cranky bitches

who: eris and jackson
where: eris'
when: morning

Eris was asleep. Not very well asleep, but asleep. She'd taken her meds when she got home, though due to having to re-write the notes she wasn't entirely positive she'd gotten the dosage right. But she was trying, and so she'd taken them, and laid down. It wasn't like she'd been getting much sleep lately. She definitely hadn't after she'd left Brett the night before.

She still had bouts of 'what the fuck am I doing?!' but was trying to think past them. She was going to have to think past them if it was going to work. Of course, she still wasn't entirely positive it was even going to happen. Maybe he'd forget about it. Maybe something else would happen, and they couldn't do it. Maybe she'd get hunted down and killed before it happened. Well, at least he knew about the box inside Babylon. He'd have the money from that. He was owed anyhow. Seriously owed. Curled on her side, she was still vaguely damp from the shower she'd taken, and she was drifting in and out of restless dreams.

Jackson, on the other hand, was not asleep, and he was very aware of it. He was not dealing well with being awake, either. His head hurt, his mouth was fuzzy, and despite taking a cold shower he was sure he still stank of beer. His memory after leaving The Drake was blurry at best, although he did have recollections of his conversation with Kess (although it was beyond him how she had ended up in his apartment) and he was pretty sure he hadn't gotten laid, so there was that at least. But he knew that she'd spoken about the raid, and that whole thing was weighing on his mind anyway. He'd woken up early, like he tended to after heavy drinking - needing to pee and rehydrate himself at the same time - and had decided to make good on his promise to stop in on Eris.

Fucking Eris. Yeah - she'd definitely improve his mood.

So here he was, at her apartment, ridiculously early and hungover as shit. He had a good few hours before he needed to be at work, so he could get more coffee which was good - maybe stop in at Nighthawks for some eggs benedict - but for now, he was going to see the ex-whore and let her know that he was going to move in on her old place as soon as possible. He also wanted to make sure she was holding up her end of the deal and keeping her nose clean. God damnit. He banged loudly on her front door, resisting the gut urge to yell "police, open up!", and hoped to hell that she was home.

The sound roused her immediately, with a sharp gasp as her heart thudded in her ears. Having memories of when you were being murdered was a bitch. So it took her a second to orient herself, and it was more when her back hit the wall that she did so. She'd fallen out of bed, and scrambled back, apparently, all without actually making the decision to do so. Spectacular. She stared at the door, and reached up to get the pistol Brett had given her off of the nightstand. "Who is it?" she asked--though she waited until her voice was steady. Brett she was thinking wouldn't have knocked.

He was about to knock again when she finally responded. "It's Jackson," he shouted, unable to think of anything wittier - his brain wasn't exactly working to it's full capacity, "Let me in, Angel," he said with a snap of sarcasm. This visit was probably going to prove to be a terrible idea while he was feeling so foul.

That got her up and moving, dashing across the floor of the loft to throw the door open. "Jesus!" she hissed, standing there still with a gun in one hand, dragging her hand through her mass of waves with the other. Her nightdress had come down on one side, though nothing got accidentally revealed. "Don't shout that!" It only could have been worse if he'd added 'open up! police!' on the end. Not good for her heart, which decided now not to calm down.

"Oh, keep your damn hair on," he said, eyeing her disheveled appearance and the gun in her hand, "And put that away. What sort of stupid game d'you think you're playing, waving around firearms? Jesus," guns were going to be making him edgy for a while there was no doubt about it, and his one sounded pretty irritated, "Can I come inside? Or is there something shady lurking in your bedroom you don't want me to see?"

"You were in here before, moron, I don't have a bedroom, I have a loft, my bed's right there--sans anything 'shady'." she snapped, waving him in, and really wishing he'd not come. Or at least that he was doing a better job of being quiet. And behaving like he had half a brain. "...are you drunk?" she had to ask, catching the whiff of something stale and alcoholic. Great! Even better!

Jackson gave her a "whatever" look as he stalked past, and then milled around her living area kind of awkwardly. He didn't feel right taking the seat he'd occupied before, he didn't even know why he was here. Well, shit, he did, but he didn't know why he was giving her a damn thing. Why she deserved to know that he was cleaning up her mess for her.

"Not drunk, was drinking. Last night. None of your business anyhow, what I do with my stupid free time. I met someone you might know, though. Bartender, nice lady..." he trailed off, and shot another look at her gun, "Where'd you get that thing, anyway?" he asked in a sharp, accusatory tone. He'd put money on it being an illegal firearm. Hell.

"Kess." Eris said, automatically filling that in. "Yes, she is a nice lady, play nice with her. She doesn't deserve your ill placed wrath." she told Jackson, going to put the gun in her nightstand drawer, and she sat down on the bed, pulling the blankets around her to cover herself more properly. "It was a gift." she told him flatly. "Try taking it away from me and we are going to have major. problems." she told him in no uncertain terms. "You already make me a flamingly huge target and I'm just waiting for people to break my door down to kill me, I'll be damned if I'm giving you my only means of protection. Especially around here." It wasn't as if it was the nicest place in the city. In fact, it could be deemed one of the shadiest.

"Weird-ass gift if you ask me. Who'd give you a thing like that? Look, we got a deal. You're keepin' your nose clean - that means no illegal firearms, nothin' - I'm doin' you a goddamned favour not takin' you down the station and you're waving guns around your apartment? Jesus!" Jackson was slightly perturbed by how much the gun bothered him, but bother him it did, "As far as making you a target goes, get the fuck over your paranoia. You wanted me to come give you a heads up regarding Babylon. Well damned if I know why I'm telling you shit but I'm going in tomorrow. I want this done with. I want you out of my conscience. I want you to fucking leave town."

"Someone who doesn't want me dead, which you seem to." Eris said. She also had to wonder if he was just stupid. Really, before she'd thought he was vastly naive, but with his slurry ranting, she was leaning towards 'idiot'. She still wasn't giving up the gun, and she meant it when she said there'd be major problems if he tried to take it from her. Brett had given her that gun, and she wasn't giving it up. She might have said more on the topic, but that last bit he said left her staring at him, blinking slowly. "...you what?" she asked, voice far too light. "Run that one more time." Because it had sounded a whole lot like he'd said he wanted her to leave town.

"I don't want you dead," retorted Jackson, sounding pretty pissy, "I just want you gone. Look, I don't trust you. There it is, the fucking straight of it, and you said yourself there's people in this city who want you dead, so okay, I'm raiding Babylon. I'm closing it the fuck down. I don't want it to reopen. I want it done, all of it, and I don't want you around in my fucking conscience. I want you to just... go. What's keeping you here? Can't be nothin' that ain't fuckin' crime, can it, angel?" he shot at her in a heated fashion.

Eris listened, eyes on him, narrowed. He wanted her gone. And apparently, his tiny little mind couldn't actually come up with any reasons why she might have to stay than some scam. She said nothing for a few long moments, thinking about what Brett had said to her, when she'd asked him why he refused to just walk away and call it good. And he'd said he couldn't leave her behind. Standing there, listening to Jackson's verbal dierrea, she could understand the sentiment. Granted, she had other reasons too, like not being capable of leaving and starting a new life somewhere else, but she knew herself well enough to know she wasn't going to be able to walk away from Trent any time soon. Well. Unless it was of her own volition, or due to her own actions. But leaving just because Jackson was a little do gooding twit--not happening. "Can't it?" she shot back, watching his eyes, and she waited, just to see what he'd do. How far he'd get into explanations there.

Jackson tugged at his hair, sweeping it back along his skull, giving her a look that he thought told how very little he thought of her playing dumb, "Look, you said you changed, but you want me to come give you heads up when I go into Babylon and you won't give me the why of it, and you're fucking shifty as hell regarding me coming by your place, and now this fuckin' gun and it's mysterious status as a gift and I don't fucking know what else. You're a player. I'm sick of getting played by people. Sick of it. I mean what, you got some family stashed somewhere I don't know about? Jesus," he was trying to be matter of fact about the thing, not betray how pissed off he was at life in general right now, and here she was - the embodiment of everything he hated. A crook, even if she said she was reformed. He was probably failing at that not sounding pissed thing, though. His voice was raised slightly without him noticing it.

Eris looked at him, thoroughly unimpressed, and she closed the distance between them in fast strides, so she was glaring into his eyes. "Look, you stupid son of a bitch, I told you why I wanted the heads up. Have you forgotten? I want my girls to clear out before the raid, so they don't get nailed in the process. I want to tell them what's happening, so they can get clear, and don't wind up either dead or in prison. They don't deserve that. We went the fuck over this, unless that tiny head of yours couldn't possibly retain the information." she snapped. "And yes, I'm shifty as hell about my place, how the fuck would you feel if someone up and decided that they wanted to go through all of your shit? Dig through your things, and it also happened to be someone who was looking for some reason to haul you in? Jesus with the way you talk to me, I'm pretty sure you're just waiting for the tiniest fucking infratction so you can slap the cuffs on me and haul me in, just so you can. So don't you even give me bullshit about me playing you, you prick, because I'm not the one here who's looking for excuses. I held up my end. I gave you what you needed. And now you're here whining that I haven't given you shit that I already have, even. So fuck you, boyscout. Get out of my house."

"Well you've got your heads up. Friday night. Put in your fucking whore diary! Put it on your to-do list right underneath pimping and cutting deals with gangsters, okay? Fuck!" shouted Jackson, feeling heat creep up his neck as she moved closer to him. He didn't buy it, he had wanted to buy it when she'd first told him - he always wanted to fucking believe the best, but he felt like he'd been proven wrong too often recently. And someone had threatened Jenny, with that fucking doll, and he'd shot a guy, and there was too much creeping under his skin, and he was furious with everything, especially with himself. So yes, fuck it, he was going to yell at Eris. Fuck her.

It really wasn't a decision she made. She probably would have opted not to slap Jackson across the face with as much strength as she could muster, if she'd had that moment where she could edit her actions, but she didn't. Sometimes her impulses just had the better of her, and then was one of those times. She even leaned into it. Her hand was hot and stung, and her arm felt jarred at the elbow as well. It was just a split second thing, one second he was still going on, the next she swung, with absolutely no warning to it.

Jackson took the slap with a sharp intake of breath, his head snapping to the side and his face burning. Holy shit, she could hit. He pressed a hand to his face and looked at her with some slight kicked puppy vibes underneath the furrowed brow. "What the fuck, you crazy bitch! That fucking hurt!" he exclaimed, sounding more surprised than enraged. For Jackson, the idea of retaliation was not even something that surfaced. It was so deeply ingrained in is psyche that men shouldn't hit women, there was no way it could, but the slap had the same effect as tossing cold water on him. It was a shock, and he was pissed off as hell about it, but it got him to stop yelling at her.

"No, I am not a crazy bitch. I'm just not your personal fucking punching bag, you self righteous son of a bitch, and there's no reason I should take it when you up and decide I am." she snapped at him, still angry. Still not about to take shit from him. There was one person she took shit from, and it was only a set amount, really, and that was Brett. And it wasn't like she didn't give shit back on that score. But no way in hell was Officer Moron here going to waltz into her place and lose venom on her and expect her to just take it, or cower like some meek little simpering girl. That was a whole lot of not happening. "You give me shit? You're getting it back. You might want to leave before I decide you're owed more for the bullshit you've been spewing."

"You might wanna watch who you threaten, Stockard," growled Jackson - although the fire was gone from his tone, "And fine. I'm out of here. I didn't exactly wanna be in your presence anyhow - I was doing you a fucking favour," he didn't add that he was serious about wanting her to leave town. He wanted her off his radar though, and he'd make sure she got that point. He couldn't in good conscience have a known criminal roaming free with his seal of approval, could he? He turned and began to make his way to the door, fuming.

"And you watch who you're threatening, officer. I'm defending myself in my own goddamn home. If anyone's out of line here, it's you." Eris said, not following him, but she stood her ground as he walked towards the door. "Thank you for the information. Don't get your stupid ass killed on the way home."

"I won't," he said opening her door and glaring at her, the imprint of her hand starting to flush up on the cheek, "So long as you don't fucking shoot me from your window, yeah?" He said with a tone that made it clear exactly how massively possible he thought that was, and then left before she got her chance to answer, slamming the door as hard as he possibly could. He gave it a kick, too, for good measure. Yeah, that meeting had gone pretty much as well as he had assumed it would. Bitches were crazy.