breathing space
who: Eris and Simon
where: the streets around the One More Round
when: night
Eris was officially an unhappy bunny. Her photograph had been printed in the paper, and sure, while it hadn't been printed again today, it was still dangerous for her. She'd recently spoken to not one but two fucking cops, and at the end of the day, that was just bad news for her all the way around. She'd been taken off of singing the night the picture was run, just to avoid anyone recognizing her while her picture was staring them straight in the face. She'd been told tonight would be 'off' as well. While she understood it, and actually thought it was a good idea, that didn't really kill the worry deep in her gut, nor did it alleviate the idea that her time at the One More Round was going to be shorter than expected.
It might wind up being more trouble than the owner was willing to chance. The possibility of her getting spotted and ratted out was a whole hell of a lot larger now. She didn't know what to do, really. She wanted to talk to Brett about it, but well. Brett wasn't around, possibly because of the photograph in the paper, and she hadn't expected him to return anyhow, now had she. No, really not. She was going for a walk, which consisted of her circling the block around the one more round. She had a coat on, a hood pulled up to obscure most of her features and she kept her head down. She knew she shouldn't be out at all, but she'd been climbing the walls in her place, so...she'd needed the air.
While she was still breathing.
..
Simon's affection for bars and clubs was perverse. In his head--mostly in his head, there were actually some concrete notes in the collapsing filing cabinet, but they were fairly oblique musings on delinquency and self-destructive tendencies--in his head was the scientific accumulation of all the material he could want for an ethnographic thesis. Polished and warm, or pretentiously decaying in a hotel, or just plain decaying--thousands of motivated personalities circling the drain.
If observing these things made him feel better about his own life, well, that wasn't something he was able to admit to himself.
But somehow, his evening at the One More Round was less satisfying than he had hoped. Everyone seemed stifled. His cranberry juice had been, he suspected, watered down. Unacceptable. He imagined himself confronting the bartender's indifference with a scathing indictment of the pointlessness of his stingy service.
He settled for counting a poor tip, set down forcefully with what he imagined was a pointed look. This garnered some sidelong glances from the burly type a few seats over--first raised brow and snicker glances, then the indescribably more malicious kind. Simon left with haste. For no reason.
Outside, he felt rather more aware than usual of the local danger. Maybe his imagination was overstating it. Maybe not. But his eyes were widened to the dark, looking twice at any of the few passerby, and encountering a hooded figure as he turned a corner made him startle to a dead stop.
.
It was the abrupt stop that caught Eris' attention more than anything else, and she paused herself, glancing up though she was careful to not fully expose her features as she did so. Well, at least whoever Guy was here, he didn't have a gun pointed at her. That was a plus, right? Sure it was. Whatever. Either way, she stopped and looked at him for a long moment. "Sorry." she apologized, as if she'd been in his way, and she started to walk past him. Back in the day she'd never have done that. Back in the day, she'd have demanded an apology from him for being in her way. But that was a lifetime ago.
.
She looked--familiar. Not looked. Seemed familiar. That was his first impression, which was swiftly overridden by registering that she was a she. He didn't examine his logic, but it was along the lines of female, not dressed like whore, category: vulnerable.
"Your pardon. Miss. Do you need escorted somewhere?"
Also, burly men who gave threatening looks in bars where less likely to follow two people then one. But who was counting, really?
.
Eris arched a brow, and the corner of her lips quirked up faintly on one side. "What are you? A random knight in shining armor?" she asked. "...I'd guess that or..." she paused and stood back on her back foot a moment, eyeing him assessingly. "The killer stalking the streets, just trying to lure me someplace dark so you can gut me." she said, not sounding like she really thought that. Though it was in the back of her mind. "Or a time traveler, just arrived from the days of chivalry, perhaps?"
.
He considered. "A killer seems most likely, if you think about it. I almost definitely have ulterior motives. Although if I were a killer, I would probably dress a little differently. More like..." His eyes narrowed. "Oh, you're clever. I would have gone alone with you, too. Shame on you."
.
She laughed lightly. "I believe the killer's meant to be male. Though I imagine, if it were a woman, it would just be the perfect red herring, wouldn't it?" she asked rhetorically. "Though if it were a woman, things would be quite different. Plus, if the killer were really smart, they wouldn't dress nondescript, they'd dress well enough to be trusted. Something to instill the false sense of security required to get someone to go someplace dark...of course, I hear it's mainly streetwalkers who've been targeted, so all they'd really need is a wallet with enough bills to show." she mused. "What would your ulterior motives be, should you not be a killer?"
.
He maintained deadpan. "You're convincing, but I have to say that you seem to have thought this through unusually well." The lofty accent he had absorbed at university was creeping into back his speech, now, but he couldn't help it. "Consider the circumstances. I am alone, dressed in what is hardly my Sunday best, unarmed, at night, out here? There is a 85% chance that I am already three sheets to the wind and wallowing home. Talking to you is likely a drunken error. Although," he squinted. "You are not, as far as I can tell, too unfortunate looking, and you haven't mugged, murdered, or ignored me yet--" he hated the self-pity that crept in at the last, so kept on-- "so that argues well for this not being a mistake, which means we should take another look at the numbers, perhaps."
.
"I'm a girl with a lot of time on her hands and wild rumors circulating everywhere, of course I've thought about it." Eris said reasonably, which wasn't actually the case. Really, she was just someone who thought fast on her feet and was generally more intelligent than the people she was around. "If you were drunk, you'd have a much less steady gait." she said. "So if I were marking you, I'd pass you by, because you're bigger than me, and not appearing drunk enough to over power. But again, that's if I was the killer and if I'd switched it up to killing males instead of females, just to be different, and possibly confuse law enforcement." she continued. "And, for argument's sake, let's just say I have no plans to mug or murder you, and if I planned on ignoring you, I'd think it's safe to say I'm failing."
.
"Hideously," he agreed, then looked at her again. "Have we met before? Also, are you certain you don't need walked somewhere warmer? Now that we've examined the likelihood of either of us concealing sharp weapons, I feel more comfortable asking. I am Simon Mandel, by the way." He pull a hand from his pocket, wiped it surreptitiously on his pants, and offered it.
.
Nothing sharp on me. Just the six shooter I have on my person. went through her mind but she didn't share, of course. "We're back to chivalry?" she asked, and she shook his hand. "I think I have one of those faces." she answered easily, even if she was unhappy about even mild itching recognition. "It's been entertaining meeting you so far, Simon." she added. She didn't give her name, because well. She still didn't know what name to give. Definitely not 'Eris'. Julia was reserved for Brett, even if he had more than likely fucked off for the duration.
.
Her omission didn't go unnoticed, but Simon wasn't going to press her on the implied question. "Just manners. I think chivalry would involve picking you up and carrying you on my back somewhere, possibly while writing a sonnet and wading through mud puddles. I'm not really sure I'm up to it." One of those faces. Now it was going to bother him all night, as he caught fractured glimpses of her face as they spoke. Frustrating.
.
"Lucky for you I can't say I'm really one who enjoys being carried around, or sonnets." she told him. "Though there's an excess of puddles to wade through, I've already done so a few times tonight, so a few more won't hurt me. I was on my way to the One More Round, if you really feel the intense need to escort me." she told him. Really, she was telling him because by now, she'd lost track of her certainty of where she was headed. Brain damage did that, she lost track of things. And the last thing she wanted to do was get lost around here. Then she really might wind up being killer-bait.
.
He made a face, involuntarily. How did you think that would be convenient? he asked himself. And he was getting the feeling, be it from her lapse in introduction or maybe her failure to flutter in helpless admiration in the face of his snappy conversation, that she was the type of woman who was followed by an invisible cloud of trouble. But he was Obliged, now, and so lifted his trilby, briefly. "Of course." He stepped to the side, wordlessly inviting her to continue her forward motion. To make himself feel less foolish, he took refuge in social norm. "You have business there?"
.
Eris arched a brow when he made a face. "Not pleased with the destination?" she asked. "You know, I'm a big girl, I can probably find it on my own, if it's that distasteful." she told him, waiting for him to answer that before she went into what she might be headed there for. She was giving herself a little time to figure out what she was going to tell him on that score. Possibly the truth--after all, her stage persona made up for the fact that she hadn't introduced herself. Not that he'd asked her for her name, that was. So few did. It worked in her favor, but occasionally she wondered about it.
.
Simon heaved a smile in her direction. "Not nearly as well as I can. Your 'to' is my 'from'. And it isn't so far that I could possibly resent accompanying you there." He began walking in that very direction, to prove he was in earnest. "But you know, if you're after the indignified oblivion of the bottle, there are much nicer places to find it. It's rumored that some still have things like upholstery, and working plumbing."
.
"I never said I was going there to drink." Eris said. And really, she was! Just not downstairs. She was planning on going back up to the loft and getting herself nice and drunk before she tried to pass out and forget the day. Brett would be pissed. Probably. He always hated it when she drank. But she didn't really know what else to do with her time other than worry herself sick about everything else. She found it the favorable option. "And do all people going to a bar have to be searching for oblivion?" she asked him, curious about the way he'd phrased things. "That's a bit of a leap, isn't it?"
.
His mouth twisted. "Isn't that the great motto of booze? Drink to forget? Drink your cares away? Drink until you can't tell the difference between good or bad, happy or miserable? I'd be interested to know what other reason one might have for going to a bar, alone, anyway." His own sick fascination with observing other people indulging an escape into mental freedom aside. No one did that. "You could drink somewhere else, but if you really wanted to forget--you'd find unfamiliar surroundings, anonymous faces. That's a bar."
.
"I would recommend that you broaden your world view." Eris told him. "The One More Round has bands, and a singer, most nights. It's quite possible that I was going to be entertained by the talented musicians, and not to drink. And while certainly, there are other bars in this city, they don't have these musicians, now do they?" she asked, smirking faintly as she spoke, looking at him. "Quite the judgmental sort, aren't you, sweetheart?"
.
He considered this. "Now that you mention it, I do remember some kind of racket in the background while I was there. I had no idea it was a talented musician! Is it some kind of disguise?" He was reconsidering the words as soon as he said them. Some people got fussy about hearing their favorite music defamed. Maybe she would assume he was exaggerating. He wasn't, not really, but it had been some time since he could afford to see the symphony, so maybe he did need to broaden his world view. He imagined it would be a painful experience.
.
"You just don't have nice things to say about anything, do you?" Eris asked him, not necessarily sounding offended or the like, more that it was merely an observation on her part. "Noise, assuming your opinion means it's so. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's no good, you know. There are quite a lot of things I don't like. Doesn't mean my taste is the end all of everything." she said, continuing along with him. She wondered how much further it was, because she honestly couldn't remember. She didn't know how far she'd gone in the first place, and the distraction of speaking to him had eradicated her recall of it. She knew better than to try and wrack her brain for it, it would just distract her from the conversation and she'd miss something. She really didn't want to. "So far you've been giving the impression that you feel you're above everyone and everything, and you hold disdain for everything beneath you. You're highly unpleasant, for someone who was trying to be gentlemanly and walk me to my destination. If you were looking to ever speak to anyone twice, I would look to working on my approach, if I were you." Her tone was mildly amused.
You just pick up the negative bastards, don't you. she thought to herself. Though it was interesting from a purely intellectual point of view, the different kinds. Simon's was an entirely different animal from Brett's. They also seemed to stem from different places. Brett's was usually rooted in deep, bright red anger, and Simon's didn't. Eris would be interested in figuring out where Simon's did happen to stem from, but it was really a rare individual who wanted to willfully spend time with someone they didn't especially like, and Eris was getting the impression Simon didn't like anyone. Therefore it might be difficult. Just because she was a masochistic bitch and even actively missed someone who made her miserable a lot of the time didn't mean anyone else was.
.
Simon stiffened, then replied, "And you are enormously... perceptive," lingering on the last word, having changed it at the last moment. He spoke with the same kind of calm that he had cultivated for walking past cell doors that just separated him from arrows of snarling invective, or for disciplining guards who only barely contained their scorn for him, his education, his mannerisms, his weakness. This isn't anything like that, his cold editor informed him. Look at her. She doesn't care one way or the other. It's just something to say.
But without the calm, it might have been embarrassingly obvious to an observer that her accusation--however mildly delivered--had shaken him disproportionately. As it was, his hands knotted, his chin went up--but he didn't shout "Stupid bitch!" and shove her into the mud that was draining slowly into the nearby gutter, so it wasn't such a bad job of concealing his feelings.
He did lengthen his stride. The One More Round came into all its glorious view as they turned the next corner. "You will be fine if I leave you at the door? I'm certain that even if you are not drinking, you will have some fine music or--pleasant--company to attend to."
Then again, maybe he petulance wasn't so well concealed.
.
"So I've been told." Eris said. Which really, she had. Brett hated that she was as observant as she was. Before him, her bodyguard at Babylon. So many people didn't like it when they had their shit pointed out to them, even if she wasn't doing it in a confrontational manner. "I didn't ask that you accompany me in the first place." she pointed out. "Therefore anywhere you leave me is just fine." Which wasn't the truth, she was pleased that she could see her destination again. Otherwise she might have wound up very lost.
Whether he was making an attempt to conceal things or not, she definitely picked up on his ire. It just didn't phase her. She dealt with a whole lot of anger all the time, this was just a different shade. "Thank you for your chivalry, as double edged as it was." she added. "Have a good night, Simon." she said, again, sounding just that faint bit amused with his behavior, and she started towards the One More Round then, glancing back over her shoulder just to see if he shot her a glare before possibly storming off. He seemed like a storming off sort.
.
Simon knew dismissal when he heard it. It was a foolish thing to do anyway, getting in the way of other peoples' business. His irritation with his own behavior only added to the little gray cloud over his head. Double-edged. What was the second edge? The part where I hit her over the head and molested her in a dark alley? Oh, wait... Other thoughts went through his head too, but could best be translated as mostly a grumble for the world.
So he stopped, when she told him to have a good night. He cast about for some kind of reply that would be pleasant enough to make her feel silly for so judging his behavior. "Goodnight, then, and.... Godspeed." Godspeed. Christ. He tried to make it less ominous sounding by smiling, but who even knew how that facial expression was going to turn out. He never looked cheery at the best of times.
But he would wait where he stood until he saw her get inside safely. Given the news, it was an easy bet that he wasn't the creepiest thing prowling the night. And if something were to befall this woman between him and the door--well, then he would be useless as well as something of a social failure.
.
There was a light smirk on her lips when he said his goodbye, and she waved slightly, mostly a wiggle of her fingers in his direction. Interesting little man. She didn't, however, head into the bar proper. While it was where she was heading in the broad sense, the bar was not her destination. The loft above it was. So, she walked right past the bar, and turned into the alley next to it, where the entrance to the stairs was located. She wasn't really aware that he was attempting to make sure she got someplace safely, otherwise she might have let him off the hook and just gone into the bar. She'd expected him to leave.
.
Well.
This was inconvenient.
Instead of disappearing into the dingy warm light that sprawled onto the snow every time someone new stumbled into or out of the bar, Nameless Woman was fading into the black of the alley. Simon ground his teeth. He hated things that deviated from plan. And now he was at a crossroads of gentlemanly requirement. He could, with a reasonable light heart, consider his duty discharged. At this point, she wasn't a victim of circumstance, wandering alone in the night, but actively deciding to lie about her destination and court dangerous things like alleys.
But that wasn't really his style.
So he said a little prayer to the scowling white-bearded God of his childhood and went into the alley after her. He wasn't a sneaky man. Once his feet left the street for the alley, he became horribly aware of the sucking noises that his boots made in the mud or--whatever it was that accumulated in city alleys. And aware also, that somehow he was venturing into places he didn't want to be, to check on the safety of someone who didn't want him to do so.
Clearly, his father had been right not to leave him the family business.
.
She definitely heard someone following her, and she stopped and turned, hand on the gun in her pocket. She arched a brow as she noted the familiar shape, what with only having parted ways with him about thirty seconds before. It would have been hard for her to miss. "Is this the part where you try to jump me and kill me, or is there something else you needed, dear?" she asked him, keeping her tone light, like he hadn't tripped her heartrate up about six billion times. Like she wasn't afraid, and hating every second of it. She could get a shot off, she knew she could, but that didn't mean she wanted to.
.
Light tone or not, he didn't like the way she was looking at him. He imagined inventing something to save face, but his imagination was shrugging its shoulders at him, telling him he was on his own. He said, simply, "I was making sure you got in safely. I thought you were going into the bar." He wondered, of course, where she was going, but figured she would be as forthright with that information as with anything else. Which was to say, not.
.
Okay, if he's on the level, you pick up pissy, protective men. Eris reassessed her situation. Thought immediately, she recanted it, because Brett couldn't necessarily be termed as such. And she didn't know if this guy could either. Maybe he was just truly chivalrous. Maybe he was just playing that card to see where it was she went. Which made her not want to go home. If he was scouting, just trying to get enough information on her to get her cornered later by the O'Malleys, then she'd be in trouble fast. Fuck.
"I changed my mind." she lied, though it sounded convincing. "Maybe it was all your disapproval. I'm fine, though, so please, don't put yourself out on my account. I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself." she told him. Which also wasn't necessarily true. She did have a note taped to her lampshade just to get her morning medication straight, and she still didn't have her night meds worked out. Add that on top of the fact that her face had wound up in the paper the day before yesterday and there were still people out there who wanted her dead, and she was far from on top of her game... She was brain damaged. And she was learning fairly quickly that taking care of herself was not actually making the list of things she was capable of doing.
That didn't mean she wouldn't stop trying, though.
.
He pulled off his hat and ran a hand through his hair, a habit of exasperation. "See, now that's exactly the kind of thing that you might say that would make me the opposite of confident in your situation. It would have been so easy to say, for example, 'I'm going home, my mother lives there, I'm in a little bit of a rush because the chicken pot pie might burn on the bottom.' And then if you did tell me you could take care of yourself, I'd be fine with that, because a chicken pot pie is not very threatening. But now I have the unshakeable impression that you are in some kind of trouble, because who doesn't mention their own name unless it's in trouble too?" This speech was a little disjointed, because for its entirety his was a little distracted by the hovering question of why did he care?
.
"Well, as you can see, I'm hardly being threatened at the moment." she said. "I apologize for not wording things in a manner you find acceptable, but I was unaware I was being monitored as such. As for my name, I'm one of those untalented hacks you so delicately put down earlier, and my stage name is the Shrouded Angel. Which means I don't give my name out, because it shatters the mystery, now doesn't it. Wouldn't do for it to start getting around that I've got a name people know. That's who doesn't mention their own name." And sure, she was in trouble. Deep, deep, homicidally intent trouble, but whatever. There was little she could do about that. Especially right this very second.
.
He stared at her, and then laughed. More than was polite, but he couldn't help it. "Shrouded Angel? Your name is a mystery?" He straightened his face. "I deeply apologize for my earlier comments about your music. If your gimmick is a melodramatic stage name, then you must be very talented to keep the chuffs in their seats. But I understand now what I've been sensing this whole time has been your undeniable air of mystery." It was hard not to laugh again--but he had been quite worked up, and this felt like anticlimax.
.
Eris watched him laughing, and thought to herself that this had to be a guy who was seriously one of the most negative she'd come across. He only ever said negative things about everything, saw himself as above, and was having a wonderful laugh at her expense. Part of her wanted to pull the gun and take a shot, just to shut him the fuck up with his bullshit. Her life had been reduced to what it was, and he was laughing at her. Her entire existence was a punchline, something she looked at and considered a joke, and here it was, someone finding it hilarious. She turned, and walked away from him, continuing past the entrance to her place, wanting to be swallowed by the shadows as quickly as possible. So she could get away from the mocking laughter that echoed so nicely in the alley's space. She couldn't even remember if the alley here was a blind one or not, but as long as it was Away from him? She'd take it.
.
Simon himself was prone to whirling about when he was in a huff, and so it took him a few moments to realize that she was really upset. He sobered quickly. "Oh, wait--miss--" he almost called her Ms. Angel, but it would probably strike her as additional mockery.
"It was teasing. There's no reason to take it like that." A few long strides and he was caught up to her enough to reach a hand out to her shoulder. "It's a wonderful name, really--super!"
.
She'd been trying to get away, and quickly at that, but at the end of the day, Eris wasn't exactly a large woman. She wasn't tall, she was actually pretty small, all things considered, and so it really wasn't at all difficult for someone like Simon to catch up with her. There was that rising panic in the back of her mind that was swirled in with the hurt the mockery had caused, and with the way her mind misfired on things due to her condition, the emotional cocktail in her system wasn't a good one. It was, in fact, a volatile one.
When she felt his hand on her shoulder, all she could remember was a different kind of laughter in her ears, as glass broke behind her, and a different hand slammed her down onto her desk top before they slipped the belt around her throat. So she acted, without forethought. She let out a cry, jerking away with a frightened, short scream and she lost her footing as she tried to scramble from him. Her shoulder hit the building hard, which made her stumble further, and she dropped down to one knee in a puddle. One thing was clear, though, she had the gun out, and pointed at him. "Don't touch me, don't ever fucking touch me, don't--"
.
His heart squished sideways at her shriek and stumble--had he hurt her, what had--and then Just when I think I've made things as bad for myself as I could, I'm staring down a muzzle.
But she looked so scared. And he wasn't going to try to touch her again, nor did moving quickly backwards seem like a great option. And sudden movement, he felt, was likely to startle a bullet out of the gun. So he did the only thing that he could think would make anything better, and sat down in the mud. Well, a little to the left of the mud, but it didn't make much difference. "Uhm. Please don't shoot me?"
.
She kept the gun on him, and it was only belatedly that she realized, as she stared past it to Simon that she was shaking. Badly, at that. Very badly. And she did look scared. Being terrified did that to a girl. Her heart was hammering in her ears, a deep thudding so loud she wished it would just stop so she could think. Because she didn't think she was doing that clearly just now, and she needed to. "Please leave." she managed to say, and her voice wasn't the steadiest it had ever been either. She didn't understand why he had sat down, but she didn't want him to sit. She wanted him to leave. Her shoulder hurt, and vaguely, she wondered why, her mind already having skipped over the part where she'd knocked it against the wall.
.
"No offense. But I'd rather not move until the gun isn't pointed at me." He had hoped for something like her realizing what had happened, looking at the gun in her hand, and saying, 'Oh, silly me, why did I think I would need this?' But that the gun was still trained on him made him increasingly terrified. Because guns were more frightening in the hands of crazy people. And Simon lacked both the flight and fight responses of most, having evolved with that most rare and prone-to-dying-out response to danger, the freeze.
.
"Well it's going to keep being pointed at you until you are the fuck away from me." Eris snapped, even if her voice was still shaking. It was stronger, though, and the tremor in her arm steadied a tiny bit. "Stand up, back away, then turn and keep going." she instructed, coming back into thinking mode enough to do that much. She still didn't know what she was going to be doing. She didn't know how this was going to end, just that she knew she wasn't moving, and he needed to get the fuck out. "You've got ten seconds, or I put a bullet in your head and call it a fucking night."
.
Ten seconds to stand up? Ten seconds to clear the alley? Ten seconds to start looking like I'm on my way to somewhere else? He opened his mouth, closed it. Some reptilian ancestor was politely informing him than even if she were actually counting, requesting clarification was not going to improve his chances of contributing his genes to a future generation. He stood, slowly, his movements those of a man around a sick, dangerous animal--caution and pity. And he backed away, step by step, making a gamble that she was more likely to shoot him for bolting in any direction than for exceeding some time limit. No one he knew could count seconds accurately, anyway.
When he saw in his peripheral vision the trash cans he'd passed on the way in, he turned and continued walking, maintaining pace. It made his skin crawl to put his back to the gun. Automatically, he was silently reciting the Lord's Prayer--because if he thought about the way the crazy bitch had been shaking, fingers near the trigger, he thought that the urge to throw himself at the ground to minimize his shadow (and potential to die) might just get him. Rhythmic words, rhythmic footsteps, and underneath it all, the small wondering thought that if he were to die such a pointless death, would he be missing out on much?
.
She watched him go, keeping the gun trained on his back, but she wasn't really keeping track of time. If he'd stayed put? She likely would have shot at him. Possibly not shot him, but at him. He did, however, get his ass moving, and therefore she was good with that, so long as he went the fuck away. She didn't put the gun back up again until he was gone, and then she stayed where she was for a time, totally unaware of just how long that time was. Then, she got up to go for a walk, because no way was she going directly back home...just in case she was being watched.
That's what you get for going outside.