avoidance

who: brett and eris
where: their place
when: late morning

Light shouldn't be able to shine into closed eyes. That was Brett's first thought for the day as he grumbled and rolled over in bed, away from the shaft of light that was cruelly torturing him out of sleep and biting straight into the pounding in his head. He grabbed a pillow from underneath him and pulled it over his face, but it was too late. He was awake. He really, really didn't want to be awake.

Eris was awake and had been for quite some time. She just hadn't got out of bed. She was laying on her stomach, pillow propped beneath her, cheek resting on her crossed arms. Her eyes were on him, and had been. It was an odd sort of thing, sensation, whatever, to watch. The sun had been in the sky for a while now, the light slowly creeping it's way across the bed and the two of them. All with him oblivious. Well. Til now. She didn't say anything for a few moments, just sort of wondering if he was going to keep hiding from the light for an extended period of time. "Not feeling well?" she asked, tone quiet. Light. There was a strong argument for him having a hangover.

Grumbled groans that had the semblance of words, but no actual intelligible structure to them came from under the pillow. He wanted to die. Death would be easier that this. God, he hadn't had a hangover this bad, well - ever. He had to have come down with some kind of terminal illness over night. And he was thirsty. But going for a glass of water would mean moving. And facing the light. He didn't think he could do that right now.

She gave a faint little smile. Then she got up out of bed, going to get him aspirin, and water. She didn't tell him that if he'd drank the water she'd given him last night, he might not feel quite as much like hell as it was clear he did. Instead, she just was out of the room, then back again in short order, setting the medicine and the glass of water on his nightstand. Then she crawled back into bed, resuming her previous position.

He heard the clunk of the glass being set down, but it still took him a moment or two to come out from beneath the pillow and twist to look at it, then pick it up, along with the aspirin. Wonderful, beautiful, marvellous, life-saving aspirin. He swallowed them, and downed the whole glass of water, before finally looking back at her. Aware that she was clearly witnessing his whole ordeal - he figured she was probably terribly amused by his pain and suffering.

She didn't look like she was having a good ole time at his expense. She was very difficult to read in those moments, expression not quite giving things away. Then she looked away again, towards the window letting the most light in, and she got up, and let the drapes fall shut, so it'd be a little darker in there. At the very least, it would take care of the rays currently bothering his eyes. Then she walked back over, and again, got back into bed, and she laid down. Part of her was aware that she should really say something at some point. But so far, words hadn't come to her, and she wasn't the type to panic and rush it, just to fill the silence.

Better. It was better when the light went away. His head was still pounding, but at least it wasn't being made worse by cruel sunlight. He lay back in bed and watched her as she walked across the room and returned to the bed. Today was not a good day. He'd drunk far too much last night, and far too quickly. And he had total recall of everything that had gone on. Which meant that, probably, she was going to want to Talk today. And, right now, all he wanted to do was die. "Can I have some more water?" he asked, in the end. That would help - if anything could help the way he felt right now, that was.

Eris was a little tired of getting back up and laying down again, but she nodded, and went to get him some. She also got him a slice of bread, just in case he wanted to attempt to put something in his stomach, though she wasn't sure he would. Still, she got it, refilled his glass, and again was back. Only this time she stood where she was. "Anything else?" she asked, though it lacked sarcasm or anything else. It was a real question.

He took the water, but this time only downed half of it, before putting it down and delicately propping himself up in bed. "No," he told her, before adding a belated, "Thanks." God. Last night. He'd thought everything was all over, but it was't and he wasn't entirely sure how that had happened, only that he'd admitted he didn't want it to be, and she'd admitted the same. And now, here they were. And he knew that they were going to have to actually define where 'here' was at some point. He assumed today. He wondered how long it took for aspiirin to kick in.

"You're welcome." she answered. Then she went to lie back down. This time when she did, she lay with her back to him, though it was less by any sort of statement she was trying to make, and more because she'd been laying on her stomach to begin with because her back hurt. And all the getting up and down was aggrevating that a little, so she wanted to stretch it the other way, which she did by curling up more than she usually did. In fact she curled into a ball, and hugged her knees a little, holding it for a few long moments before she released.

Brett being Brett, however, took that move personally. He eyed her for a moment or two, before speaking. "You okay?" he asked, his voice sounding rough. He wondered for a moment if he didn't have total recall. Maybe he'd forgotten something that had gone on the night before.

"Yes." she answered, looking back at him after she shifted onto her stomach again. "My back hurts. Feels a little like someone shoved me repeatedly into a steering wheel." she told him. And that at least was accompanied by a very faint yet still present smirk. She didn't sound upset about it at all. And she wasn't. Just generally she'd had bruises from things but this one was a little deeper than the others. A lot more concentrated. Well. Besides the bites he'd leave, but those were different as well, and smaller.

Oh. Yes. That made sense. His fault, but - not in the way he'd been thinking. He'd definitely done that though. He wasn't going to apologise for it. "You seemed to like it enough at the time," he pointed out to her, in a voice that would have been light and possibly even amused had he not been battling with a hangover and headache that made everything he said sound grumpy.

"You asked, and I wasn't complaining." she said to him, and decided then that maybe laying on her side was the better plan, so she went back to that. If he was going to be grouchy at her, after she'd been catering to him because he was an idiot and drank too much and wouldn't listen to her when she'd even got him water last night, then...she didn't know what. She was really aware they likely needed to talk. That there was a whole lot that had gone down last night that probabaly needed discussion when one of them wasn't completely three sheets to the wind, but she couldn't quite bring herself to start that out.

He frowned slightly. "Didn't say you were, Princess," he said to her back, since she'd rolled away from him again. Which left him feeling, once again, like he'd done something wrong. And with his head pounding the way that it was, he wasn't in any place to play guessing games. "I'm gonna go take a shower," he told her, heaving himself up and out of bed. Maybe if he let water pummel him for long enough he'd feel more ready to face the day. Face her. Face The Talk.

She wondered if she'd mistaken his tone when he said that, and she watched his progression to the bathroom. She didn't so much remember that there was broken glass in there. That she'd smashed the mirror. That event, while in her memory, seemed distant. Like it had happened some other night, not last night. In the back of her mind, she thought to herself that she could probably leave. He'd get in the shower, he'd probably be in there a while, she could get dressed, and take the time to figure out which key worked in the doors. She could be gone by the time he was done. And there was a part of her that really really thought it was a good idea. But she'd promised she'd try not to do that anymore. If anything that was even said last night was still valid. And she wasn't entirely sure why it wouldn't be, but part of her wondered anyways. Some irrational little section of her mind that just had to question if anything said last night wasn't just desperation talking, and today they'd come to the rational decision, that they weren't right for each other and maybe she should move back to the loft. And they'd see each other at social functions when they had to play the 'we're kind of together' card. It was her turn to pull the pillow over her head to block out the world.

He was aware that his burns were showing as he walked gingerly to the bathroom, but feeling the way he did right now, for once he couldn't actually bring himself to care. The glass on the bathroom floor, however, was more of an issue. He was barefoot, there was glass, he'd have to go and get a broom and, really, it all felt far too much like effort. So, in the end, he headed into the kitchen and ended up just throwing water over his face until he was gasping for breath from it. His head still hurt, but at least he felt more awake. It was a start. He looked around for a moment, then set some coffee to brewing. Coffee would really help right now. Once he had a couple of mugs of steaming hot coffee, he headed back into the bedroom once again.

She looked pretty confused, all things considered. He'd been going to take a shower, and then he didn't. And just went out into the kitchen. Where eventually she could smell coffee, and then he was back with some. She looked confused as well, though she sat up and put her pillow back against the headboard, reaching out for one of the mugs. She assumed he didn't want two. "What happened to your shower?" she asked.

"Glass on the floor happened to my shower," he told her, handing over the coffee that he'd fixed the way she liked it. "Apparently our mirror broke last night," he added, still sounding grumpy, but he quirked a half smile that more reflected the way he'd meant to sound. It looked slightly at odds with his tone though.

He wasn't helping her confusion. Because he did sound pissy, but he also didn't make a habit of smiling overly often. What he said did have her looking down at her hand though. Oh. Right. Yeah. It was one of those weird instances where something didn't really hurt til you outright noticed it, and now that she had, she could feel twinges from where she'd cut herself. She knew she should say something to that, but didn't know what to say. She'd forgotten? She'd clean it up, considering it was her mess?

He sipping at his coffee, which he'd made extra strong in the hope that it would help. The Talk was looming high in his consciousness, and he figured that the quiet was at least in part down to the fact they were not Talking. He let the silence drift for a while before he couldn't actually take it, not on top of his hangover, not any more. "So - I guess... We should talk," he offered.

She sighed quietly. "I know." she admitted. It at least got her speaking more than she had been, something she was also distantly aware of. She'd not said a whole lot since he'd woken up. And not all of that was due to him sounding cranky. "You sure you want to do that with what's probably the headache of the century?" she asked. Apart from the day after I hit you.

No. He didn't. But he didn't really want to talk at all, not about this. It was the kind of thing that he'd gladly hide from for the rest of his life. So at least if they did this now, if he needed to bail, he could blame the hangover. And it'd get it out of the way, it wouldn't be fucking looming for ever and a day. "Yeah, I do," he told her.

Not thinking things through properly before she spoke, she said the most honest thing possible right then. "I don't know where to start." She didn't. She didn't have any concept of it. Not in the slightest. And part of her was recognizing that if hitting the mirror seemed distant to her, and it was last night...how much of last night did she lose entirely to the cracks in her brain? Which didn't help matters, because she did recall one of the major issues of last night--him possibly misleading her when she trusted him not to, and how she would blame the brain damage before him. So was today's talk going to be him putting whatever spin on things he wanted? Toning it how he wanted?

"Me neither," he admitted, after a moment or two. It was hard for him to admit that, because he always wanted to come across as being sure and certain. But, after last night, what he really wanted to be was honest. Hearing her tell him that he was screwing with her head had hit him hard. That needed to stop, and it needed to stop right now.

Okay then maybe we shouldn't talk, then. Maybe, we should just move forward like nothing ever happened, and just hope we don't repeat the same mistakes. Maybe, we should not dig at all of this. And yet she knew that was a) not a workable thing, b) unhelpful and c) pathetic to even think about. She sipped at her coffee, appreciating that it was how she liked it even if she didn't quite put it together that that meant he knew how she liked it. She tried to find a start point. She really did, but she didn't find one. And the pressure to do so seemed to loom heavy over her. Shit. Rubbing absently at her shoulder where he'd bit her, she drew in a breath and let it out slowly. "Are we both on the same page with how things ended last night? Or...have you changed your mind?" she asked. That was probably good to establish, right? At least she hadn't said 'or was it the whiskey talking'.

Well, that was definitely a point to start. "I haven't changed my mind," he told her. He was still of the opinion that she could end up getting very hurt over this, and that he would be the one to hurt her. But if she was willing to risk this, he didn't want to let her go. Before, he'd been dancing around that admission for weeks, possibly months now, but last night had brought everything to a head. More so even than the night he'd kissed her. That had just altered the nature of the dance. This had stopped it entirely.

She told herself it was stupid to feel relieved there, but she did. There was a pretty large part of her that had expected him to say yes, he'd changed his mind, and he wanted her out of the apartment by this afternoon. Irrational? Possibly, but that was what she'd thought. Nodding, a little bit of the tension in her frame eased, even if she wasn't relaxed. She wrapped both hands around her mug, and sipped some more of it. "So where does that leave us?" she asked. Are you sure we can't skip this conversation? Positive?

"Where do you want it to leave us?" Brett asked her, though he knew as he asked it that she'd probably think that was an unfair question to ask, so he moved on without waiting for an answer. "I'm going to try," he told her, thinking that that was important to get out there, since she'd been so adamant he'd not done anything of the sort to date. "But - I want you. And only you. And not because of the business or public opinion, or any bullshit like that. And I want to go where you go. And I want us both to want things. Anything less, isn't enough for me," he told her, feeling his way through that one.

Surprise was the first thing to really register there. That, after the brief, very predicted reaction of 'oh, not fucking fair, Brett'. But he'd moved forward, and she listened. It was just surprising to hear him say anything like that when he wasn't drunk first. It kept her quiet for a few long moments as she considered everything he just said. And tried to get past the shocked aspect of things before she said a word. "I'm with you on everything you just said." she said, when she did give things voice. "All of it." She drew in a breath and let it out slowly, reaching up to tug her fingers through her hair. "Which I think leaves us with the question of what do both of us want?"

Okay, so he'd got passed the first hurdle, and she was still with him. That was good. Now he just had to keep going. He took a sip of his coffee and moved to sit in the chair they had in their room, deciding for now to stay away from the bed. "Clearly not this," he answered her, figuring that that much was obvious. They'd had that conversation.

"Not exactly this." She said, a mild correction. "I won't drop out of it entirely. We started it, and the girls depend on it. I don't want to drop them like that. Maybe my motivations for watching out for their best interests have altered, but I still want to do it. But if we can set it in the background of something else, I'd be happier. I mean, technically, once we have a client list, which we're already working on, we won't have to do anything we don't truly want to. It'd likely be best if we still occasionally showed up to functions, but it won't actually hurt us not to. If nothing else, it might add more of an air of mystery to things. And the girls are already working on clients and I've got faith in their ability to keep working at that. Besides. Honestly, even if they aren't whores anymore, they're still going to have regulars. The entire business is built off of people who want someone to spend time with them on their terms. Those same people can just fill that need in a different way. I know for a fact a couple of girls have deliberately sought out some of their old clients for that reason." Then she stopped. "....sorry, I'm off track." she recognized.

"Neither of us knew where to start - there isn't a track," he pointed out to her. "So, not exactly this. We could just set it running and walk away. Put in a manager, someone we think we can trust, then just live off our cut," he pointed out to her. If the business took off, they could do reasonably well from it. Not necessarily enough to be called 'rich', not with having to pay extra people to run it, but enough to keep them going fairly comfortably.

"I think I'd want to check in more often than that sounds like." she said. "But okay, we can think about setting things up to run on it's own, more or less. That can be done. Maybe Kess wants a full time job." she said, just thinking out loud on that score. "Honestly I don't know a lot of people anymore, and the ones I know I don't trust much. I trust her though." She drank more coffee, then shifted, trying to relax more. "What's your take? What do you think on any of this? Do you have anything you want to do? Even remotely?"

"We can check in however often or not you want," he told her, biting back on a spike of a annoyance at the fact that he couldn't work out what she wanted from this - whether she wanted out, or wanted to stay, at least partly. He would have found things easier if she'd just wanted to cut and run. At least then he wouldn't have to be thinking through how much was enough and how much was too much. "As for me - I'm pretty simple. I want to be honest again. What I do to be honest again. And I don't want to owe anybody else anything. Don't want to work for anybody else either. I've had just about enough of not controlling my own life."

She nodded, that giving her something to work with. "Okay." She said, thinking that over for a few minutes before she started speaking again. Then she blinked a little, and looked at him again. "We might be able to live off of what the escort service makes just fine, if we didn't want to 'do' anything." she said. "So...there's that. Do you want to do something? Set something up, maybe a business? Or do you want to retire now, and just live off of the one we've already got?"

Brett considered that. "I've never not done anything with my time," he told her, after a moment or two. "I don't know how well I'd do with doing nothing. Somehow I don't see myself kicking back and taking up gardening, or fishing, or playing golf with my buddies, y'know?" he suggested.

That had her cracking a bit of a smile. "Yes, I do." she agreed. "Okay, so not doing anything is out. And we want something that's off our own backs, and not anything illegal." she continued. "So, that leaves us with starting up a business both of us are happy with." she said. "I'm not keen on working for anyone, I don't really care if it's illegal or not, and I'm not all that good with too much empty time on my hands either."

"Right," Brett told her, agreeing with all of that. She might be willing to do something illegal, but he wasn't and that was one of his firm sticking points, but she'd acknowledged she was aware of that and nothing suggested she'd give even an attempt of persuading him otherwise, so that was all good.

"So...what do we want to do?" she asked. "How much work do you want to put in? Do we want something really lucrative, or do we want something smaller? Do either of us have anything resembling skills that could point us in a direction?" she asked. "Beyond my obvious ones, and managerial sorts of skills..." she shrugged one shoulder and looked to him.

He couldn't answer that first question. he had a hard enough time with it when he didn't have the hangover from hell, his brain certainly wasn't up to planning his entire future right now, so he didn't even try to address it. "My skills? I don't know - I've been a cop, an enforcer, a bouncer, a fucking whatever you want me to be that doesn't have really strict titles. Can turn my hand for most things, I guess," he offered, instead.

"Well, I know you don't want to be a cop anymore. Or an enforcer, or a bouncer I don't think..." She finished her coffee, and laid down again, curling on her side even if she faced him. "Is there anything you'd want to do. If we did have a business, what kind would you want? What kind of hours do we want to keep? I'll say right now I'm not a nine-to-five woman."

Oh god, she was pushing him for an answer. He really didn't have answers right now. "Fine - not a nine to five. Me neither," he said, hoping she'd take that as a good enough answer.

She did. What she was doing was narrowing things down. 'Hey let's do something' didn't help if they didn't have the slightest bit of direction to find out what 'something' might be. She didn't mind really, the process of it. It wasn't irritating her. She just kept plugging little bits of information into her mindset. "Well, there isn't much open after hours." she said. "Which might leave us with a bar, a club, or a hotel." she said. "I'd prefer not to do a hotel, the last one was a bitch to burn down, and...let's just say there's far too heavy an association with me and hotels in this city's eye, so let's not encourage it."

"You said that you don't want to interact with the type of people that were at that party so much," he said, making an effort to contribute, even if his contribution was focusing it back on her again. "So, whatever we do, it can't depend on that. Which means we're looking at the lower levels of society, less dependant on the good will of the rich and influential."

"There's a difference." Eris said, ticking her gaze up to his eyes. "Even if we had an upscale place, and saw people that we might see at high society parties and the like, it'd be on our territory. There'd be a shift in power, just by them setting foot on our property. Also, it wouldn't be in the same sort of setting as a society party, it would be less focused on certain things. For instance, I wouldn't really give a damn if people knew who we were to each other, or anything of the kind, I woudn't care if it stopped being a rumor. I'd care a lot less about our public image if we didn't need to keep it up at functions. Does that make sense?" she asked, needing to clear that with him first. That she was even making the slightest bit of sense.

They'd got off the subject, he knew, but that touched back on the subject again. The question was whether he wanted to pick it up, or whether he wanted to ignore it. It wasn't like talking about them was something he was in a huge hurry to do, but the knowledge that they were meant to be doing just that was still there at the back of his mind. "Does that mean you'd want an upscale place?" he asked, going with the 'let's just let it lie for now' approach, in the end.

She thought about it, for a few long moments, then looked to him again. "Do you really want to associate with the same types of people you have been for the past few years?" she asked, tone very light. She didn't really want to needle that point home, but it was valid. "At least with the higher society they tend to do things in certain ways, and we wouldn't have to worry about bar fights all the time. I don't want to re-create a new version of the round. I'd want to do something higher up the food chain than that. Something unique if we can manage it, not that I have suggestions for how we might do that."

"I could ask you the same question," he pointed out. "But, okay - I'm good with more upmarket." He shrugged a shoulder and finished off his coffee. "Anyway, I have all these suits that I should get some wear out of," he added, for the first time that morning sounding somewhat less than merely 'grumpy', managing some semblance of lightness in his tone as he reached for it.

"They look good on you." she told him. "Though sometimes I miss your old coat." she added. There was the faint hint of a smile on her lips. "That and with a club, we don't have to have a policy on who we let in. We could have a lot of different mixes of people in there, not all just the higher ups. We can kind of do whatever the fuck we felt like with it. So long as it's different enough from other places, people will show up."

"So, we're talking a club then," Brett said, adjusting to that idea, adding that into the picture in his head. He'd meant it when he'd said he didn't care what they did, and he could do a club as well as anything else. Hell, he'd worked at the Kitten Club for several years, he could probably do a club better than some other plans she could have come up with. "We could do that."

"Would you be happy doing that? Or okay with it? Do you not want to do that? I'm just talking random ideas, it's not like I have a plan. I was just sort of..." she made a vague gesture. "Narrowing things down from the conditions you've presented." But she didn't want him to feel like he was being cornered. "Doesn't mean I'm set in stone. Or, possibly, that I should even be the one doing things considering...my issues."

"I'd be happy doing that. And - I ran with the last idea I had an it wasn't the right one, so - actually, considering your issues, I think you should lead this one," he told her, not sounding at all upset about that.

She didn't look all that happy about it, but she didn't say anything. Or, it looked like she wasn't going to and then after a few false starts, she did. "I want us to be together on anything we're going to do. Maybe that's our real problem, just not going with actually being on the same page exactly."

"Then let's be on the same page," Brett said, not seeing a problem with this. "The way I see it, you're the one with ideas about what you will and won't do. Specific ideas, that is. I've set my lines, anything else I can go with. And, if I can't, you'll know about it up front." he knew she wasn't happy by the look on her face. "Princess - if I'm not with you on something, I'll say. You know I'll say. Because I've done that before. Let's look at our history. We've both tried to set something up which the other didn't like. My plan for you I steam rollered through and now we're stuck picking up the pieces. Your plan for me? I said no. You listened. End of story - right now, I trust our chances of being on the same page a whole lot more if you're leading us."

She looked at him, then gave a faint half smile. "There's something wrong with the world when we should be listening to me." she said. But she accepted his logic, too. "Okay. Well, the club sounds doable. We could afford a space sometime here sometime soonish. If we got a place to fix up, we could do that. It was how I got Babylon going. That place was nice, but needed work. I wasn't afraid to put in that work. So, we can probably save some money and buy someplace that we need to fix up a little, which gives us the opportunity to rennovate however we want as well." she said, thinking it through as she spoke. Then she paused, and added something related but not on the same track she'd been on. it was back with what they'd been discussing a minute ago. "It'll be different because I won't have to try and keep track of all the games people are playing with each other. Even if they're around, so long as they aren't fucking with us, it won't matter who they're backstabbing or fucking on the side."

Brett wondered how long 'soonish' was, but, really, if they had to sink every penny they had into a venture that would get her out of a place she didn't want to be? then that was what they'd do. She didn't want to be here, so he knew he'd be looking to get them out the second they could, even if it was more of a risk than he'd usually be comfortable taking. "Right. As long as you think you can do this - as long as you're comfortable with it," he told her. he didn't think he could, however, face another set up, just for her to turn around and say that she couldn't. And that, he knew, was the hangover talking.

"I think I can. It'll be a much more straightforward business that doesn't in any way really depend on playing nice with people. That can happen if we feel like it, not by total necessity, which for me, that I might like. It's not like I mind getting dressed up and going out. But it won't all land on me and my ability to play the right cards. It'll just be something we've got, that runs on it's own back. I mean, don't ask me to do the books or anything, because that we both know I won't be able to do." she said. Then she gave a little half smile, almost hesitant. "Maybe once in a while I could sing." she said, tone every so slightly quieter. "If you still think what you said last night."

"I meant what I said last night," he told her, equally quietly, holding her eyes for a moment. "So yes, you can sing. And I promise I won't ask you to do the books. We can find someone else to do that," he added.

"Okay." she said. And she looked happy at that, though it was difficult to tell what it was about her that gave the impression. Still, it was there. She shifted, crawling towards the end of the bed, and she laid down comfortably in the blankets piled there, and she looked up at him. "So that leaves us with a theme." she said. "What kind of environment do we want?" she asked.

Brett looked pained for a moment. "Princess - do we have to go into detail right now?" he asked her, bringing a hand to his head. Interior design and feel wasn't his strong point at the best of times, and right now it just felt like she was trying to torture him. He just wasn't up to it.

She shook her head. "No." she said. She hadn't been trying to push him to do things he didn't want to do, she'd really sort of forgotten that he was pain at the moment. "So...forget it. We can talk about it another time." Right now it wasn't as if they were going to do anything about it either. They were just talking, now.

"It's not that I don't want to..." Brett told her, feeling the need to put that in there. After last night, he figured he needed to step up and try and explain himself more, even if he found that annoying at times. Explaining felt like justification, as though he was wrong. And he hated to admit that he was wrong.

"I didn't say you did." Eris said. "So, don't worry about it." She moved to get up, thinking there was something she had been going to do, and she didn't know what it was. Her medication? She hadn't taken it last night, or the night she was gone, and she had morning meds, so she looked back at him. She had the nagging sensation that that wasn't it, though. "My meds?" she asked.

Her meds. Damn - he knew she hadn't taken them last night, or probably any of yesterday. She relied on him for that. Brett pushed himself up out of the chair. "I'll go get them," he told her, heading out to the kitchen to start counting out pills from the plethora of bottles.

There was something she needed to do. She still didn't know what it was. She headed for the bathroom, to go splash some water on her face and run a brush through her hair. When she flicked the light on, she saw that there was glass in the sink. Then she looked on the floor and saw it there. Maybe that was it. Right, it was, because he'd been going to take a shower but hadn't been able to. So she tugged the little garbage bin over and started to pick up shards off of the floor, trying to be careful with it as she did so. She didn't especially like the idea of having sliced up fingers. She already had the bandage on her hand from it.

He put her pills into one glass, and filled another with water before heading back to find her again. "I'll do that," he told her as he saw what she was doing. "Or you can - just get a broom. You'll be there forever and a day picking it up a bit at a time, and you still won't get the small bits," he added, holding her pills and the water out for her.

She looked up, then stood and took the water and swallowed her pills down. She might have thought of the broom if she knew where it was. She was still getting used to the place. She'd known where the broom was at Brett's apartment. But here? Not so much. She still couldn't get in and out without a struggle, especially if the door was locked. "Where's the broom?" she asked, because she still found it to be her mess, so she'd clean it up. Though it reminded her of him cleaning up a few times at the loft. Like when the roof leaked.

"In the closet by the kitchen," Brett told her. "You want me to show you?" he offered, figuring that she wouldn't remember - it was why he'd offered to do it himself. That and he just had a habit of clearing up after people. It was something he'd always done. Not that he ever made a thing of it.

She set her glass down on the counter, and nodded, stepping back out of the bathroom. She didn't say what came to mind. 'there's a closet by the kitchen?' Because that was news to her, really, even if she didn't like the fact that it was. But it was a detail she didn't always know, like out in the hallway some of the other rooms she didn't have a real idea what was in them. And yet she remembered the empty, tiny storage room just fine. And the office, now.

"Come on then," he told her, leading her back through. The closet was little more than a long cupboard set into the wall, hardly worthy of the name. There was room for little more than a broom, a mop and bucket and a few bottles of cleaning product, and Brett stood back, taking the broom out and handing it to her.

She took it, then turned to head back to the bathroom, to start sweeping the broken glass up. They'd need to replace the mirror. Eventually, anyways. If she wanted to be able to make herself up properly she'd need it back. Though she had other ones. But It wasn't the same light in other rooms. However, at the same time, she was aware that she likely didn't have much to be making herself up for. Not if they were changing everything around. Going for a club. Her own mind was ticking over all of that, thinking about different spaces, set ups. She wanted something with class, generally speaking. Nothing like the Kitten Club. There were always people to perform in this city, always people who were looking for their big break. They wouldn't actually have problems filling the stage with various acts, she didn't think.

He watched her work, for a moment anyway, before he stopped that and went to sit back down on the bed, waiting for her to finish. He still wanted that shower, and he was aware that whilst they'd talked, they'd really actually only glossed over the subject they'd been meant to talk about. They still hadn't really addressed the subject which was 'them'.

She took her time doing it, sort of aware of him hovering, and she wondered if it was because he expected her to screw up. Like she was going to miss something. Therefore, she took a longer time than usual, trying to be as thorough as she possibly could be, before she headed back out into the bathroom, carrying the bin full of glass, and the broom. She wasn't sure what to do with the glass, but the broom she could put away. At the moment, she was of a mind to prove she wasn't entirely useless.

He didn't follow her, figuring that, even with the memory issues that her brain damage caused, she wouldn't forget where the broom went already. Plus, he really didn't want to move. he was too awake now to go back to sleep, but he definitely knew that he could do with losing a few hours out of his day. Unfortunately, there was no alternative other than to suffer through them.

She set the bin on the kitchen counter, then the broom went back where it was meant to go. Then she sort of hesitated, unsure what to do now. Brett wasn't the only one who was aware of the fact that they'd sort of skipped past major things, and she had been kind of hoping that he'd go for his shower, but she didn't hear the water running. So, she went back to the bedroom, because she didn't really have any good idea where to go next. She was quite suddenly at a loss. "Aren't you going to take your shower?" she asked. "I got all the glass."

He looked up at her and nodded. "Yeah," he said, figuring that meant that their conversation was over. At least, for now. He'd not wanted to assume - he was being particularly careful today, and not just because of his head. But, 'permission' given, he stood and headed for the bathroom, turning the stream on as he undressed and stepped under the water, letting it run over him, hopefully to soothe away some of the aches in his muscles.

Eris wasn't sure what to do then. So, she wound up getting dressed, and pulling her hair back, something easy and wouldn't matter if she hadn't washed her hair today yet. Then she headed out of the apartment--something that took her a few minutes because she needed to learn the keys, but she managed, and she headed into the office, where she pulled out a notebook, and started drawing. Not anything overly specific, but sort of general ideas of floor plans. It was better than hanging in the bedroom or even the apartment, at a loss.

He hadn't expected the bedroom to be empty when he got out of the shower, but it was. he dressed simply - shirt, no tie, slacks - then looked for her in the rest of the apartment. Also all empty. The thought occurred that she could have just left. Again. If she had... He didn't want to finish that thought as he headed out, towards the lift, until he caught sight of her in the office, sitting behind the desk, and he changed course to walk in, not saying anything. he wasn't going to admit that his first thought had been that she'd left. He aso wasn't going to highlight that last time, she'd left because he'd come out here when she'd wanted him inside. because apparently someone being out here wasn't good enough for being 'with her', and yet it was perfectly fine for her to be wherever she wanted to be. That, again, was the hangover talking, and if they had to live in each other's pockets and never let each other out of sight, then they were just going to kill each other sooner or later. One of them would just snap.

She looked up. "Are you going out?" she asked, oblivious to where his thoughts had gone. In her head, she was just doing something with her day, and avoiding more awkward talks that she still felt uneasy about. Because she did, she was aware of that, that things felt in the air or unfinished in some manner, and that they really probably did need to properly talk about things, but... She didn't know if she could really pull that off. She didn't know if she could manage it. She didn't know where to start, or what to say, or anything. So, she was concentrating on something that she could do, which was little ideas for some club they might or might not be thinking about doing, and he didn't want to talk about it, so she wasn't making him. That just didn't mean she couldn't start thinking about it on her own, right?

"No," he confirmed as he walked in and sat down, on the other side of the desk, examining what she was drawing from upside down. "What's that?" he asked her, not wanting to go into where he'd been going, if he hadn't been going out.

She shrugged one shoulder, looking down at it. "Just some ideas." she said. He'd said he didn't want to talk about it, so she didn't go into what they were, either. She was making an attempt to be accommodating, so...this was it. They'd seemed to be done with their talk that turned into something else, and then he'd showered, and...yeah. She didn't know. No clue at all. But she did feel like there was tension, and she didn't know if it was in her head or not.

"I'll take a look at it later, when I'm more..." he gestured, meaning when his hangover had left him. Assuming it left him. This one felt like it was going to hang around for a while. Then again, he'd not drunk like that for years. And if he ever had actually ever drunk like that before, it was when he was a whole lot young, better able to handle it.

"I know, Brett, you said you didn't want to go into it. So, I didn't. That just doesn't happen to mean that I can't write something down while I've got an idea for it, and it doesn't require your input right now either way. So, you're under no obligation to look at anything, and I wasn't exactly waving it in your face to get an opinion, either." She said. "So, you're off the hook."

He stood and headed for the door. "I'll leave you to it," he told her, but he turned as he reached the door. "Just for your information - I wasn't saying I'd look at it because I felt obligated," he told her, his voice even and not at all pissy. "I told you I'd look at it because I'm interested, and I wanted you to know that I would look at it, that I wanted to look at it, but not right now. I'd really appreciate it if you didn't jump to the assumption that I just do things because I feel somehow that I have to. Or that just because I'm not leading something that I'm having to be dragged. You said you want us to be on the same page? Well I want us to be side by side with things. So - no obligation. Interest," he clarified, before heading out.

She let him go, and tried to get back to what she was doing, but that didn't work for her. So, after an extremely short amount of effort, she dropped her pen down, and she got up to go back into the apartment after him. She glanced around for him. And it wasn't difficult to find him on the couch. She walked over, and sat down on the opposite end of it, back to the arm rest. "Most of the time, you give off the impression that you only do things because you're obligated or it's required. I could imagine it's because of the kind of work you've been doing for a long time now, but your outward behavior hasn't altered yet. I didn't mean to jump down your throat. But that's just....usually how you come off. Like everything's pulling teeth or you're just humoring me, or...you never appear like you're doing something because you want to. And I think you probably made a habit of looking fabulously uninterested in anything your bosses were doing, too, so I can't say that I see that either."

"Noted," Brett said, glancing up at her, looking away, and then looking back again. "Yeah, I spent the last few years doing a great impression of a brick wall, but I was never exactly... Demonstrative, I guess. But - with you I don't do things that are pulling teeth. Might not love and adore everything, but there's gotta be that baseline or I'll just say no. No obligation, no requirement. So - I'll try and look more interested. You bear that in mind. maybe we'll meet somewhere in the middle," he suggested.

She quirked a half smile as she regarded him. "What are you going to do to look more interested?" she asked. "Somehow I think that might just look a little strange on you. Just...sound it. That'll be good enough for me. Then you don't have to do a lot of wondering about your own facial expressions." Because that was a pain in the ass. As a woman who was generally used to schooling her features on a grand scale, she knew it was. She was quiet for a long moment, before she continued. "I think a lot of what else you've done in the past few years is let other people fill in the blanks with what they want to see. What impression they want to have. It's a valuable tool, most certainly, especially when dealing with people like you used to deal with, or even I did. But if you're letting me do it, let's just say with the impressions you deliberately put in for a long time--I'm not going to leap to the right conclusion. I mean every once in a while, it's possible I'll stumble over the correct answer, but I'd say generally I'd bank on my not getting it right. So I know you say just to sort of assume, or just because it doesn't look like you hate every second to make the leap you're fine, or even into something...it won't translate for me well. Does that make sense?" she asked, wanting to clear that she was even speaking in something resembling coherency.

"And that's why I'm gonna be trying too, Princess," Brett told her, following her well enough, despite his head. "...Just not necessarily today. The world could suddenly go fucking perfect and I could do it today," he added.

"I recommend going and lying down again." she told him. "Sleeping or at least resting off as much of it as you can. It's not like it's going to get much better. I could offer to make you something to eat, but we both know how well I cook. So, it's possible you won't want that. Still, the offer is there." Not one she made all that terribly often. But still.

He nodded, standing. "A cook," he said, thoughtfully as he headed towards the bedroom, looking over at her as he did so. "We need to earn enough to keep a cook - unless your cooking's going to get any better." His wasn't bad, but it was plain and simple and somehow he didn't see her being willing to live off it for ever and a day. her needs were, in his opinion anyhow, rathermore tailored than his own.

She smirked. "I'll keep that in mind." she said. When she went over ideas. When she thought about what kind of money they wanted to make. Because really, it was something they could tailor things to. If they wanted a cook, they'd need to be higher end. Which was what she wanted anyways. Still, it was a stipulation to consider, and she was glad to have it. It was input from him on something. She could work with that. "Was that you telling me that you don't want anything? Or am I going to put in the effort?"

"No - I don't want anything," he told her. Really, right now, food was the very last thing that he wanted. More sleep sounded good, though he doubted that he'd get it. Life was rarely that kind to him. "You don't need to put in the effort," he confirmed for her.

"Alright." she said. "...sleep well." she said. She was still aware. Still very aware, even if they'd kind of talked a little there about something else, that they'd skipped everything. It just wasn't getting spoken about. Not right now, anyways. Maybe that was best. Maybe right now, with his head the way it was, regardless of the necessity of the talk, it just wasn't the right time. She could hide behind that logic. And sure, she knew that was exactly what it was--hiding--but she was okay with that. They were trying. And until she hit up against another wall with him, she might just put that talk off as long as she could. Because things had felt empty last night. She might not always have perfect recall of events especially when they got emotional on that scale, but she knew that much. She'd felt empty, and god had it hurt.