Brainhurts

Who: Brett and Eris
Where: Their place
When: Night

The throbbing in the side of Brett's head had subsided slowly over the course of the day, but the bruising remained. He wasn't a pretty sight, one eye swollen almost shut, surrounded by a vivid display of multi-coloured skin. There really was no avoiding the fact that he'd been hit, and by something hard. Unsurprising, really, since his business partner, his lover, had pistol whipped him last night in the midst of another one of their set-tos.

He'd spent the morning out. He hadn't put much deep thought into why - whether it was to avoid her, or whether it was for the more appropriate reason - there had been things to do today, matters to organise. Last night they'd run into the man that had tried to kill Eris and Brett had spent the day doing a full security review of their place, together with looking into possibly hiring on some more hands to cover any holes. That, though, was something he was considering carefully. If they were hiring, then he wanted to make damn sure they weren't in anyone else's pockets. He'd rather keep it all to himself than do that. This afternoon he'd spent replacing all of the locks in the place himself, making sure that each one was as good as it got, and putting deadbolts on the inside of every door. He'd long since finished doing that though, and now, come evening, he was sat at the desk in the office, looking over the building blueprints he'd acquired earlier on. Making sure he knew every possible way in and out of their place.

Eris had spent the day out. She was doing less practical things than Brett had, however, mostly just shopping and being seen. Her motivations for being away from the place possibly had something to do with avoiding him. After all, she'd hit him hard enough to make him bleed, he was bruised as hell now, and sure, she'd apologized, gotten him ice and painkillers, then played pillow for him for the rest of the night, that didn't mean he wasn't going to hold a grudge later. She hadn't stuck around to find out. She'd gone out instead, wandering, feeling paranoid about Andrei and everything else. She'd also gone back to the Round to talk to the owner. That at least was somewhat practical, if purely for herself. She wanted to do her last performance. She didn't need to any longer, but still. It was the one thing she'd really liked when she'd moved from Brett's old place. She'd liked singing. So, sure she was stepping back into a public life, with parties and luxuries and everything else a hell of a lot of people would kill for...but she was going to miss singing. Not that she'd actually admit to that.

When she finally got back to the new place(she was having trouble thinking of it as 'home' yet), she had a few bags with her, of some things she'd picked up during her jaunt out. Once the elevator doors slid shut behind her, she felt a little touch of nerves, vaguely wondering if Brett was still out, or not. Possibly if she could manage a little more avoidance. She was considering staying back at the loft until her last performance, though she couldn't have said why she had that urge. Walking up the hall, she glanced in open doors, looking for him, and finally got to the office. Saying nothing, she stood in the doorframe, eyes on him. Yeah, she'd done a number on him. Jesus.

He'd heard the elevator doors open and someone come in, but he'd stayed where he was, his only reaction to take his gun out and lay it in easy reach on the desk beside the blueprints. He raised his eyes as he saw in his periphery a figure, his right hand resting lightly on said gun, one eye swollen almost shut by the bruising. He was unsurprised that it was her, and he relaxed slightly, dropping his hand again, his gaze shifting to her bags. Shopping. Like everything else in their lives - carrying on as though nothing had happened.

She noticed the gun. And for a moment thought that it was just a stunningly appropriate image there, of him behind the desk, with the bruising, and his hand on the gun. Then she stepped into the office, moving towards the desk. "You look like hell." she told him. "What happened to you?" she asked. Like she didn't know. She wasn't sure why she asked, maybe just to see what he'd say. Maybe she could gauge his mood that way. Or, not, who knew. But still, that was what came out of her mouth, as she stopped on the opposite end of the desk from him, and she tilted her head to the side slightly, eyes on the bruising, the cut there that she could see in the midst of it, the center point where the hit was hardest.

Brett's mouth dropped open a little as she asked the question, at first not sure if he'd heard her properly. He might have been confused last night, but today, he remembered properly what had happened, if not all of the minutiae. He tilted his head to the side and looked at her, confusion flickering across his face, but gone almost instantly as he tried to work out if this was some kind of a test. The last few days had been littered with them, after all. The thoughts took less than a moment, a bare hesitation before he made his decision. "Got in the way of a mugger, last night. Dark alley - didn't get a good look at the guy's face," he said, blandly, meeting her eyes as he parroted the lie that she'd suggested he take up. he wasn't particularly happy about it. Generally, they didn't lie to each other, and doing so now, feeling like she wanted him to do so now, sat heavy in his stomach.

It occurred to her when the confusion registered that she probably should have thought her statement over a little better. She wondered if he wondered if she'd forgotten, if her brain damage had eaten that particular incident. Which it hadn't. But then he answered. And she hoped that he was telling people that. Setting the bags down, she walked around the desk, on the side she'd hit him on, and she moved to sit on the desk, crossing her legs as she leaned forward so she could look at the damage better. "Too bad." she told him. "You probably need to teach someone a lesson for damaging you like that." she told him, reaching out towards his face, though she didn't actually touch him. She was mostly assessing if he should try icing it again. Him having two usable eyes would be a good thing.

He didn't say anything to that, though he didn't look away from her either, his gaze constant, just shy of challenging. He didn't appreciate her words, because he couldn't read what was behind them. And he didn't like the pretence. Rationally, he knew what had happened last night. He understood where she'd been, mentally, to lash out like that. He could follow the lines through and he knew it was something borne of unreasoned panic rather than intent. But still, she'd hit him hard enough that he'd actually gone down - he'd bled and it had fucked his head up for most of the night and into the morning, nevermind the bruising it had left him with. He didn't blame her for what she'd done, and he didn't think that it was something that would ever happen again. But he didn't enjoy the pretence. Not with her - it was needed with everyone else, but he hadn't expected it from her.

Her assessment was she still wondered if she'd given him a concussion, and that she still felt bad about it. She'd apologized, she knew she had, but still. Yeah. She felt bad. Vaguely, she recognized that it was the only time she'd ever hit someone and felt bad about it later. Felt anything about it later. "Do you want me to get you anything?" she asked. "Aspirin? Ice?" she suggested. She sat back again, though her eyes hadn't left the bruising on his face. She'd not made eye contact, and didn't really plan to, though she wasn't examining why she wasn't. Like she wasn't examining why she was even putting things out there like it had happened with a third party.

"No, I don't want you to get me anything," Brett said, looking at her a moment longer, then finally looking away, back down at the blueprints as he realised that she just wasn't going to meet his eyes.

She nodded, wishing vaguely that he would have requested something, but she couldn't force anything on him. She also got back down off of the desk, walking back around to pick her bags up, with the intention of going to put them away. Technically, she'd bought him a few things when she'd been out, but she didn't say that. They were just ties, and cufflinks. In all likelihood, nothing he'd actually care about. She got to the door, then looked up and down the hall to orient herself, then she headed towards the apartment door, hoping it wasn't locked. She did notice when she got to it that it looked like something was different. Possibly a new lock there. One looked shinier than the other.

He didn't follow her when she left, instead determinedly concentrating on the blueprints. or trying to. That wasn't working so well for him, especially when he realised that he'd managed to trace a stairwell into some kind of Escher-esque spiral. It was then that he gave up, scraping the chair back and stalking into the apartment, locking doors behind him as he went. "Enjoy your day?" he asked as he found her, his tone one of biting sarcasm, the first emotion he'd shown since she'd got back.

Well, at least his tone was familiar. That she could deal with. She'd already put away the things she'd gotten, not that it had been an overly large amount. They still didn't have money to burn or anything. She'd wandered back to the living room, and was over by the windows, looking out when he got in. She could see his reflection in the glass, which she kept her eyes on, even if she didn't turn around to look at him properly. "No." she answered. "Did you?" she asked lightly in return. He certainly didn't sound like it. And he'd been doing something in the office, not that she knew what it was. She might have asked if she hadn't figured leaving was a good plan.

"My head hurt like hell, I can hardly see out of one eye and I'm trying to make sense of blueprints I'm fairly sure were drawn by a one armed blind man on drugs," Brett snapped, feeling better for the honesty after the lies of before. Strangely, he felt more comfortable with honesty, even if it was laced with exaggeration. The plans weren't that bad, he was just having a hard time concentrating on the details today.

She arched a brow, lips twitching in a smirk that was faint but made an appearance for a moment. "Nicely graphic." she noted. "Why are you trying to make sense of blueprints to start with?" she asked. The other bits she'd attempted already to try and help him with, but he hadn't wanted it, so she didn't comment on those. But the blueprints, that was something she wanted to know about. And possibly was what she'd interrupted in the first place when she'd come in.

That Brett looked somewhat surprised at. That she had to ask. "I want to know every possible way in and out of this place," he told her, simply. He'd been unable to get a basic floorplan of their levels, so he'd gone direct for the blueprints of the whole building. They'd been easy enough to obtain, it just left him with a whole lot to get through, and doing that when his head was still suffering the after effects of being pistol whipped was not proving to be easy.

Well, that made sense, didn't it. Sure it did. "I suppose that's prudent." she said. "But they're confusing?" she asked. That meant she sure as hell shouldn't take a look at them. If they confused Brett, they'd likely mystify her. So she didn't offer to take a look, either, it would be an exercise in futility, not to mention it would bruise her pride if it did turn out she couldn't make sense of them at all. Thus, she was avoiding the experience. Beyond that, she imagined if he knew what he was doing, she could rely on him. Possibly.

"Today they are, yes," Brett told her. He couldn't concentrate on all the lines, couldn't follow them properly. He kept getting lost and, in typical Brett fashion, he was blaming the drawings, rather than himself.

"I generally don't advise doing anything technical or mentally taxing after a head injury." she told him. And if anyone knew about head injuries, she did. Even if Brett was just sporting a headache, and she had actual brain damage. Still, headaches rarely aided in concentration. "Leave it til you're feeling better." she told him, looking out the window again, as opposed to his reflection in the glass. She kind of wanted a drink. And even if she'd just got in, she was feeling an itch at the back of her mind to leave again. To go back to the loft. But then she was also thinking about telling him he didn't have to come to her performance the last night. And another part of her was thinking that if she didn't tell him it was happening, he might not know, and therefore would miss it by default.

"I'd rather work it out sooner," Brett told her. He wanted her to feel safe here, and last night had showed that she really didn't. So, as he'd promised, he was doing what he could about that. He didn't want to leave things for some other undetermined future day. Life didn't always wait for people to be feeling better.

"You already put new locks on." she said. Then frowned slightly, and finally half looked back over her shoulder, though not directly at him. "Right? I wasn't making that up in my head?" Because she could have been. She was aware of this. She supposed she should be grateful for his interest in security here, and the fact that he didn't want to let it go til later, but if he was over doing it and couldn't manage it, and she might not be staying the night anyways, it wasn't anything she wanted to push him into.

"Right - best I could find out there, and there's deadbolts as well," he confirmed for her. "And I talked to the downstairs desk and told them that nobody's to be allowed up without them calling ahead to let us know. Set it up to make sure they make it sound official and all. I doubt they'd actually stop anyone, but at least we should get a heads up if there's anyone on their way up," he added. It wasn't an ideal situation, but when they were renting in a building, rather than owning the whole thing, there were limits. And security hadn't been at the very top of his list when he'd come looking for places.

Nodding, she looked back out the glass again. "That's something." she said. A fair warning at least made sure either of them could be armed before any 'guests' showed up. Of course another part of her recognized that with the door man, the elevator man, the front desk person...those were all witnesses. If anyone came up that didn't go back down, they'd be seen. Which meant they needed to be careful, and so did anyone else.

That rankled Brett - that he'd worked all day for her, that he'd done all of this, straight away, the morning after she'd given him what was possibly a concussion and all she could say was 'that's something'. Not 'thank you'. Not any suggestion that his efforts for her made her feel any better. Nothing. Just that. As though he hadn't gone anywhere near far enough. Dismissing his efforts. And he hated that that mattered to him. That he cared what she thought. That her dismissal made him feel inadequate in some ways, angry in others for her lack of appreciation. "Have I missed something?" he asked her, his voice tight, low.

His tone caught her attention more than what he said, and she turned, leaning her back against the window and she laid her eyes directly on him. She didn't say anything for a few moments, before she shook her head. "No." she answered him. She didn't think he had. She knew herself that he'd probably thought of more than she would have. Especially with looking at the blueprints at all, even if right now he couldn't make sense of them. It was more than she would have thought to do. "You've done well." she added at the end, after another momentary silence, unsure if she should say it or not. She didn't exactly want to tell him 'good boy!' like he was a pet.

There it was, what he wanted to hear, but he rejected it because he felt like he'd needed to ask for it. "I did what needed to be done," he told her, throwing that back in her face. He shouldn't need her approval, and yet he looked for it more and more.

Again, she was hit with the idea that at least it was familiar, this whole song and dance. He got pissy with her for reasons she didn't quite understand, and it went back and forth for a while. She wasn't playing her role up to par, she knew, but she wasn't especially upset with him, even if he seemed upset with her. Of course, he could always still just be pissed because she clocked him. That was probable, even. She found it slightly unreasonable that he wouldn't be upset with her over it, even if the reaction was delayed. "You have." she agreed with him, nodding a slight bit. Yes, he had. He'd done well. He'd got new locks, more than one set if she'd seen it right, talked to the people downstairs, there wasn't a ton else that could be done beyond changing their names and running away or killing Andrei and she didn't really like the plan that involved running.

He glared at her, annoyance feeling like an itch under his skin that he couldn't scratch. She wasn't rising to anything - she was just calmly standing there and he didn't know what she wanted from him. It felt like she did, like he should be aware of something that was clear to her and that he was entirely missing, no matter what she said. It still felt like they were playing parts. Or maybe just she was, and she expected the same from him and he wasn't performing to par. Sit up and beg like a good little puppy. "...What do you want from me?" he asked her, in the end, wanting to cut right through everything that may or may not be there. Hating feeling like he didn't know what was going on.

It was her turn to look confused. She frowned, looking at him for a long moment as she sort of went over the question a few times in her head, trying to figure out what exactly he meant, but in the end, there wasn't a whole lot of room for interpretation there. In the end, he was just asking, and she didn't know why. Or in regards to what. "I don't want anything from you." she told him, that light confusion still on her features, and while the statement wasn't a question, there was the lightest questioning tone to it. Uncertainty was definitely there, laced through everything.

"You sure about that?" Brett shot back at her, though he was thrown by her clear confusion. He'd expected her to have an answer for him. Something to clear up his own uncertainty about things right now. "Why did you ask me how I got this?" he asked, indicating his face.

"I'm sure." she told him. She sounded mildly more sure that time, but still didn't quite know what was going on either. Then he asked that, and she looked down. "I don't know." she told him, going for the truth there. "Maybe I thought you might tell me some crazy bitch hit you." she said, looking back at him again. 'I'm sorry' was on the tip of her tongue, but she didn't know what she'd be apologizing for, so she didn't say it. She also couldn't tell if it was because everything felt very on edge right now, or because she was still feeling guilty about hitting him in the first place.

"And why the fuck would you need me to tell you that when you already knew the answer?" Brett challenged. That was what had got him in the first place - he couldn't understand what answer she'd been looking for there, and he had a hard time believing that even she would completely forget something like that happening. For all she had brain damage, he was convinced she'd known what she'd done.

"Maybe it was an ill advised, and utterly failed attempt at something resembling levity or playfulness." she told him. "But, we don't have that kind of arrangement," she purposely omitted the word 'relationship' because he twitched at that and he was already twitching enough. "So, I dropped it and moved on." The need for a drink or to leave was itching at the back of her mind again. She really didn't know what to do with that. And she still hadn't decided about her last night on stage, either.

"No, we don't," Brett said, but her explanation made him feel foolish. Had he really lost his sense of humour that much that her attempt at a joke, whether misguided or not, had entirely passed him by? It had never even occurred to him that that may be what it had been. he wondered if that's what she wanted, what she was looking for, even if she said she didn't want anything at all: levity. Playfulness. He couldn't grasp the idea that she might feel that there was nothing missing. It felt like she thought there was. "Is that what you want?" he asked her.

Sighing, Eris reached up and rubbed at her temple a moment, letting her eyes fall shut. "Why are you so obsessed with what I want right now?" she asked. "I don't want anything, okay? Have I started making demands? No. If I did want something, I'd tell you, I wouldn't play convoluted games to try and get it, or have you guess what it is. I don't want anything, from you or otherwise." Really, he was kind of the only person in her life that she hadn't wanted something from. That she hadn't had a clear goal of what she could extract from him.

"I'm not 'obsessed'," Brett told her, dismissively. He didn't think he was obsessed, just twitchy and uncertain and god did he not want to admit that. he didn't do 'uncertain' - not to show it anyhow. That was weakness and vulnerability and he didn't do that. Neither of them did, if they could help it. But he realised, as she spoke, that he did actually expect her to start playing games. Or to be playing games. He didn't know why, she'd never given him reason to think that she would, but he'd been looking for that lately.

"Well, you've demanded to know twice in rapid succession, and I never really remember you asking me what the fuck I've wanted before today, so why start now?" Eris asked. But it was rhetorical. And, as was so familiar between the two of them, she started for the door. She didn't want to do this right now. She was still feeling guilty over hitting him, probably still feeling raw and vulnerable from having dealt with Andrei the other night, and generally speaking, she wasn't all that okay. As much as she hated to think it, she just wasn't. She was just this side of holding it together, and that could slip at any given moment. And he was in a Mood. So, he could be in a Mood all by himself, and she was going back to the loft. Or, that was the plan, anyhow.

She might have meant it rhetorically, but he took it as a question, and, for once, answered it as she walked off, turning to watch her walk away. Possibly it was becasue trying to stop her last night physically had worked out so very badly. Possibly it was for another reason altogether - he simply didn't think about it that hard. "Because I never asked you before," he said, his voice quiet, but strong enough to carry.

She still walked a few steps before she turned to look at him. "It's a little late." she told him. "It doesn't really fucking matter. And you want to know what I want out of you. And I don't want anything out of you. The only thing I'd wanted before was to get you out from under, but I tried that, and you didn't want it. So, whatever. I didn't exactly have any plans after that. I don't have some deep desire to get something out of you." Eris fell silent for a moment, a sort of realization coming over her, and it wasn't a nice one. When she spoke again, it was after a frown flickered over her features briefly before it cleared, and her tone was off. "I don't want anything." She didn't have any desires, no real goals. No end game. No game at all, really, or not one she was playing on her own. The one she was engaged in was for his benefit. He was getting it out of her. In that moment she really recognized that if anyone was getting something out of this, it was him. If anyone was getting used, it was her. She turned again, to walk towards the door. All the more she was aware that she didn't want to do this tonight. Couldn't.

"You got me out from under," Brett told her, still not moving. He'd learned his lesson last night, if she kept walking away, the only thing he could do was to follow her. He couldn't stop her, not unless he was prepared to use more force than he was actually willing to do. "I know it wasn't in the way you intended, but you did." And he wanted to do the same for her - he wanted to give her her life back the way she'd given him his. And like her, he'd never asked her if that was what she wanted beforehand. Unlike her, though, he'd known it wasn't - she'd wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. He'd simply always hoped that she'd change her mind on that.

"Then fine. I got what I wanted." she said, tone distant, and she kept walking, turning the deadbolt, then the knob. Thankfully, when she tried to open the door, it actually did open. She didn't really want to look for the keys, when she had no clue where they were, or try and fight with him over them. She exited into the hall, shutting the door behind herself, and she kept going.

He followed her, at a distance of a few paces, out to the elevator, making sure that she really was intending to leave before he called her on it. "If you got what you wanted, why are you leaving?" he asked, managing, for once, to miss the 'me' off the end of the question.

She sighed heavily and again rubbed at her temple. "Because I'm not doing this with you tonight." she told him. "I didn't come here to pick a fight, and I really just--" she broke off, not really knowing where that sentence ended. "You can do whatever it is you were doing before I interrupted you." Security stuff. With confusing blueprints. She felt tired. Drained. And with that came vulnerability. It was never a feeling she was alright having in the first place, now wasn't any different.

"Just what?" Brett asked her, for once actually pursuing that. "If you want me to leave you alone - if you want me to just get on with what I was doing, this place is large enough for me to do that and be out of your way," he pointed out.

She grit her teeth for a moment, not really looking at him. "I'm tired." she told him. Which did finish her statement. She didn't know if that was exactly what she was going to say, but it fit. "And you're in a mood to pick a fight, and start tossing out accusations and paranoia at me and I don't think I'm up for it tonight. So, I'm going to go." At least if I'm elsewhere, I won't be able to feel you just beyond the walls. she thought. Which she recognized she would do. She'd be there, just aware of him.

"I told you last night that I wasn't him - that I wasn't Clayton and that I wasn't going to leave you. That I'd be there, between you and whatever was coming for you," Brett said, his voice quieter than normal, but serious. he was simply working to take all the anger, all the challenge out of his tone. Everything that she could read as suggesting he was picking a fight. "But you make that really difficult to do if you're always trying to leave. I can't be there if you won't let me be."

"I know you aren't him. This isn't about him." she said. Though she recognized that what this was about may have been changing the longer they spoke. She wasn't sure anymore. It was a little messy in her head and she never did all that well when she felt upset and off balance, vulnerable and hollow. It just wasn't a good combination. It was possible she wasn't sure what it was about anymore. Just not Clayton. "And clearly, you don't fare so well when you are there." she said, making a gesture towards his temple. It wasn't a shot at him, it was stated like more of an observation, a fact.

"I know this isn't about him. It's about you. And it's about me. I'm not him because I'm never going to do what he did. But I can't do anything at all if you're not here. And this? Are you telling me that this you did on purpose? That it's going to become a regular thing? That you meant it?" he asked her, knowing that if he'd read that wrong, if she'd been rather more aware of her actions than he'd thought, then things could very much change very quickly. He'd been working off assumptions, but he'd been wrong in regards to her before.

"No." she said, looking down. It was clear it was the truth, and with how she looked down and crossed her arms across her stomach, that guilt thing wasn't very veiled. She didn't say anything more than that, even if she was aware that she should. For instance, she should address the whole what it's about nonsense. But she didn't because she didn't know how to answer it. How to talk about what it was about, or if she was even up for that. About the only thing that did come to mind was 'there is no you and me'. But he'd phrased it separately, so that was just in her head.

He hadn't thought so. He had his own theories on what had happened the night before, and why it had happened, and he'd been fairly sure that he'd been right on that. With her suggesting, even for a moment, that it might be otherwise, though, it highlighted to him what she'd told him before. That he ran things from assumptions. And that he could be wrong. And that he never stopped to just ask her. And that maybe he should just swallow it and do that. And that now was a good time - with a subject that, whilst personal to the both of them, wasn't stepping on any deep emotional grounds that he would find impossible to deal with. "...Do you want to talk about it?" he asked her, almost hesitantly. Uncertain. That seemed to be a theme today. "About what happened?"

She didn't know if she did or not. She had the feeling that it was in there in her issues, but it didn't rate as topping out the charts just now. Not in the slightest. She kept her eyes on the floor, though she wasn't really seeing it. "There's not a lot to say." she said. "You--" she broke off, then set her jaw, and started again. "You scared me. You held me down like that, and that--he did that to me. And after seeing him earlier, and remembering in nice, fresh detail a shit ton of stuff I didn't even fucking remember before, I just--I was afraid." The fact that she absolutely loathed having to say any of that at all was incredibly clear, in her tone, in her body language, everything. "And all I knew was I needed to get away, and I hit you with whatever I had in my hand." Since at the time she wasn't even thinking that it was a gun--which might have been good for Brett, all things considered. "So, I hit you and got away, and I'm sorry I hurt you. End of story."

That tallied pretty much with what he'd figured, which was the only reason that he didn't hold it against her. He'd seen fear like that before, that utter panic. It was dangerous, but it wasn't purposeful. He'd pushed things too far and whilst he didn't figure he deserved what he got, blaming her for it wasn't on his agenda. "I didn't mean to scare you. I was trying not to hurt you. Or upset you," he admitted, though he found that admission strangely difficult. "But - I didn't want you to leave. I still don't get why you were leaving," he admitted. He couldn't remember if she'd told him. Events around her hitting him were all a little blurry and he didn't know if he had total recall, for all he'd pieced together exactly what had happened.

It didn't occur if she had told him or not. She didn't remember and assumed she hadn't said if he didn't know. She did tense a little more when he said that he hadn't wanted to upset her. Because hey! He failed miserably there, hadn't he? Not saying anything for a moment, she answered eventually, though her tone was distant. "You were leaving." she said. She remembered that. "You said something...no. You were just leaving. I don't know why." She remebered feeling shocked over it. She'd put on music, she was letting him sort of go wherever, the bedroom probably because he'd gotten all twitchy on her, and he'd chosen to leave instead.

He frowned slightly at that. "No - no, I wasn't. I was going to sit in the lobby for a while. I wasn't leaving." He couldn't quite remember why. That was all a bit of a blur, the exact details unclear. Everything leading up to her hitting him was just a mess. Frustrations and unacknowledged anger and concern and a host of other emotions. He didn't know why he'd been walking out, other than that space was needed. Whether it was his space, or hers, he wasn't entirely positive.

"The lobby is leaving." Eris told him, finally looking over. "The lobby is too fucking far away. And I'm not waiting for him to come for me. I'm not waiting, behind some door that you can kick down all by myself again. I'm not doing it." she said, emotion in her tone again, leaking in as she spoke, as she gained more of that internal horror at everything. The distance she'd been using to shield herself from everything was gone. "I'd rather be on my own, and waiting than relying on someone else who isn't fucking there." She shook her head. "I'm not doing it." she repeated herself.

The frown deepened. "The lobby is leaving?" he asked, clearly not getting that. "How - how is the lobby leaving? And - if the lobby is leaving, you wanna tell me what isn't leaving?" So that he'd know, for the future. If she didn't leave first.

"It's not up here, is it?" She snapped. "no, it's off someplace fucking else, where he could get here at any time, or anyone else could, because let's be real here, I've gone swimming with the fucking sharks again, Brett, and just because we happened to see one of the fuckers who'd like a second shot at me doesn't mean there weren't at least three other people we didn't see who're going to want a piece." she continued, actually hitting on something there that she'd not shared with him previously, but she was a little too upset to catch it. "Not leaving is being with me. In the apartment." she said, with a negligent wave towards the door. "And it doesn't fucking matter, because I'm going. Have a nice fucking night." she said, slamming the side of her fist down on the call button for the elevator, and she turned her back to him.

He'd been going to argue with her on what he'd meant by where he'd been going. He hadn't meant downstairs. He'd meant out here, just here, the reception area that he still didn't know what to call, so called it a whole variety of things, some of which were probably more accurate than others. Just out here, the same floor, not downstairs. But the rest of what she said meant that that would have felt petty and pedantic right now. Because she was angry, and she was really leaving. "At least three others who you don't know about and so you're just gonna walk out that door," Brett shot at her back. "Where I can't watch your back." He paused, taking a breath. "In the apartment. I can do that."

"At least it'll be my own fuck up." Eris said to him, not turning back around to look at him. She was thinking about it again now. How she'd done all this for him, gotten back into a game she didn't want to be playing anymore, and he acted like it was nothing. Or like before, where he'd assumed that it was what she wanted, it was her driving motivation. He didn't get it. He didn't understand. Right then, it occurred to her that what had happened, the situation, it was like someone asking him to go back to the force. Which he'd never in a million years even consider. But here she was. If she was whole, would she have noticed that earlier?

"I don't want there to be a fuck up at all," he pursued, wondering how long they had before the elevator arrived. It wouldn't look good to be arguing in front of the staff, and he was fairly sure that no matter what, she'd tell him so firmly later on if that happened. "Look, Princess - I got you into this. So I'm gonna see you through this. I'm going to be there for you. And if you don't want me to be... I'd say I'd find someone else to do that for you if you didn't want it to be me. But frankly? Right now there's nobody else I trust." It was all he could do now. When she'd pointed out what he'd missed, when he'd finally realised that he'd set all of this up without really asking her if it was what she wanted, without realising that it had been more than what he'd assumed, that she wasn't going to warm to the idea even when she'd realised it was possible. When he'd realised that she was just doing this for him, it had been far, far too late to back out. So, he was doing all he could with what was left, trying to make it up to her. He'd felt the push to look after her before, this just added another dimension to it: guilt.

"I'm not trusting anyone else." she said. Even if they did find someone else to be her bodyguard, she'd gone that route before, and it hadn't worked out for her. Sometimes she wondered if she even trusted him. But it most certainly wasn't going to be acceptable to trust anyone that wasn't him. God, she just didn't really know what she was doing. Running? Really running? There was a part of her that was itching to do it. Leave, and disappear. He could do things on his own, for running the place. The girls were already on board, they already had a client list, he didn't really need her anymore, per se. Plus, he'd done fairly well at the party, playing is role just fine.

She honestly didn't know. She didn't know what she was doing. She didn't want to be alone. She didn't want to not have him around, but at the moment she didn't know. She wasn't sure, about anything. "You have no idea, Brett." she said, voice very quiet. "You have no idea what all of this is actually like for me."

He was understanding that more now, after walking into her world, after seeing her before, afterwards. He was appreciating the complexities. He was at a place where, if he got a do over, knowing what he knew now, he would have approached things very differently. How, he had no idea, but he would never do what he had actually done. But that wasn't just knowing about her world. It was knowing her better now as well. As much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, he gave that much more of a damn now than he ever had before. He heard the sound of the elevator, slowing, the ding that preceded the doors opening. He ignored it, his eyes on her, even if hers were not on him. "Then tell me. Help me understand," he said, more softly than he'd intended. At least it was better than another 'don't go'.

Well great. That gave her a choice, and she had to make it in a split second here. It wasn't one she really wanted to make on the fly, either. But the doors slid open, and she already had schooled her features. And when the doors slid open, she smiled. When she spoke, it was with an embarrassed tone. "I'm really sorry, I realized I've got a few things to do yet before I go anywhere! Apologies, dear." she said to the elevator boy, who shrugged, looking mostly bored, before he shut the doors again and was gone.

Not turning immediately, she set her jaw, and didn't know what to do from there. Or what to say. So she kept standing there, before she abruptly turned, and headed towards the office, even if she had to look into an empty room first before she found it. She wanted a fucking drink.

Brett closed his eyes as the elevator descended once more, and she remained behind. He let her walk off, taking a few moments before he followed her. He was back onto unknown territory, but he seemed to spend most of his time there these days, feeling his way around in the dark, more than half the time getting it all wrong. Once his life had been one of certainty. These days it was anything but.

She found a bottle of something amber which meant she was fine with it, and she didn't look to hard at the label. Then she walked past him again, out into the hall because she didn't want to have this conversation in the main part of the floor, she wanted to have it behind more than one set of locked doors, thanks. At least it would be more comfortable in there. Or, that was her theory anyways. Whether that proved true or not, she didn't know. But she headed back into the apartment proper and went to the kitchen, where she found a glass, and opened up the bottle, which turned out to be whiskey. Why didn't they have vodka? She missed vodka.

He considered matters, and then poured himself a matching drink. He figured it wouldn't go to waste, and he wasn't of a mind to try and stop her drinking right now. He didn't say anything as they headed back into the apartment, the only sound the thunk of the deadbolt as he drove it home behind him on both the outer and inner doors through.

"It was no real secret that I didn't know if I could do this." She said first, not following him but speaking loudly enough that he could still hear her. She'd made that fairly clear, though, the bit about not knowing. Thrown more than one little fit about it, even. They'd argued. "Fuck, I still don't know." she told him, and she knocked back a good half of her drink, swallowing it down and feeling the burn in her throat. After looking at her glass, bringing it back up a little then stopping, she then went with it, and knocked back the rest, before she poured herself another. That she held in against her chest as she leaned herself back against counter, staring at a middle distance. "But you don't get it. That world that you were so eager to push me back into? That's the one that chewed me up and spit me out, you know. It got me killed. And yeah, I made it, but at pretty fucking diminished capacity, even, and you want me to go back in. To a world that's full of liars and cheats, thugs and murderers, and you can pretty much bank on them all being like that to some degree. Or knowing someone who'll do their dirty work for them." She drank more, pausing. "You know how you said you'd never go back to the force? How you don't trust any of them, you don't know who fucked you over, any of that? Well, that's this. I don't know who exactly set me up. And then I run into the man who actually did the deed. I just--" she broke off, and sighed, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. "You just set up this plan that sent me directly back into the lions den, and I'm not even running at near the speed I used to be. You've sent me in wounded, and they are going to..." She shook her head and took another drink. She laughed, though it was absolutely humorless. "They are going to eat me, eventually. It's just a matter of time."

Brett listened to her as she talked. He listened to her, and her watched her, and he said nothing at first. He hadn't appreciated it. He'd known, she said things, but he hadn't seen it like that, he knew. He watched as she slid down the wall, as she stopped and at first, he did nothing. And then he joined her, turning to slide down next to her, just about touching his side against hers, contact without pressure as he looked over at her. "Do you want out?" he asked, simply. He had no idea how he would achieve that, but that didn't seem to be the important factor right now. Knowing that was.

"There isn't an out." she said. There was a note of bland, bare hopelessness to her statement that betrayed the fact that she knew it. It was just how it was. They were already there. They'd already taken part, it was done. There wasn't any backtracking. Killing the rest of her glass, she looked up to the counter where the bottle was, but didn't actually reach for it. It was a little far away for her tastes at the moment.

"That wasn't what I asked," Brett pointed out, his tone uncharacteristically gentle. He followed her gaze to the bottle on the table and he reached for it, setting his own glass aside for a moment to do so as he poured her a small amount. Probably smaller than she'd pour for herself, but enough for her to have a drink.

Are you feeling bad, Baby? You're pouring me a drink. went through her mind, but she didn't say. She just sipped at her drink, considering what he said. "Doesn't really matter what I want." she said. "And whether or not you asked if I want out, there isn't an out. So, it's a bit of a moot point, isn't it." She said. Though her words weren't really pointed. Her tone was light, a little distant, though that was mostly due to the resigned nature of her emotions at current.

"Not to me, not here. No now," Brett told her. He hadn't intended to get her into a position where she wasn't happy and where there was no way out. He'd wanted - god, what had he wanted? He'd wanted to give her a future. He'd wanted to give her a life where she wasn't always looking over her shoulder, where she wasn't just waiting for the bullet to end it all. He'd thought he'd done that, but maybe he'd just done exactly the opposite.

She hadn't really been looking at him, but he did then, turning her head to the side to gaze at his profile. She kicked back the drink he'd poured her, not saying anything yet. It took her a while to speak, mind grinding over a lot as she watched him. She held out her glass to get a refill, though. "With you, there was hope in there for something." she said, knowing that she was sort of going at things in a convoluted manner, but whatever. She didn't care. "Whatever happened, you could find some life to lead. You'd be able to manage it, it'd be fine, eventually, with whatever it was you wanted to do with yourself." She leaned her head back against the wall with a light thunk. "But with me, it's different." she told him. "See, you've got a lot of damage. But it's over. It's done. All those scars...they're scars, you've healed. You lived through that, and it didn't kill you. And it might have changed who you were, but it didn't take away from your ability to function." She reached up with her free hand to twist a lock of her hair around her finger, giving herself something to fidget with. "I really probably should have died." she told him.

"What happened to me completely altered who I am as a person. Who I used to be is gone. I woke up someone else, but I'm still in her skin. And I've hurt a lot of people in my time, sweetheart. I've messed with a lot of them. I've wracked up a whole lot of resentment, and sure, I was just playing the game, like everyone else in that particular crowd does, but I was good at it. Especially good. I mean, how else would I have kept Babylon neutral for as long as I did? So, I lived a pretty terrible life, then it took me down, because that was inevitable. Only it didn't end there. And I can still see the angles. I still know what tones to use when speaking to people, or how to sit, or lean, or when to pretend and what to pretend. I just don't want to anymore. Add on top of that the fact that even if I can still see it all, that doesn't mean I've got the capacity for it. I'll forget things. Everything I knew before? That's fine. But I need to remember what's happening now. I need to be able to keep up with everything now. I need to be able to draw the lines and see the angles and so much of that takes place in a split second on the fly. The best kinds of manipulations? Those aren't something you can go back and discuss then orchestrate later. They're the ones that you slide in there on a moment's notice, when you see the opportunity right in front of you." She let her hair go, and dropped her hand down to her lap. "I'm not going to be able to do that well. Not well enough, anyways. There was hope for you because you're still you. And you aren't some feeble minded mental cripple, which I've pretty much become. And yes, before you say anything, I'm aware that's an exaggeration, but that's what it feels like. And there is no healing up from that. In fact, all I really have to look forward to is fucking things up, and possibly my condition will just get worse. If anything happens to me, it wouldn't take a whole lot to make me so very much worse. Then I have...what. A child's mentality at best?" Drawing in a deep breath, she let it out in a rush. "You have no idea what it's like to have a broken mind, and know it. At least the loonies and idiots of the world are ignorant of it. But not me. I get to live in my own shadow, and I'm aware."

Brett didn't say anything for a long time. Really, he didn't know what he could say to that, to knowing all of that, laid out the way it was. "...I'm sorry," he said, in the end. "I never meant for things to be like that."

"I know." she said, and in that moment she did. If she had to guess, she would guess that he'd never thought about it from her position. Even if she'd expressed her fears over things, it was something he'd wanted to do. So, he wasn't hearing otherwise, and she'd gone with it. Part of her thought she shouldn't have. That maybe she should have fought harder. Beyond that, however, she was unsure. But then that was a whole lot of what she was feeling then in general. Unsure.

"You'd given up," he said, carrying on. "At every turn, it was like you just wanted to die. I wanted to give you something to live for. I knew you had problems, but I thought I could fill those gaps. I just didn't know that you didn't want it in that way. I know you said you didn't, but I put that down to your wanting to die. I thought, if you had something to live for, then that would go. I didn't realise that the rest would stay."

Reaching for the bottle, Eris gave herself a moment as she poured herself another drink before she spoke again. She milled everything over. What she had to say she knew he wouldn't like, but she wasn't going to lie about it, either. "It's less the desire to die, and more the distress of the idea of surviving. To have to live like this." She made a vague gesture at her head, so he'd know she specifically meant the brain damage, and not everything else. "I still don't have a goal. I don't have anything I'm striving for, anything I really want. I wonder if I'm just spent." She knocked back what she'd poured for herself, letting her head hang forward a little, hair spilling down over her shoulders to obscure her features. "Maybe you just saved me to right some cosmic imbalance, and now that that's done, I don't have a purpose here anymore." she said, tone wholly unreadable.

"I know it's not the same," Brett said, disclaimering before he started. "But, after the fire, I felt kind of like that. Like everything I'd been was gone. I was 23, things were going great, I'd just been promoted, I loved my life. And then, in the space of an hour, all that fell apart and I was covered in bandages in a hospital bed with men in white coats and masks telling me that I might not live past a week and, if I did, then if I healed badly, I might never be able to get out of bed again. It was a good couple of weeks before they allowed that I was going to live, and then they moved me to this recovery place and - I never thought I'd work again, never thought I'd get that back. And I know it's not the same, but I can get that, some of that - feeling like you've got no place in the world anymore. I've felt like that. It's part of why I wanted to try and give you that back. Because it helps. It helped me. I never became that guy again, the guy I was. What happened changed me - and not for the better. I lost a lot. But it wasn't the end of everything." He stared straight ahead as he spoke, not wanting to look at her. What he'd just told her was something he'd never vocalised before, but he wanted to share it with her now.

After he'd started speaking and she realized what he was talking about, she looked at him again, watched him as he spoke. She finished her glass again and set it down on the floor with a soft click, listening to everything he was saying. She could buy that he had some perspective on things. That he could understand some of what she was going through despite the differences in their situations. It wasn't a far cry, after all, and hell. She knew for a fact that what happened to him still left deep scars in his emotional wellbeing. "I don't think you turned out so bad." she told him. And oddly, her tone wasn't placating. She understood what he was saying, and that he'd changed and all that, and she could very much imagine him as he said he'd been. Young, dumb and a perfect little boyscout. But still. She did happen to like who he was now. She shifted, not really moving away, though she was careful not to actually touch him as she moved, and she laid on her back on the floor, facing around the opposite way so when she propped her head on her arm, she was looking up at him. "So is the short version you're the broken version of you, and I'm the broken version of me?" she asked. "And we both have to live with that?"

He quirked a smile. "You didn't know me before," he pointed out, finally looking back at her. "It's not the same. What I became - that's not really the point. But yeah, we're both the broke versions of ourselves. And yeah - we have to live with that. Make the most of it. That's what I tried to do after the fire, in the end. Make the most of it. Concentrate on what I had left. What I could do, rather than what I couldn't." And he'd cut out completely the things he'd decided he couldn't do - like relationships, and physical intimacy. Once he'd realised how hard that would be, how much it could hurt, he'd stopped it completely.

Brett didn't smile much. But she liked when he did. And she returned it for a moment, even if hers faded fairly quickly. Still, it was there for a brief moment in time. "No, I didn't. But you were a boyscout. And you still are, in a lot of ways." she told him. She kind of counted on that, really. One of them should probably have a moral compass that worked. Even if it worked on a bit of a warped scale, it was better than none at all. "It's one of the things I like about you." she told him. But she didn't let the comment ride long, continuing on like she hadn't said it. "So you concentrated on what you could do, and that gets you through the day." She sighed, absently reaching up to draw her fingers through her hair. "You had purpose, though. Which I lack. Like I said, I don't really have a goal. I don't have anything I'm striving for." She didn't sound like she was saying it to be difficult, it was more just a conversation she was having with him, and she was finding the holes in her own story.

"Got me through the day," Brett corrected. That didn't hold true anymore. He no longer had the belief he'd once had. He was no longer that boy scout cop, not matter what she said about him retaining some tendencies. "I know you don't have a goal," he continued, his eyes on her as she lay on the floor. "That's why I thought it would help if you did have one. And you didn't seem in a place to give yourself one, so I did that for you." It had seemed the right thing to do at the time.

"I don't know how to move forward from here." she told him, keeping her eyes on his. Normally she probably would have looked away, but they were being particularly candid at the moment. "Even giving myself the best case scenario for my head, there isn't a next step for me. I can't sit here and come up with where I want to be. Going off and living some 'normal' little life isn't going to work for me. So I guess I'll do this, since it's what you wanted. And it's too late to back out. So I guess that's my life now. Going through the motions here, trying to keep my head above water when I know it's not actually going to work. And dealing with people I hate on a regular basis." She sighed. "It never bothered me before. It would be nice to get that detachment back."

"We could set things up to allow us to move on," Brett suggested to her. "Work towards getting things going, make enough to give us a cushion, then give, or sell the business to someone else. The girls, maybe, if they'd want to work for themselves," he suggested to her. It wasn't an immediate solution, but even if she had a long term goal, maybe that would help.

Eris gave him a bit of a look, though it was mostly a 'are you kidding me?' expression than anything annoyed. "Why would you do that?" she asked. "It's set up. It'll get rolling, probably fairly quickly, it's something you could run on your own without too much problem, even if you played it low key after a while." she told him. "You realize that just because I'm having problems with the will to live and other things, doesn't actually mean it has to affect you or anything you do." she pointed out, because he'd started in on the 'we' thing there, and she pretty clearly remembered there not being a 'we'. And... "You got what you wanted here, Trent, it'd be pretty stupid of you to toss it."

"What did I want?" Brett asked her, ignoring the rest of that as he stopped himself from throwing back the whole of his so far untouched whiskey and instead just drank down about half of it.

"This. This business. This was your plan, your idea. You have what you needed out of me, you've got the girls, and they'd stay loyal just so long as you don't treat them like shit, and I can't see you doing that. So, what's the issue? You've got it. All you have to do is keep going with it. Maybe hire Kess to do the books, which I already said she was interested in in the first place, so that's fine. But you've got it. So...why would you even talk about ditching it?" she asked, watching him with a frown.

"Princess - the business was for you. Not me," Brett told her, frowning slightly. he'd come up with the plan because she'd needed something and it was the only thing that he could think of that would work for both of them. For himself - he'd never thought about it purely for himself. If he'd just been thinking about himself then... "If I'd just been thinking about me, then I would have done different with the information you gave to me," he told her, deciding that maybe he should put his thoughts on that into words.

She was frowning at him now. And after a moment, she propped herself up on her elbows, staring at him. "...run that again?" she asked lightly. "It was for me? In what way? Especially since you know I was nervous about it to begin with and everything else, and then--how does that even work? And what would you have done with it?" she asked. Because she definitely wanted to know that. After all, he'd almost walked out on her at that point because of how things went, so she was rather curious about what he might have done.

"I don't know what I would have done with it. I just know that when everything was going on, not ruining all of this was a factor in that. Right from the beginning. What I did, the choices I made, that was always there. And I told you - I wanted to give you something, some purpose. You were nervous, but - for months now you've had a line that you can't do things. You've been negative about everything. It's hard to tell where that line is - between what you really can't do and what you've just decided that you can't do," he said, trying to explain.

"Negative." She repeated. "Yeah, that happens when you can't do something as simple as medicate yourself to keep yourself stable." she told him. She looked away for a moment, shaking her head a little, before she looked back. "Fine. Where do you see the line?" she asked. "What do you think I'm capable of?" She had to wonder if she'd just flat out refused everything if it would mean they'd have parted ways, and he'd be a totally free man by now.

"I'm still working that out," Brett admitted to her, leaning back more against the wall, almost relaxing. It took a lot to get him into conversation where he wasn't bitching, and usually it had to involve him crossing a line somewhere first and feeling like he had to make up for that, but it was possible. "But I don't think it's where you think it is. I think you're capable of a lot more, given the right support."

She sighed, making a light frustrated sound, though it wasn't a growl or anything. Just a light sound in the back of her throat as she dropped onto her back again. This time she put her arm over her eyes, blocking out the light. "I can't remember my meds right. And that's something I'm meant to do every day. You'd think that repetition would have kicked in at some point, but it hasn't. I still need you for that, or at the very least your notes. But I couldn't keep those because of fucking Jackson, and how he'd recognize your handwriting, so I don't even have them anymore if I wanted to start trying to do it myself again. I tried to copy them, but that's something else I can't seem to manage properly. I try, but I don't get it. I'd rather underestimate myself than over. I'd rather not think I've got something covered and be happily surprised than be depended on to not fuck things up and wind up doing it and not even realizing."

"I'll write you the notes again," Brett said, lightly. It wasn't like they had to worry about people recognising his handwriting around her or anything anymore. "And those meds are confusing. It's not just one or two pills, it's a lot, at different times of the day, and all the bottles look the same," he reminded her. It had taken him a while to really get it down, and he still couldn't remember the actual names of half of what she had to take. "Your medication is a bad example. Most people couldn't do that without having it written down somewhere. You've done okay with the girls. None of them even know there's anything wrong with you. You did really well the other night. So far, you've fooled everyone."

I don't want you to write the notes again, I want you to do it. she thought, but didn't say. That was just a tad too needy for her to even consider giving voice to. So she didn't, shoving the idea aside as well. "I'm pretty sure other people would get it eventually." she muttered. "And no, the girls don't know anything, but that's because I haven't actually seen them all that much, and mostly? They just will talk and talk and continue talking until they have to leave if you let them. You barely have to say two words to them, the will be happy to fill the silence all on their own." Which she'd definitely let them do. "And yeah, so far. I...the role is still there. Eris." she said, making a vague gesture at her head. "I just don't think it'll be that long before someone does figure it out." She sighed and groaned. "And now I'm thinking about blackmail, which I'm sure would be people's first track, and fuck." she said, abruptly sitting up to reach for the bottle.

Brett leaned forward to put his hand around hers as she hit the bottle. It was one thing to let her have a drink when she needed it, but another to sit there and watch her drown herself. "We can set things up to run and get out. Retire. Whatever. Do you think you can play the game for that long?" he asked her, seriously.

She shot a glare at him, leaning closer, trying to pull the bottle closer too, hoping he'd give it up. "Please tell me that after the conversation we've had today, after all I've just told you that you aren't asking me for a fucking guarantee that my brain is going to be working past today, let alone long term." she said. "And we can't just retire. And what would you do, anyway? If you didn't have this. Finally go through with clearing yourself? Because I like that idea."

Brett held firm on the bottle and met her eyes, unfazed by the glare, or her tone. "Not asking you to guarantee anything, Princess. Just asking what you thought. And I don't know what I'd do. Or what you'd do. But you say you can't do this, so I'm trying to look at - and discuss with you this time - the alternatives." He was making an attempt at being reasonable. It had been a long time.

She crawled closer, getting up close and personal, tugging again on the bottle. "I think we're in this now, and if we're looking to retire, there needs to be a back up plan." she told him, that sort of coming out first before it quite cleared with her mind, but once it was said she could back the logic. So she didn't take it back. "What do you want to do?" she asked. Since apparently today they were all about getting to the bottom of that question.

"I never gave it much thought," he repeated, which was honestly the answer to that question. Before her, he'd had no future. He'd only started making plans because he'd thought it was the only way to stop her killing herself somehow. She'd made him do something he would never have thought of for himself, whether she would acknowledge that, or want it, or not. "What do you want to do?" he asked her in return.

Eris shifted, not letting go of the bottle, but she pushed his knees down with her free hand, and crawled onto his lap, facing him. She tugged at the bottle again, even if she was perfectly aware he wasn't going to give it to her. "I don't know." she answered. "The only thing I really like doing I can't do anymore." Which was an admission she hadn't planned on making, or even saying aloud ever. She didn't like thinking on it herself. But it was there, anyways. "Think it through now. What do you want to do?" she continued, since she'd played and answered somewhat.

"What was the only thing you liked doing?" Brett asked her, aware that he'd flipped the question back to her, but realising that he didn't actually know the answer to her statement. He knew what she used to do, but he also knew what she used to do. There were a few options. And also the possibility that she was talking about something not work-related at all.

"It's not very fair, you not answering me, when I've already given you at least something." Eris told him. "If I tell you, are you actually going to answer me?" she asked. She also started trying to pry his fingers off of the bottle one by one, an endevor she didn't imagine would work, but it gave her something to fidget with. And right now, she wanted a drink, and she wanted to be actively doing something that distracted her a little.

He looked down at what she was doing to his fingers and found that he actually let her get somewhere, allowing her to prise his fingers off one by one, only to replace them when she got a couple of fingers down. It was gently amusing, in a strange kind of a way. He thought so, anyway. He didn't mean to be mean about it, it just struck him that way - like a child trying to get something from a parent without actually coming out and asking. "If I have an answer for you, yes," he allowed.

Eris didn't actually find it mean. Though she did actually come out with a pout for a moment when he undid all of her progress. But she started over, without saying anything about it. She was playing back. "You better have some kind of answer." she told him. "I liked singing." she told him, after a long pause, watching his eyes even if she was still occupied with re-prying his fingers from the bottle. "I can't anymore, I know that, but I enjoyed it. That's...kind of rare for me." she admitted. Which wasn't easy, but she did.

Again, he let her prise off his fingers, then deftly replaced them again as she moved down, a twitching smile playing over his lips, especially at the pout. His mind, though, was on the conversation, rather than the game they were playing. "You're good at it. I don't see why you can't do it anymore," he told her, though he did see. High society didn't sing. Not in public anyhow. And they were playing at being high society. "I was never good at anything like that. Only thing I was ever really good at was my job. Can't do that anymore. I'd be okay with just a quiet life. Getting on with things and the rest of the world leaving me alone. Never did like a spotlight," he told her, giving her an answer of sorts.

There was another little flash of a pout before she started over. Part of her recognized that by this point, she didn't even actually want the bottle like she had before, she just wanted to get it from him, in this little quiet game. So this time when she tried to pry his fingers away, she also tried to replace the spot with hers--which took her longer and was far more awkward, but she did it anyhow, expecting him to continue to thwart her. She was listening to him though, watching his eyes. "I can't sing because I can't learn new songs." she told him. "And the idea of old songs is only quaint for so long, then you're just a girl without new material and who doesn't do requests for popular current songs." she explained. "You could become a private detective." she told him, after thinking about it for a few long moments, brown eyes drifting up towards the ceiling momentarily before they resettled on his. "It would be similar." She was silent for a moment longer, assessing. "You'd be okay with a quiet life? ...and possibly one of a hermit, since you want people to let you alone?"

He caught onto the change in what she was doing. She got away with it for the first couple of times, then he started, as she lifted up a finger, to race her to replace it. "yeah, new songs would be a problem. And I'd never make a private dick. Not so good at putting up with people's bullshit any more. Don't care like I used to," he told her. "And no, not like a hermit. Just like another guy. Says something, doesn't it, that apparently my ambition in life is to be a nobody."

When he started trying to beat her to the replacement, there was a brief if clear flash of a smirk on her face, a challenging sort of expression, playful. But it was there then gone, and she kept it up, trying to be faster than he was with it. "Technically you would only have to put up with bullshit of people you decided were worthy enough to take a case for." she pointed out, though she wasn't really arguing the point. "Yes, it says something. Just another guy." she said, "You know that's never going to happen, right?" she asked, arching a brow at him. "You're Brett Trent. There were a lot of people at that party who didn't need to be told who you were." she told him. Which was true. She'd noticed recognition for him, even if that recognition was varied for responses to it. Interest, contempt, a lot of things. "You're one of the special people, whether you like it or not. You're not a nobody." She was quiet for a moment, still watching his eyes. "So in this life where you want to be a nobody, what would you do? For work, that is. Because normal, nobody people require jobs."

Brett shook his head. "Now that's going into the realm of fantasy," he admonished. She already knew he didn't go there, like he didn't deal with 'what if's. "Since I'm not a nobody, apparently. But yeah, I know that's not going to happen. And sure, I could just take the cases I wanted, but it'd probably leave me kicking my heels a lot - those that I didn't throw out on their ear straight away would probably get sick of me and recommend everyone else stays clear as well. At least with this I only have to play nice to keep the clients happy every now and then. That, it'd be all the damn time."

Every once in a while, Eris really wished Brett would lighten up just enough to talk out a scenario with her, even if he didn't think it would happen. And, then she opted to share something like that. "Just because you don't believe something could happen doesn't mean talking it through or giving a hypothetical isn't something you should do, or is useless." she told him. "What you have to say might spark some other thought, give another idea that could lead to something that is possible, that you wouldn't have thought of in the first place unless you're thinking outside the box." She was still trying to get the bottle, too. "You never thought anything was possible with you, and I proved otherwise. Letting yourself think a little bit on things isn't a bad thing. And if you never do, then all you're ever stuck on is the one rutted path you've set yourself on." She was kind of hoping if he could view it in a more practical sense, it would help. Because there was a practicality to thinking through a fantasy. Sometimes you needed that stepping stone to get to something else. "There's something to be said for the realm of fantasy. And I personally wouldn't have made it out of my shitty apartment or to the age of fifteen if I never went there and let myself dream. It's practical. You take an idea, extrapolate it out, see where that leads, take another, take another...if all you're ever concerned about is what you can see directly in front of you, then you're never going to get anywhere." Which actually could possibly be why Brett had been stuck where he'd been for three years. Or why it took catalysts to get him to actually move forward or do anything. He had that narrow, narrow focus which meant he didn't see other angles, actively didn't even try to.

"You saw that photograph of me from the box." she said, watching his eyes. None of what she was saying was toned as exasperated, or short with him. "You don't get to be Eris Stockard by being that child, and just sitting around thinking her whore mom's dead, knifed by a john in an alley and her father's a piece of shit drunk who knocks her around and is turning a pretty dime by letting people have pieces of his daughter whenever he needed money for the bar. You don't go from being her to having something like Babylon without the ability to dream a little, to not just say 'well I guess this is my lot in life'. I know you think it's pointless, but it isn't, and I don't ask just to play." she told him. "I don't ask just to annoy you, either. I ask because I've got a purpose in it. We're meant to be business partners, right? Well, we've both just established that what we currently have isn't something either one of us especially wants. So, give a little. I can try to come up with angles, but I can't do it on my own, and if I know even a little what you're really after, what you'd really want if you could have it, give me time. I can come up with something. You don't think like me...fine. But I'm not asking you to. I'm not asking for much, and at least I could try and come up with something." She drew in a breath, and let it out slowly, getting to the last bit. "Currently, I do better if I'm thinking of something for you. Thinking things out for myself, I hit a wall because I know there's a lot I'm not capable of. But I don't have that problem with you." So she needed his input. Actually, she wondered if he had the same thing. He couldn't think things through for himself, but had come up with something for her. Ill informed, but something for her, regardless.

Brett's hand closed around the bottle, not playing anymore. "I don't want to be beholden to anyone," he told her, since she'd pressed the point. "Which makes knowing what I'd want to do for work pretty damn hard. I don't want to be owned, or owe. Doesn't leave a whole lot of options, really." He didn't have any other dreams. As a little boy, he'd dreamed of being a policeman, and he'd followed that dream. Now, it was over, as well as all the other thoughts of his future he'd had in his youth. There was nothing else left, nothing achievable.

"So, no one said anything about being owned. Jesus. You really just can't see past what's right in front of you, can you?" she asked, the question rhetorical. "Well fine. Stay where you are then. Rot in the same place, never dare to even attempt to think of anything else, and be miserable. Sounds perfect." she said, abruptly standing up. Though she swayed--she hadn't realized as much as she'd killed of the bottle had hit, and hey--random fast movements were making the room a little unstable. Or possibly it was just her. She reached out and slapped a hand against the wall, to catch herself.

"I meant that as an answer, dammit!" Brett exclaimed, dumping the bottle on the floor beside him and sitting forward, habitually reaching out to steady her as she swayed. "What the fuck did you think I meant? So, sure - I don't have a list of fucking dreams and wishes and little boy jobs that I'd like to do just waiting there. What I want is something - fuck it, anything - that will let me be that. Be something, someone who isn't going to turn round in five years time and suddenly realise it was all a fucking lie, or that I'm in too deep. You wanted to know what I want? That is what I want."

She looked down at him, hand still on the wall, and she felt alcohol on her toes, but didn't move. She was also dead silent for a few long moments, taking in what he'd said. "You don't want to be owned, fine. We're actually in a decent sort of position to ensure that, darling, if you didn't notice. Plus, if you look at me, and my history at all, you know I have issues with the same idea." Being it would have been much easier for her in life if she'd just let either crime family have their fingers in her pie, but she never had. "What would you have interest in? At all? What might you actually enjoy doing, or being involved in?" she asked him. "Or at the very least, not hate?" Because she imagined that he'd have a lot of trouble coming up with a single thing he liked.

"I know we're in that position," Brett told her, looking up at her from the floor. It felt like an odd position to him who was so used to looking down on her, and after a moment or two, he stood to correct that. "It's one of the reasons I can do this. I set this up because I thought it would be good for you, but I'm not saying that I hate it, or I want out for me. If this doesn't work, it doesn't work, but don't be under any illusions that I'm making myself miserable for you, doll."

"I never said anything was for me." she said. Because she wasn't under that impression. Even if he'd said that the endevor to begin with was for her. "Now you sound like you're changing your story." she told him, leaning her head against the wall. "Which is it, you're fine, and don't want out, or you don't really want to do this and you do?" she asked, feeling like she missed a step somewhere, and that bothered her. Was it her brain damage kicking in? She couldn't be sure it wasn't.

"Not changing my story, Princess," he told her, seriously. "It's all the same story. If it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't have gone where we are now. Don't know what I would have done, what choices I would have made, but I know the ones I did were made because of... the way things are. With that all in mind. But that doesn't lead straight to me hating being where we are now. Reason I don't like it is because things aren't the way I thought they'd be. The reasons I set it up were wrong. I made assumptions that were wrong. The way things are aren't the way I thought they were. So, that changes things for me. So, I'll get out and I don't have a problem with that. I don't have any ties to this place. This isn't a dream come true for me, but it's no nightmare either. I could walk away without a second thought, or I could stay here for the next ten years."

She turned her head to look at him, up through the strands of her hair in her eyes, head still resting against the cool wall. In the end she wound up saying nothing, feeling like she'd lost the thread of things. That she'd thought she was on the right track, and now it seemed like she wasn't, there was a misinterpretation there on her part, and she wasn't sure where it was. So she looked at the floor again, seeing the bottle, and she bent to pick it back up, then turned to walk off with it.

"What?" he asked. He hadn't expected her to just turn and walk off and it left him wondering what the hell he'd done. He dealt better when he was trying to piss her off. And sure, they'd been sharp with each other in moments over the last few minutes, but nowhere near approaching how they usually got.

"I didn't say anything." she told him, sounding tired. Which she was. She took a pull from the bottle, and exited the kitchen, going to stand in the living room, appearing and feeling a little lost. She didn't quite know what to do next. Where to go. Dealing with losing the thread of things was hard for her. If anything crashed her world view for a while it was that, the blatant evidence that she had lost it. That she wasn't up to par.

Brett stared after her, and then turned to head into the bedroom. He didn't get it. He didn't get it, he didn't understand and he didn't know why he was making efforts to justify himself to her. if she wanted to walk off for no real reason, then she could - he was going to bed. His head was beginning to hurt again, the bruising around one eye and up over his cheek and forehead throbbing again, and she could just do whatever it was that she wanted to do.

She looked over her shoulder enough to watch him walk into the bedroom. She still didn't say anything, even if she was trying to go over their conversation in her mind, still trying to find where she'd lost things. Or misinterpreted. She was sure she'd been trying to get somewhere, that there was a drive there to come up with something new, but now she couldn't pick out why. Beyond obviously she'd not taken something correctly on her end. She'd imagined that they were on the same page, and there'd been talk of getting out or...something. But it was gone now, and he'd said he was okay. In the end, she took another long drink, then she set the bottle on the coffee table, and headed for the door. She was still a little less than fully steady on her feet, but she wasn't falling over or anything. She'd go to the loft, tomorrow she'd sing for the last time, and then...she didn't know. She supposed she'd find out then.