-Lindsey-
        He could almost be mistaken for a college student. Mid-twenties
but looking younger by virtue of a boyish face and slightly tousled dark
hair, this young man stands about five nine and is fairly sturdy of build.
His eyes are blue and wide. He wears faded but spotless blue jeans, white
sneakers and a thick grey sweater. Over all is a slightly-padded Okie
shirt in grey and black, to guard against the winter chill. His speaking
voice is low and soft-spoken, betraying the south-west in the lengthened
vowels.

-Pete Wisdom-
        Oh, the scruff. Witness the remarkable level of scruff. His thick
black hair is quite shaggy, flopping down over his face when he doesn't
pay attention, curling over the back of his collar, needing a comb as
badly as it needs a trim. He constantly looks like he hasn't shaved in
three days, which is a little iffy - God knows he doesn't have a Flo-bee,
but he doesn't have a beard and never looks clean-shaven. To crown the
facial scruff, we have a patch covering his left eye and a vicious white
scar starting above his left eyebrow and ending on the side of his nose.
His remaining blue eye is tired, but still clear and bright.
        Wisdom nearly always wears the same damn thing, so it both makes
things easy for him in the morning - no worrying if green plaid goes with
purple paisley - and easy for him when clothes-shopping. He's got on a
scuffed pair of black dress shoes, black socks, black trousers, a white
Oxford button-down shirt, a stringy black tie, and a black suit jacket.
Only visible when he hasn't remembered to tuck it in is a delicate silver
chain around his neck, carrying two interestingly contrasted pendants: a
tiny St. Jude medal and a slightly larger Star of David.

The street itself is still in disarray after Lindsey's little temper
tantrum of Friday night. The cops are no longer preventing access to
non-residents, but there's much police tape and many traffic cones still
in evidence, shielding damaged portions of pavement from passersby. The
building itself is only slightly damaged - the repair work went swiftly,
as these things do in Beacon Harbor, and by the time Lindsey's door is
reached there's hardly any sign of anything wrong at all. Except perhaps
for the generally hungover and exhausted demeanour of the lawyer when he
finally answers the door. "Pete, hey." Genuine smile. It's been a while.
"I heard you were up."

Things were in the paper. While Pete has no idea of the catalyst, he's
perfectly confident that his conclusions as to the perpetrator's identity
are spot on. He grins a little wryly, stuffing his hands in his coat
pockets. "Yeh. Sorry I went and disappeared on you, looks like the
coma-timing was appalling. Want to go get some lu-- breakfast?" He looks
as relaxed as he ever does, but there's a general overtone of wellbeing
that's been lacking all along.

Food? Food good. But going out, and having food with somebody else, and
being in a public place and eating food, not good. Lindsey wrinkles his
nose. "No thanks. You wanna come in, though? I have, um. You could have
toast." He's pretty certain there's bread here somewhere.

"Oh, no, I'm all right." The offer to eat out was more of a
Lindsey's-benefit thing; Wisdom gestures inside, though, and follows
Lindsey as soon as there's space to. "When's the last time you've eaten?
Out of a purely clinical curiosity, of course." This time, apologetically
wry. The lawyer's condition hasn't escaped Pete's notice. He glances over
the apartment upon entering. Sign of Marley?

No sign of Marley at all. She never did make much of an impression,
furniture-wise, but the place has a distinct lack of any feminine presence
at all. It's adopted once more that feeling it had before Marley, when
Pete first came here - that feeling that nobody lives here. Scrupulously
clean and tidy. Lindsey wanders back inside and perches on the back of the
couch, facing the door. "Yesterday afternoon. I'm not hungry."

In a contrast that Pete is desperately trying to squelch any signs of, the
spy has hints of that aura of overwhelming hope he'd gained instantly upon
understanding fully exactly where he was. "Fair enough," he says easily,
shutting the door behind him, then leaning against the wall. "...so. No
lingering loose ends, I'm assuming. Are you still employed, or did the
loss of the building erase your job?" He's talking about what he's not
talking about, again; his expression says something to the effect of, 'I'm
not going to be direct, so take your time. But I want to know what's gone
wrong, exactly.'

"I'll have the option of taking up my employment again when the firm
reopens sometime in the fall." Lindsey says this with a perfect flatness,
neither upset by it nor happy about it. Whatever. "I have a job in the
meantime." He rests both hands on the couch beside him, the left showing a
distinct lack of anything gold. "You seem happy."

There's a slight shrug from Wisdom, leaning there against the wall.
"Cycles. I'm resilient. Very glad to have come out of coma. Was a good
chance none of us might have, had we fucked up even slightly. But - well,
we didn't." His head tilts a little, forward and to the side, watching
Lindsey. Noting his hand. "You're the one I'm worried about."

Sera must be out of her coma, too. Lindsey can't face her, though, not at
the moment. He turned her down because he loved Marley so much, and now?
Pete's last statement gets a brief smile and the lawyer looks away, eyes
settling on the carpet. "I'm all right. According to the doctor I saw
yesterday, I've recovered remarkably well."

She needs all her lights. But - so does Lindsey. Pete shrugs out of his
coat, calmly folding it over his arms, folding his arms across his
stomach, leaning against the wall again. "I don't know about doctors at
the moment. In general, but especially right now." Mmm, ethics. Yet -
wholeness, finally. "According to /you/, how are you making out?"

Well, doctors do suck, on the whole. At least the kind you find in
hospitals who will just never damn well let you leave. Lindsey looks up at
Pete again, expression completely neutral. "I'm fine. I don't know how
*Marley* is."

Wisdom's response is simple, direct, and quiet. "Do you want to?" Because
I'll find out.

"No. I'll hear if she ends up in hospital." She's on his health insurance.
Of *course* she is, because they're *married*, God damn it. Lindsey finds
the floor interesting again. "Alex is looking after her."

"Tempted to say something witty and stupid about Spider-men and tangled
webs, but..." Pete trails off, glancing over at the window. If she winds
up in the hospital? "That's good, though. If you're inclined to worry, you
know you don't have to." He pauses, then adds very quietly, "This. I don't
know what it is. Was it going on when you didn't want her finding out what
you were going to do?"

Not even a flicker of amusement. "Yeah...no, it...it's complicated." Hell
yeah. Lindsey takes a deep breath, exhales slowly, and looks at Pete.
"She's on heroin. She left me for heroin."

Oh. Oh. This city-- Pete looks back at Lindsey, reservedly empathetic.
"I'm sorry," he says, shoulders losing some of their squareness, which is
unusual anyway. He doesn't offer any platitudes or assurances. It's not
anything else they're talking about. It's heroin. There's a chance, if you
keep chasing, if you keep muscling - but clearly that's not something
Lindsey's chosen to do, for whatever reason. So - that's all Pete says.

It's not in his nature to chase desperately after someone who doesn't want
him. She might love him, yes, that's true, and heroin is a hard master and
gives little choice. But she'd rather live on the streets with her drugs
than with him and their love. And she promised she'd never leave. Lindsey
nods slightly and pushes off the couch to wander slowly around and sit
down.

It's not in Pete's, either - but when he's in the position of being in
better mental shape, he often makes the decision to put off judging the
level of want in the other person until they /are/ in better mental shape.
But then - he's also often burned by it. Witness Scott. Wisdom has nothing
to offer but support. And to hell with Pete's previous opinions of Lindsey
and Marley's relationship, anyway. "I'd offer a pubcrawl, but I'm not sure
if the irony would kill you."

"I shouldn't get drunk." I end up having passionate sex with my rebound
boyfriend and not really remembering it the next day. And then I wake up
with a hangover and destroy city blocks when I get upset. Lindsey puts his
feet up on the coffee table and watches the wall. "But thanks."

Thursday watch the walls instead? "Yeah," says Pete, not elaborating. He
wants to help. Boy-o, /fuck/ if he doesn't want to help. But what can he
do? What. He can't ask if there's anything he can do, he knows what answer
he'll get. Abruptly, he changes the subject. "You've my address, right?
Not just my number. May be moving soon, but I'll let you know if and
when..." He can't wait it out without looking creepy and chancing getting
closed out entirely.

It's Friday, I'm in love. And she walked out on me. And then I walked out
on her. So now we're even. Address? Lindsey frowns, ever so slightly, then
nods. "Yeah, somewhere. Just let me know." He wants to talk. But he can't
think how, and it isn't as if Pete hasn't just woken up from a coma and
found his true love and everything. "Thanks."

It isn't as if Pete's suddenly forgotten everything he's been through now
that he's not lost anymore. He looks at Lindsey again, then wanders over
to the window, dropping his coat over the back of a piece of furniture on
the way. He stands there, instead, so he can look at Lindsey or the street
if he wants, then asks really quietly, "Look - do you want to talk about
it? Because I'm listening." Always listening.

That's a pretty good question, and Lindsey gives it due consideration
before answering, honestly, "Yeah." There's a pause, while he tries to
work out which part worries him most. "Do you think she loved me? At least
at the start?"

The first part of the answer is relatively quick. "I don't know her very
well at all," says Pete. And it's true. He knows her only a little better
than Lindsey knows Kitty. He takes a little longer, but his hand is up,
pausing, he's finding the words he wants to use. "What I saw of her
looking at you - the way she acted toward you, around you, in the presence
of other people - wasn't just fancy, wasn't just protectiveness, wasn't
just immediate. Yes, I think she loved you desperately." Another, shorter
pause, and Pete looks away from the window, at Lindsey. "But heroin takes
things away. Hides them."

Lindsey nods, minutely, not trusting himself to look at Pete. He feels
sick with despair; every so often it just comes over him like a cloud.
"She was cheating on me. Before the drugs. For a long time."

Pete turns to lean on the wall next to the window, now, shifting his
weight to one leg, relaxing. Hooking his thumbs in his pockets, watching.
Waiting for more - because, yeah, listening. When you listen, you don't
offer fixes, you let the other person talk until they run out of words.

He doesn't *have* that many words. Not really. "I never cheated on her.
Never lied to her. Ever." Lindsey falls silent, gazing blankly at the dark
TV screen. He gave her everything he had, and it wasn't enough to keep
her. Wasn't enough to save her.

Some people give, and some people take. "It's not you," says Pete quietly.
"It wasn't you." She said she'd never hurt you, and then she turned around
and broke your heart. -She only did you wrong, you're better off alone.

"I was stupid to believe her," Lindsey whispers, and bows his head while
he fights back threatening tears. Thank you for curing me of my ridiculous
obsession with love?...the truth is, he *did* believe her. When she
promised not to hurt him, promised never to leave him, promised to love
and honour him forsaking all others until death do us part - he believed
her. "I'm cheating on her now." That's what it feels like.

"She left, didn't she?" asks Pete softly. "She isn't just out of reach,
she hasn't died - she made the decision to leave?" Yeah, married. But the
overness - yeah?

Yeah. "She didn't come home for two weeks. I haven't seen her now for ten
days." Lindsey rubs at his eyes, briskly, with the heels of his hands.
He's had about enough of that.

"Then don't kick yourself for cheating," says Wisdom mildly, hands
dropping to his sides. "If it can even be called that. You need to be
moving." A big fan of not lingering, Pete is.

Lindsey is capable of moving on, of shaking dust off his feet. "I was
gonna go back to New York." A city he hates with every fibre of his being,
but - it's where the money is. He drops his hands and looks to Pete, eyes
red but dry. "This guy - I don't even know if I love him. It's gotta be
rebound."

This guy? Okay. That's something he didn't know. "Do you /like/ New York?
And - well. As long as you're keeping the possibility open that it's
rebound. Does he know? About Marley." Pete, trying to touch on everything
at once. Nothing about his body language has changed, nothing about his
expression.

"I hate New York." In truth, Lindsey hates cities. But he thinks he hates
the country, too, so it doesn't seem so bad. If you have to hate where you
live, you might as well live where the financial security is. Pete's other
question earns a very brief, humourless smile. "He's the one she was
cheating on me with." *Oh* yeah. He knows.

All right, that's more than a little ridiculous. Pete suppresses the urge
to suggest a threesome, because hello, inappropriate. There's the faintest
touch of the spy's sardonic humor there - but he's not laughing at
/Lindsey/. "Then don't go. And - so you can see what she saw in him, at
least. Look, if there's /any/ way you can step back and be objective..."
he says, almost helplessly. This is the kind of bizarre love triangle,
see, that he's /always managed to avoid/. He just nearly gets killed,
instead.

Objective. "Objectively? I shouldn't be with him." Lindsey looks to Pete,
and while his expression remains pretty much at neutral, his eyes plead.
"I'm lonely. He cares about me."

"Cares about you, cares for you - and, well, sex. Or at
least snogging. Because there /are/ people who'd be perfectly willing to
spend as much time as possible with you, who care about what happens to
you - but, no sex," says Pete, tilting his head, looking ever so slightly
entertained. "You're no Billy No-Mates."

Yeah, but when it's a sex thing, it's different. Lindsey isn't good at
friendships, especially the selfless kind. He doesn't understand them very
well. At least with Deimos it's a two-way thing. Not so much one
supporting the other as a mutual exchange of affection. The lawyer smiles
slightly and glances away. "You have Kitty now." You couldn't spend all
your time with me even if you wanted to. And also, no sex. Marley's gone,
Alex cares on some level but is really Marley's friend,
Seravina's...complicated, and Kess doesn't understand. "Thanks for not
being weird about it."

"There are far weirder things than altered orientation," is the dry
response. Pete pushes off the wall, clasping his hands behind his back,
glancing out the window again. Then he looks back at Lindsey, eyebrows up.
"She likes you, you know. Hopes you don't collapse buildings regularly,
but - well, used to it, she is. If it doesn't fuck with you, you're
welcome to drop by any time you like. As long as you don't mind dragons.
And furry blue people. And ninjae."

Altered? No. But Lindsey isn't about to get into semantics. He shakes his
head, very slightly, and looks away again. 'Furry blue people' rings
alarms, but he's too self-absorbed at the moment to say something like
'oh, the guy I saw hanging around with Raven Darkholme?'. Which is a
shame. "Thanks anyway." He minds. He minds - people.

Well, there were seventeen million different other ways Wisdom could have
said it, and most of them implied things he wasn't willing to pigeonhole
Lindsey into, especially considering the man had just shown he was at
least a little defensive about it. So, that was the best he could come up
with on short notice. Faint smile, and Pete reaches up to run a hand
through his hair, then drops it and looks down at it. "Just reminding you
my door's open. If you ever need it." Then there's a very self-amused
look; he tries to meet Lindsey's gaze. Says pointedly, "I've taken
advantage of yours often enough. Won't forget."

The meeting of eyes is successful, if brief. Lindsey nods, and smiles a
little. "Thanks." Not 'think nothing of it' or 'it doesn't matter' or
anything else that might downplay their friendship so far.
"There's...there's something else I wanted to talk to you about. Is there
time?"