasn't there. "I told him not to say!" And when she looked at Dorian's face, met his eyes, her own were suddenly startlingly clear. Anger did that to her, made things crystal and very visible, and she had to bite her lip and look down again. Her palm was still sore and flat on the table top... she gave it an apologetic stroke. "M'sorry," she murmured. To the table, mostly.

Dorian raised a brow, the hints of a smile turning up at the corners of his lips. Perhaps there was something he was missing here, something he should have looked into earlier on. Mathias knew Tensiel. Now Eli. It wouldn't surprise him if Tensiel knew things she wasn't willing to talk about, but he'd never really dug into that. She was just a nice, perhaps nutty, girl... who was lacking a home... who put windows back together... who'd been attacked by a demon. No, there was nothing normal about her. "It's not a new concept to me, Ten. No need to kill the table," Dorian said, careful to keep the amusement out of his voice. "Care to tell me about it again? Maybe with a little better description?"

Still silently patting apologies into the tabletop, Tensiel glanced back up hesitantly to Dorian and the cereal bowls. No... no... she didn't really think that it was too foreign an idea for Dorian - demons and everything. After all, they'd talked about magic, and she'd known somehow before she opened her mouth that time that Dorian understood it was a real part of the world. Not just living in imaginations and books. But magic was one thing, demons and angels were another... andthere'd been another reason she hadn't said; "I'm..." her voice caught quietly in her throat, and she reached with her fingers to touch the thick bandages around her hurt palm (it was probably bleeding again, but at least Dorian couldn't see) as she swallowed. I promised Mathias I wouldn't do anything on purpose to get you hurt, she thought, looking up and fixing him with eyes that maybe reluctantly showed some of the hurt just thinking about Mathias and what he'd said and what she'd had to admit brought up. "I didn't tell you because I don't want Caleb or you to get caught up in that stuff," she told him, feeling very small and childish once the words were out.

Dorian watched her, thinking. She seemed so young to be worrying this much, but she couldn't be much younger than Caleb. At her age, he'd found a reason to buy a gun for the first time, so he really wasn't one to judge. "Tensiel... You know Mathias, right?" he asked, because that was the easier approach for him to take here. "All the stuff he knows about? We're likely to know about too. It's just something we believe in, and it's not something you'd have to hide. If you were attacked by a demon, I'd like to know. I know you don't want us wrapped up in it, but we're worried about you. And if there's a demon out there attacking people, then... we need to be prepared, don't we?" Not that that was exactly why he wanted information. He just wanted to kill the fucker. Then they wouldn't need any more preparation.

The look Tensiel gave him in response to that belonged on a postcard. It transcended all linguistic and cultural barriers to express the fact that she knew what he was thinking. A small tight sigh came up out of her and she fisted her stiff fingers and picked a little at her bandages. "I guess..." she conceded, looking at Dorian with a tip of her head. "But only on account of he eats people. That's just not cricket."

The look she gave him forced a grin out of him, unable to hold it back. Okay, so his intentions were not as easily hidden as he needed them to be, but they were still good ones and she had no reason to turn him down. It might protect he and Caleb, but it left everyone else just as vulnerable. "No, not at all," Dorian replied. "So, in an effort to keep less people from becoming meals, is there anything I should know?"

Another sigh. It was almost becoming the only way she breathed at this rate. Tensiel closed her eyes and remembered... tried to push past the pain and the blurs and the fear... and it probably showed in little inflections of her expression as she picked through her slurred memories... ending with blood and pain... but victory.

"He can speak English," she said - remembering his words, his taunts, his threats and screams of rage. "His skin is red and thick and he's like a curved skeleton with lots of claws... and he... he's probably got some new cuts on his shoulder and arm. And a lump on his head." Geology for the win.

That was pretty much the description he'd gotten from Eli, but he had wanted to check, just to make sure. There was always the chance she'd remember something else that would help, but that was actually quite a bit to work with. He was just thrown as to why it didn't seem familiar to him in the least. "What happened?" he asked curiously. "Did you just stumble upon him in his demon form and he attacked you?" It seemed odd that a demon would be wandering like that in the first place.

Tensiel opened her eyes, and blinked them to try and make the images she'd remembered go away. She reached over to tug her orange juice closer and poked a finger into it idly while she thought. There was a lot she couldn't and wouldn't say... but the fact pretty much stayed the same. She looked down at her juice with a small shrug, trying to ignore the spike of pain her injured wing drove into her back with the movement. "I was driving home," she said quietly, voice getting a little raw from all this talking. "And I just saw him on this guy in an alley and I... I couldn't just leave it. And then he wasn't being mugged or something, he was being eaten and I know it was kind of stupid but I... threw a rock at his head to make him stop when he mocked 'cos I asked."

She frowned down at her hands, at her finger gently poking her juice. "He got real mad and tried to kill me. I shoulda looked for a bigger rock to throw."

And there it was, the one extra thing that might help him narrow down his search. The demon ate human flesh. While this was something more than one definitely did, it wasn't a characteristic of them all. Dorian could already think of several off the top of his head, though none of them fit the description. He'd need to look through his books. He was sure he was missing something. "Well, if you see him again, don't throw anything at him," Dorian said, "Call one of us. Get away. But don't get yourself killed. You don't have claws, Ten. Unless we get you a big sword to carry around, it's not a fair fight."

Another wry pout greeted that statement. "I did okay," she muttered. "And I had to do something. It's not right, Dorian," she looked at him firmly. He knew that, right? He had to. "Anyways, there's no such thing as a fair fight." She propped her head gingerly on her hand, because suddenly it felt kind of heavy to support on its own. "I'm not gonna go looking for him, and nobody else should either."

"No, it's not right," he agreed. As much as he enjoyed a good fight from time to time, killing and eating another person was not okay. There was no way he could twist that so that it would be okay. Demons that ate human flesh were just screwed in the morals area unless they went and starved to death. "Fights usually aren't fair, which is why I'd rather you stayed out of them for a while," he said, but didn't go on to say they wouldn't be looking for the demon. That would be a lie. Finishing up his cereal, Dorian dropped his spoon into the bowl and stood. "Promise me you'll take it easy? If I come home and find you jumping around and tearing out stitches, we're gonna have words," he said with a hint of a smile.

Finally giving up on prodding her juice, Tensiel picked up her spoon and started slowly and clumsily stirring her own cereal. It was hard to hold something delicate like a spoon with her hand and fingers all swathed up, but she persisted. Persisting was something she was re-learning how to do. Her eyes flicked up to Dorian's half-hidden smile and she nodded for him. "I'll try and take it easy," she said to him. It was funny, in the time they'd spoken her eyes had focused a lot better and she could finally pick out the highlights of scarring scattered around Dorian's skin. Nowhere near as many as the ones on the small amount of Caleb she'd seen... but then, maybe now she had part of an answer as to why Caleb had scars too. It was a slight relief, for the moment anyway. "No jumping around."

"I've gotta finish getting ready for work," he told her, "But if you're still here when I get ready to go, I'll help you back to Caleb's room. Just yell if you need me, okay?" he said, setting his bowl in the sink. He wasn't worried about running late, being his own boss, but he figured it would be a good idea to report to work sometime in the vicinity of when the shop should open.