not my legs! :: hadley

Remy was a little upset with her overloridian turned boss turned best friend turned crush. And that was to say the least.

Remy had just embarked on a five hour trip to and from Deilig to get that one thing that, while important, was definitely not worth her legs. She hadn't known, of course, that Kole, the Deilig overloridian, was a psycho crazy man that would threaten and belittle her. But who had known that, Remy was guessing?

That same overloridian turned boss turned best friend turned crush.

Remy knew Hadley would be home from therapy, so she wasted no time in going straight home (still looking over her shoulder every so often--that shadow creature had been TERRIFYING) to go hound him about the man who had threatened her over asking for a simple thing.

"Hadley?" Remy asked, walking in the estate's front doors.

"I'm in here," Hadley called, referring to his office. Nila was currently helping him go through his employee's payrolls so that he could give CG and Remy those raises he had promised. When Remy presumably walked into the office, Nila suddenly stopped what she was doing and said:

Uh oh. She looks upset.

Upset how? Hadley asked, unconcerned. Remy was almost always upset with him for one reason or another.

I don't think this is like those other times, Nila said.

"Are you okay, Rem?" Hadley asked, although he still wasn't as worried as Nila seemed to want him to be.

Remy had wondered the entire way home how to bring this up to Hadley. She wasn't one to frighten easily, and prided herself on being strong. But there was no lying to herself--Remy had been scared out of her mind while she was in Deilig. She was still scared a little, if she was completely honest. And the more she thought about how frightened she was, the angrier she got at the entire situation. How dare that man talk to her like that?

"Oh, I'm great," Remy said, leaning her back up against the wall in front of Hadley's desk. She rubbed her arm. "But you'll never guess where I went today."

She paused a moment before continuing, letting him wonder but not giving him time to actually say 'I dunno, where?'. "I was going through some paperwork, and I saw this old trade agreement that was never fulfilled. So I decided to take a little trip over, since you wouldn't be around today.

"Anyway, Kole wasn't very happy to see me." She watched Hadley's face.

Hadley wasn't listening to anything Remy was saying until she got to the word "Kole." He froze, feeling the blood drain from his face. Remy had gone to Deilig. She had talked to Kole, the man who had threatened to skin her and Solange alive if he ever saw Hadley (and presumably the clio who fucking worked for him) in Deilig ever again.

"Fuck, Remy," he said, feeling a sort of unfamiliar cold dread wash over him. "Why would you go there!? What the fuck were you thinking?"

What now? Was Kole going to send that hired attacker after Remy now? Or would he take this out on Hadley? Fuck. This was a mess.

When Remy watched Hadley panic her entire stomach dropped. She'd been scared of Kole, sure, but in some way she'd still believed everything he'd said was just to bully her. That he was crazy and angry at Hadley. Hadley's face said otherwise.

"How was I supposed to know he was so fucking insane?" Remy countered, immediately on the defensive. It was not her fault Hadley had never shared this with her. And it was plain by his pale face that he absolutely knew that Kole was a psycho.

She cut the bullshit, "And I'm pretty sure by that look on your face that you did know. You never thought you should warn me? Your adviser? Who might find it necessary to travel to another overloridian's office?"

She was hurt and angry and scared. And Hadley's attitude was just making all three of those feelings stronger.

"Well I guess I thought that what happened to Rupert would have been enough of a fucking hint for you!" Hadley exclaimed angrily, standing up from his desk. It was anger born of worry, now that he knew that Kole was probably plotting some new way to ruin his, or now Remy's, lives. As if he hadn't done enough already.

Nila wanted to point out that it hadn't been enough of a hint for him, but knew that her clio was one hundred percent not in the mood to hear that right now.

"You're an asshole," Remy told him, her voice set. "He threatened to cut off my fucking legs, Hadley."

She shook her head, her lips pursed and eyes narrowed in a mixture of anger and hurt. He was something else--to blame this on her. "But you're right--I should have realized back then that you honestly don't care about anyone else but yourself. Why should I have expected a warning? How silly of me. How positively careless."

"Yeah, it was careless," Hadley snapped, his voice strained. He could hear the hurt in Remy's voice and knew she was upset, but he could barely worry about that when he had Kole's next revenge plot to worry about. Gods, Remy fucking knew what happened to Rupert, how could she have gone there!? "Apparently a dead man isn't enough of a warning."

Hadley, you're being unfair, Nila finally spoke up, knowing that Hadley was going to regret talking to Remy this way once he'd calmed down. Not to mention a hypocrite!

He knew he was being a hypocrite but he was too freaked out to speak calmly and rationally right now. "And you're lucky all he did was threaten," he added, ignoring Nila instead. If Kole had been in a bad mood when Remy showed up he probably wouldn't even have warned her before cutting her legs off.

"Fine," Remy snapped. "You find someone else who wants to put themself in that kind of position, because I'm not doing it anymore."

Her eyes glistened with tears, and she was so thankful that Hadley couldn't see them. She was trembling with anger and anxiousness and though she had known Hadley was a manipulative man, she had never thought he would say any of this to her. How stupid of her for believing he cared.

She turned and left the room, not saying another word to him. She was going to her room to figure out what she was going to do.

"I never wanted you in that position!" Hadley retorted. She was making it out like he had sent her there or something.

She's leaving, Nila told him. So he followed her, with Nila telling him where she was heading.

"I went there myself, remember?" he demanded. He had told her about his own trip to Deilig, the same day she'd confronted him about Rupert. He couldn't believe she'd think he'd ever want her to go there after that conversation. "Sending you never even crossed my mind."

"Save it," Remy said angrily. All she wanted to do was lay on her bed and feel upset alone. He may not have purposely sent her, but he felt zero remorse for not telling her about the danger in the first place. She had never even crossed his mind. And now he blamed her. As if she had been the one to upset Kole in the first place.

"And get out of my room."

"No," Hadley replied bluntly, staying put. "I don't care if you're mad at me. You're in danger now. We have to figure something out."

His initial anger and fear were wearing off, and now he was just thinking of what the next step was. He didn't know if Kole would be satisfied with just threatening Remy or if he was now planning on sending someone after her, too. Or maybe he would just take it out on Hadley, since it wasn't like he was in any position to defend himself. He just didn't know.

"What happened?" Remy demanded, sitting up. "What the hell did you do to make Kole so angry? And how long has it been this way? Since Rupert?"

How long had Hadley been keeping this from her?

Hadley stood there for a second, his jaw clenched. He hadn't thought he'd kept anything from her that she needed to know, but she obviously felt differently. And if telling her this would make her listen to him, then fine. Fine.

"I went to his nightclub, like I already told you," he said, strongly emphasizing the latter part of his sentence. "That's all it took to provoke him. And then..."

He trailed off. This was the part that Remy didn't know. That nobody knew, except for him, Kole, and Kole's hired thug. He had never planned on telling this to anyone.

"...And then he hired someone to beat the shit out of me."

Remy was silent for a moment. Kole was the reason Hadley couldn't see. And Hadley still hadn't had the decency to warn her. She suddenly felt like the leg threat wasn't a threat at all, but a promise. A real possibility.

"Did you go back after the nightclub situation?" Remy asked, her mouth suddenly dry. If Hadley hadn't gone back, that meant that someone could be after Remy at this very moment.

"No," Hadley replied bitterly. "I didn't speak to Kole again until he came to the hospital to gloat." Another thing he had never told anyone. After Kole had left, Remy had returned to find Hadley seething, but he was able to brush off her concern at the time. He didn't know why he was telling her now. Maybe now that he had started, he just wanted to get it all out.

He walked over until he bumped into the edge of her bed, and sat down with a heavy sigh. "I never thought you would go there," he said for like the third time. "I figured it was something only I was dumb enough to do."

Of course Remy had gone for a legitimate reason, while he had gone because he was bored.

Remy probably would have been offended by his 'dumb' statement, but she was too busy thinking about the fact that Kole had gone to seek Hadley out. It hadn't happened while Hadley was in Deilig. It hadn't even happened while Hadley was being his nosey, arrogant self.

"Do you think he's going to come after me?" Remy asked. If he had gone after the overloridian, what would be stopping him to go after some replaceable adviser?

"I don't know," Hadley replied, still bitter. He hated not knowing. "I didn't think he'd come after me and look what happened."

He flopped down onto his back, staring blankly upwards at all the nothingness he was always staring at. He couldn't let what had happened to him happen to Remy. He didn't have to let it happen. He was an overloridian, he had resources. Just as many resources as Kole. "I can get someone to protect you," he said. "I can find a way to make Kole leave you alone."

How? He had no idea. But he would just have to figure something out.

Remy felt like she was going to be sick. She didn't feel safe, not even here in her home. And Remy wanted to accept Hadley's help. She wanted to thank him and just feel safer knowing he was on her side.

But part of her still felt crawly. Like she had over estimated how Hadley felt about her. It was blatantly obvious that he didn't feel about her the same way she had recently realized she felt about him, but she had just thought...well, she had thought she meant something to him.

He wouldn't be offering that if he didn't care about you, Vex told her, for once not teasing her.

Remy sighed and leaned back too, so that she was laying like Hadley, looking up at the ceiling. "This is a mess." She, of course, was referring more to the Kole situation.

"I know," he said.

He knew Remy was still upset with him. Did she have a right to be? Yes, it was true that he hadn't told her that he knew Kole was the one who had him attacked. But had it really been so unreasonable to assume that she wouldn't go to Deilig after what happened to Rupert?

Wasn't that what had started this whole thing, though? Hadley, sending Rupert to Deilig. Where he was killed. And then going there himself to antagonize Kole. Bringing this whole fucking mess on himself, just because he was bored and wanted to play a game with a dangerous man. And now Remy was involved. It really was all his fault.

"I'm sorry, Rem," he said quietly.

Remy closed her eyes, biting her lip as they laid in silence. All she wanted was for things to go back to normal. For Rupert to not be dead, for Hadley to not be blind, and for them to be doing anything other than staring up at the ceiling thinking about dangers that lay ahead.

Then all of a sudden Hadley apologized. Surprisingly, Remy's tummy suddenly felt a little warmer.

Haddles wrote:I'm sorry, Rem.

Remy rolled over to look at him, so that she was on her side. "I'm sorry too," she told him softly. And she was. For the entire situation. Though she still didn't think it was her fault, and though she still didn't know if there had been another way to handle the situation, she probably shouldn't have gone to Deilig.

"I'll figure this out," he assured Remy, even though he honestly wasn't sure if he could. What could he even do at this point? Apologize to Kole? Grovel and humiliate himself to satisfy him? He honestly wasn't too proud to do that if he thought it would work, but he knew it wouldn't. Kole would just laugh in his face and hurt him or Remy anyways.

He sat up, feeling tired and frustrated about everything. "Should I leave you alone now?" he asked.

"No," Remy said, rolling back onto her back. She didn't want to be alone anymore. Mostly she didn't want Hadley to leave, but she obviously wasn't going to say that. Too bad he wasn't drunk.

"Let's do something that doesn't have to do with the threat of death," she told him. Maybe tomorrow they could start trying to teach themselves braille. But tonight she just wanted to do something relaxing with her best friend.

Hadley was pleasantly surprised that Remy didn't want him to leave anymore. Despite the stress of the evening, he even smiled. "Okay then," he said, laying back down next to her. The thought of how to deal with Kole's threat stayed in the back of his mind, but for the time being he just tried to relax and spend time with Remy.