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Lorey was so stunned. All she could do was allow herself to be sat down. Had she just saved a life from an empty threat, or...?

Damian had no clue what was going on, either. To his drunk mind, everything was spinning out of control. His heart pounded and stomach churned... all he wanted was for this to stop.
"R-rest," he managed to say once the gun was out of his reach. Though he still blinked away tears, he could see Lorey, and at the same time, couldn't bear to look at her.

"Sleep," he tried again, though his body was choosing this for him. All the booze was making him slowly pass out.

She was holding her fingertips to her lips, looking at the back of the couch sadly. Something was troubling her... not the fact that Damian had just become drunk out of grief and misery... but what he had said, over and over again. Why he had even raised the gun to Richard.

"He said he loves me," she said, loud enough for him to hear from the kitchen. Lorey looked up to see him smiling at her. That smile, she realized, was something she hadn't really seen in awhile. Of course she found herself smiling back in a rather silly fashion, but what she said was still out there.

"Why?"
Why would he want a slum girl who used to clean his floors, polish the furniture in his office? Why didn't he want someone so much better, prettier, more graceful than her? Someone with money, at the very least? Why her?

She thought on this for at least a minute or two before getting up to get her own coffee. Even with shaking hands, Lorey poured herself a small cup. Just a small one, since her head still hurt.

"I just... don't understand. He's from wealth, and beautiful luxury. He was surrounded by women who would make anyone catch their breath." The coffee in her hand was hot, so much so that steam rose off of it. Her words moved and it about in white swirls that hung and dissipated for a moment. Such little bits of enchantment caused by her always went unnoticed by her. "I wasn't dancing with them, I was cleaning up after them..."

But the more she pressed on, the more it became apparent to her that that was exactly it: he didn't want what he was surrounded by. Still, she wasn't about to go around thinking she was the best thing on the planet. Richard was the best thing on the planet. Lorey would settle on one thing, though, and only because she must have something for two men to love her so.

"Maybe I don't give myself enough credit."

A blush came to her previously pale cheeks as she let herself sink into his hug. The little cup of coffee was set down so she could curl up inside herself and in him. Hide from the world, that was what she wanted to do, if only for a few minutes. Lorey wanted to hide her face against his chest, to get lost in his heartbeat and the knowledge that he loved her. Damian wanted to be loved like that, she reminded herself. If only he could be, but not by her.

"I'm so tired," she realized. The ring had made it into her pocket before she fell. Only a small moment gave her that opportunity, but it saved her from having to worry about where it went to. But how her head hurt and how the day had been utter, amazing happiness and total despair on every account.

She should have been getting used to being swept up by then, but every time made her feel like she was a princess or someone of such great importance. But then again, she was.

Lorey nestled down in the covers and bedding. It was just as it was before, but it was missing something... an added warmth. Her eyes looked to him with the question being posed: would he hold her? The entire day had been such a whirlwind, and so terrible for the most part. Lorey wanted... needed security after all of that. She hadn't had warmth or that feeling of not being alone at night for years.

Her hand went out to his hand, and gave a little tug. It was gentle, just as her eyes were, but everything said please, don't go away.

((mwa ha!!)

He may not have know it, but he was making her choke up again. Her mother had been the last person to sing her to sleep, to be there at night for warmth and protection. And what did she learn that day, that someone had murdered her?
It was all too horrifying.

And yet, despite all of that, Richard had the miraculous power to make her troubled mind ease up enough that Lorey fell asleep. Before she fell asleep, though, she sent up a prayer to the powers that be for Damian. Please, she thought before the night took her to dreams. Please let him find someone.

Damian had awoken with an absolutely terrible headache, and little memory of what had occurred not that long ago. Well, he remembered bits and pieces, though they were disjointed. Richard's voice sounded soft to him, almost comforting. There was Lorey, looking frightened. He remembered the gun... which he no longer had on his being. But perhaps that was for the best, because even through his terrible hangover, he remembered brandishing that lethal, refined thing about while thinking of death.

Rising from the couch even hurt him, but he was grateful for it. It meant he was still alive. Maybe it even meant he had the ability to still feel pain after inflicting so much upon Lorey. And Richard... he had to remind himself that they were friends. The coat he found over him was too large to ignore.

Whatever the pain meant, it accompanied him all the way from the couch to the shower (and more acutely when he looked over to see Richard and Lorey snuggled and cuddled up with each other, looking utterly content in sleep). His head throbbed in a rhythm that ironically matched one of his favorite songs. So he sang softly, not having anything better to do during his attempt to patch himself up.

Only after achieving the look of a proper gentleman (and only after retrieving his gun, for it was his weapon, given to him by his father) did he dare venture out of the room. Damian needed air... air and a good drink, though he wouldn't dare consume any alcohol while he was going to be around Lorey. Never again, he told himself bitterly. Never again.

Damian walked, thinking of this vow, in his straightbacked fashion down and out of the hotel. It was night in the world... an odd hour, judging by the light in the already paled night sky.
And then he heard the struggle.

He was a terribly slob of a man, but what made him more foul and disgusting was the way he recklessly hit a woman, right in front of everyone. And how none of them even cared to stop him!
Did they think she didn't deserve their safety?
In a flash, Damian went to her aide, hand slipping out the gun in his swift run. It was a debonair act of valor, one that he could barely remember himself beginning. But there he was: Damian, once a villain and now becoming something of a hero.

"If you do not release her now, I will see you do so in death."

The barrel of the pistol was promptly pressed against the rogue's neck, right under the jaw. Damian's hands did not shake, nor did his eyes show any sort of fear. He was done being insecure and disgusted with himself. The only thing that he could focus on then was keeping his eyes upon the face of the attacker, making sure that any move this man made was taken into account and properly reacted to.

There was the small detail that the gun was not loaded, but this drunkard wouldn't know that, and neither would the woman in his grasp.

"I'm sorry..." he said gently, kneeling down next to her on the street. What did he care if his clothing was dirtied? She had just survived an encounter with death itself, and he had nothing to complain about when compared to that.
Damian extended a hand to her, the other pocketing the gun.
"I... I'll be honest with you, if I didn't have the worst hangover of my life right now, I would have been faster. Come with me, we'll get you to a safe place. Put some ice on that..."

The safe place, of course, being the hotel room, which he was quite sure wasn't being rented by Lorey or Richard. Whoever was paying the nightly fees, they weren't going to be happy with this new band of people.