curveballs

Who: Brett and Eris
Where: near One More Round/her loft
When: After midnight

Brett had timed it. He'd finally had some time to himself this evening and he'd sat at home and written out another note. The original plan, if you could call it that, was that he'd be delivering the notes morning and night - after all, they all ended with 'and now burn this', or words to that effect. They were meant to be disposable, so that she wouldn't get confused by what she had and hadn't done - and so there would be no evidence of him lurking round the place. He was fairly sure that some of the people he worked with probably thought that he didn't have the brains to hold a pen. The people who mattered, though, well - they may have bought into the lack of intelligence act somewhat, but they knew he'd been a cop, and that meant something. And he didn't want them to be able to link up his handwriting, if it came down to it.

Of course, if it came down to it, they wouldn't need 'evidence' to put him permanently out of the picture. Lots of people had been disappeared for a lot less.

So, the plan had been for disposable notes - except they'd had him working morning, noon and night over the last few days, which meant he was down some. Which meant that she'd be on her own. He didn't have much faith in her ability to cope on her own. That didn't, however, mean he actually wanted to see her. He just wanted to discharge his responsibility in the most hands off way possible. Hence, the notes - until he could figure out a better way of doing things.

So, tonight, he'd timed it - he'd figured out before the hours she usually worked, and he planned to call in and drop off another note whilst she was singing. It didn't occur to him that her picture being in the paper the other day would mean she wasn't working - he'd seen her sing, seen the way she stood in shadow. He wouldn't have recognised her if he hadn't known who she was. And the One More Round was safe enough, usually, from 'his type' - which was the reason he hadn't gone in to check that she was actually there, instead going straight to her door, pulling the note from his pocket to slide it under.

After her run in with Simon earlier, Eris hadn't gone home. She'd felt too paranoid to, not wanting him, if he happened to be dumb enough to stick around, to connect her with the place other than somewhere she'd been heading and she worked there. Her home above the joint? That she wasn't handing out as information to anyone ever, not if she could help it. But she was rattled. Unsettled in a rather significant way, and she just didn't quite know what to do with herself. So she'd walked. She'd got minorly lost, but eventually made her way back, freezing and wanting nothing more than to take a bath, then most likely dry it out and sleep there. Little else would make her feel more secure.

Her head was all over the place, and she was finding it difficult to focus. Mostly because everything there was to focus on, she didn't especially want to. She didn't want to think about how he'd chased after her and grabbed her shoulder. She didn't want to think about the memories that particular move had kicked up. She didn't want to think about how just going for a fucking walk had wound up that bad. She didn't want to think about another night by herself, when she hated being alone. What she hadn't really thought about was Brett possibly being up by her door when she cautiously looked up the stairwell, her christmas lights actually cooperating and working for once. Her first response was I thought you were gone. She didn't say it though. In fact, she didn't say anything. There was a soft little intake of breath from her before she recognized him, but that was about all. She merely stood there at the bottom of the steps, looking up at him.

Brett straightened up, missing the intake of breath, not aware of anyone being there until he turned to leave - and stopped at the top of the stairs as he caught sight of her at the bottom.

Fuck.

The thought barreled into the forefront of his mind. She hadn't meant to fucking be here - she was meant to be working and he was meant to be out of here. What the hell was she doing there anyhow? He glared down at her for a moment, then thumped his way down the stairs, intent on just shouldering past her and out into the night.

She watched him coming closer, saw the 'I'm the fuck out of here' pretty damn clearly on his features. She caught the glare. Everything. And after the night she'd had, she just wasn't really up for it. Getting looked at like she was doing something wrong by going home...yeah that really just wasn't good for her at the moment. She didn't move to get out of his way. She stayed exactly where she was, in the way, and waited to see if he'd shove her out of it. Part of her almost wanted him to. Because then she could finish writing him off. She could tell him that whatever the hell it was he thought he was doing, he could just stop now, thanks. That apparently, she was just special enough to pick up people who wanted nothing more than to make her existence a pinch more miserable than it already was, and she was getting really fucking sick of it.

Of course, she didn't think she'd say any of it. Even if she was feeling irrational and upset and over the top with everything, there was always that hard pull in the back of her mind that didn't want to entertain the possibility that she'd really push him away that far. Nevermind she'd thought for days now that he was truly gone. Logic wasn't her strongest suit anymore.

He'd been entirely intent on pushing past her, except the closer he came to the bottom of the stairs, the more he thought about the logistics of that. They didn't exactly have a physical relationship. In fact, they very rarely touched at all. He remembered carrying her, that night in the rain. How light she felt in his arms, how pale she'd been in the darkness. He'd pushed her hair back from her face and... He stopped, immediately in front of her, choosing instead to look down at her, a look on his face clearly stating that he expected her to move out of his way.

She kept her eyes up on his, and she wondered just how much like hell she happened to look. Though she had her hood up, so maybe she was well hidden enough. It wasn't like this was a bright alley. They had christmas lights to go by. And yet his attitude was quite well projected. Her jaw set, and she ticked her eyes between his, then finally she looked down and away. "I can't do this tonight." she said quietly, and she went to brush past him, careful of her sore shoulder.

He reflexively stepped back, so that she didn't have to touch him as she walked past. So much for making her move - it was almost a compromise, though rooted in a different place. He tracked her as she walked past, turning to watch her as she started up the stairs. "Why not?" he asked her, once she was about half way up, his voice cutting through the silence. He didn't ask what 'this' was. He didn't even ask in because he wanted to 'do this' - he wanted to know what was special about tonight.

"I've had a really, really bad night." Eris answered him, tone much like she felt--exhausted. Drained. There wasn't any ire kicked up, though she had no doubts he could pull it up if he tried hard enough. She got up to her door, and fished her keys out of her pocket, fingers cold and clumsy so she dropped them. Swearing softly beneath her breath, she squatted down to get them, before she stood and tried that whole unlocking the door thing again. She could feel Brett there, a dark spot on her internal radar, down the stairwell, just...there. But then he had a presence she was always aware of when he was near. Like he just wouldn't be ignored.

He didn't say anything, just watched her, assessing the way she stood, the way she sounded, the way she fumbled her keys. He watched all of it, undecided as to what he'd do about it. She was in a state, clearly, and he had to wonder whether that was his fault. She probably hadn't been taking her meds. Shit, she'd probably been drinking herself to death - she seemed pretty gung ho about that, after all.

Getting her door unlocked, she walked inside, and dropped her keys on the table that was just to the right of the door. She was aware he hadn't left, that he'd got his answer, and had just kind of hovered there. So, when she went in, she didn't actually shut the door. She just left it where it swung, about halfway open. Leaning aginst the walls, she pulled off her shoes and let them drop down to the floor, then she pulled her hooded coat off, letting that drop too. Rubbing at her eyes, she started to cross to the bathroom, but stopped when she noticed the little slip of paper by the door. Bending, she retrieved it, and opened it up to read it over. It was another note, a list of instructions for her medication. Like the other two he'd done for her, that she'd pinned to her lampshade to help herself. He'd done one morning one, and one evening one, but that had been all. Now she had a new one, apparently. Which was just...confusing. Very confusing.

He turned to leave, and actually got as far as the door before he turned back, taking the stairs two at a time before walking right in and up to her, completely ignoring the note. "Why was your night bad?" he asked her, almost demanding to know. He just needed to know that, and then he could go.

She heard his approach, and glanced up from the note when he asked. Which...was odd for him, really. He didn't ask things. He just kind of was grouchy at her, and did whatever, but apparently, not tonight. She almost just told him to turn right back around and go home, but like the last time he'd bothered asking her something, she couldn't bring herself to not answer. Exhaling, she watched his eyes for a moment. "I went for a walk, I needed some air. I met some asshole, who decided to walk me back to the 'Round, and then followed me into the alley." she said, stopping there, because she didn't even know if she wanted to get into what actually happened there. How it had felt to her, the fact that she'd pulled the gun he'd given her. She looked back down again, then walked towards her bed, setting the note on the mattress, before she headed for the bathroom, flipping the light on in there. She was still fucking freezing, and while her place wasn't fantastically warm or anything, it was warmer than outside. And a bath still sounded like the way to go. She was starting to shiver a little, and she could feel goosebumps rising up on her skin.

Brett followed her - usually if she went into a more private room like the bathroom, he let her go, waited outside, strictly gave her her privacy, but not tonight. Tonight he followed her, coming up behind her and grabbing hold of her shoulder, turning her round to face him. So much for not touching her - but it was different now. "And...?" he demanded.

When he grabbed her shoulder, normally that would just be weird, but tonight, she'd knocked it, so it hurt. She hadn't actually bothered to take a look at it or anything, figuring it was just bruised up--which was the most likely case, but still, bruises didn't like being grabbed so she let out a short little cry, and hunched slightly, shooting a glare up at him. "Ow." she said pointedly, even if she was fairly certain he caught the whole 'that hurt' thing. What was with men being grabby tonight? And he had to pick tonight to do that? Really? She was cursed. That was it, she was just cursed.

"And?" he reapeated, his voice a veritable growl. He ignored her complaint of pain, figuring she was just bitching about him forcing her round. Well, she could just suck it up - assholes and alleys very rarely added up to anything good, in his book.

"You're hurting me." she told him through clenched teeth, not taking her eyes off of his. "And...whatever, he was bitching about me not giving my name, and I told him it was part of the whole fucking stage name thing and he laughed at me. And so I left, only he decided it was a good idea to fucking follow me, and he grabbed me. Much like someone else I know." she said, indicating him. "And I just--I don't know what the fuck he wanted, I don't know why he followed me, he was a dick to begin with, and I fell, and hit my shoulder, and drew your gun. And I told him not to touch me, and to leave. And he...fucking sat down for some reason, and then after I told him I'd drop him he slunk off. Is that specific enough for you?"

Brett didn't let her go, but he loosened his hold on her a little. "His name?" he asked. "What did he look like?" There was, after all, a killer on the loose. He was just glad that he'd left his gun that day. And that she carried it.

She appreciated the looser hold, but she'd been going for him letting her go entirely. And somewhere in the back of her mind it was striking her really bloody odd that he hadn't. They rather avoided contact, for the most part. Most of the time they only times they touched was when she initiated it, or one of them was injured. Usually that was him. She was looking up at him, frowning just a little. "I don't...remember, it started with an S?" she suggested. "Si...I don't know." she looked away at that point. She'd spent the night pretty damn rattled, she didn't trust her recall on things. "Why?" she asked, voice quiet.

"What did he look like? Colouring? Height? Any discerning features? How was he dressed?" he pressed her, wanting details, as much as she could give him. His tone changed somewhat as he asked her, still pushing, still with that air of command, as though he was entitled to know the answers to anything he asked and she was in the wrong simply for holding them back. That was all still there, yet the usual underlying pissiness was absent for a moment as he reverted unconsciously back to the cop he'd once been.

She actually recognized the switch. It wasn't like she hadn't been brought in for questioning before on things, though generally it wasn't as the victim. And she knew, of course. His past, that he once upon a time had been a cop. Letting out a slow breath, she wanted to reach up and take his hand off of her shoulder, and reached up to slide hers over his, she just didn't get to the part where she tried removing it. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was aware just her touching him would be enough to get him to back off. "Why would you trust my memory on things?" she asked, tone still quiet. "Taller than me. Dark hair, I think. I don't really remember how he was dressed. He talked like he thought he was better than everyone else...seemed to have it out for anyone drinking, and said the band was terrible, and just...was generally unpleasant. I'm sorry, I just don't..." she stopped, and looked further away, towards the corner. "He scared me." she said. "I was rattled, you know I don't...retain a lot when I'm frayed."

Her touching him like that did, in fact, get him to move back, though it wasn't just the touch. It was the touch combined with her being right there, and her looking up at him, and all sorts of things that went along with that, not just the feel of her skin against his. He broke eye contact for a moment as he pulled his hand out from under hers and took that step back. "Your memory on things is all there is," he pointed out, omitting the word 'trust' there. "And you might have noticed that there's apparently a murderer out there - streets aren't exactly safe." Not that they were ever safe for her. But before they'd specifically not been safe. Not that was totally random. If there was someone out there murdering women, he wouldn't care who she was and whether there was a price on her head.

There it was. That step back, she'd known it would happen. He really didn't like it when she touched him. At least he hadn't jerked back like she'd burned him. She did rub at her shoulder lightly, then tugged her shirt aside so she could get a look at the bruising there. Which was about what she expected. Not overly spread out, just dark and tender, with a light rash in the center where the material of her shirt had bit in. "No off the shoulder dresses for me for a while." she murmurred. "If I ever get to work again." She sighed and sat down on the edge of the tub, and finally looked back at him. "I know there's a murderer out there. Some cop told me about it the other night." she said, reaching up to tug the elastic out of her hair to let it fall down her back. "Guess I just attract cops and men who want to tear me down. Sometimes, they're both at the same time and everything."

Brett looked at her, sharply, at that, his eyes coming back to her face as he searched her expression for meaning. he'd never told her he'd been a cop. But, then again, fucking missy in a wheelchair had reminded him the other day that he didn't need to tell people shit for them to be able to throw it in their faces. Still, there was a difference between an O'Malley knowing his past and her working it out. But, hadn't she said, hadn't she told him - he'd been talked about. Who knew what she knew about him.

She looked back over at him, mostly because he was being silent, and pointedly so, at least in her opinion. She stayed still for a few long moments, just watching him watching her. It wasn't anything she actually decided to say, so much as her mouth opened and she started speaking, without her mind clearing it first. "I know the tone, you know." she said, tone soft. "I've been interrogated before."

"That's it?" he asked her, wondering if he believed that. "The tone?" He hadn't even thought about it, but apparently it had just been there, part of the person that he just wasn't anymore. Those little pieces that remained. That just wouldn't die.

Eris actually had to think about that. She knew, of course. From what she'd found. But she was fairly certain if she brought that to light, if she told him she knew, and had known, that this would be it. He'd leave. And he'd stay gone. And even if she wanted to find him, he'd make sure she didn't. Who knows what he'd do if she did find him. So, in the interest of not killing even the fragments of a connection they had, she didn't say as much. Instead she looked at him and thought about what went into it. What she could still see of the cop in him. Because it was there, she knew it was. Finding out he was a cop really had just made things make sense, as opposed to having confused her further. Keeping her gaze on his she shook her head slowly. "No. It's not just that." she said. "It's...fragments. Little things, here and there. You know I was talking to you the other night, saying that I know full well you could move up in the organization if you wanted to. I think that's part of why you don't. You told me before you weren't a murderer. I believe you." she added. "You saved me. And even if you want nothing to do with me...don't even want to chance seeing me," Since yes, she'd caught that. "You still came by to try and help me. Even if it was just with words on a page." She was quiet for a moment. "You try."

Brett's jaw flexed at that summary. "Well, can't just let you off yourself indirectly," he said, pushing away any suggestion of reasoning behind his actions. "You can't cope on your own - that much is fucking clear," he added, flipping things back with a derogatory statement focused on her.

"No, I can't." she said. Which she detested saying. Even hearing it out loud, it was painful for her, but she knew it was the truth, at the end of the day. "But it's not your problem, either. Not really. You had no obligation to me whatsoever. You should have just tossed me in the river but you didn't. After that you made sure I was taken care of, as much as you could. I'm sure that didn't work out for you, considering what happened but at that point, you had another opportunity to cut ties, let me go. Not deal because you didn't have to. Most people in this city would have, in your shoes. But you didn't, you took me home. To your home, even, which put you in direct danger, considering. Eventually, I left, and just for the record again, I did it because I didn't want you being in danger because of me, even if I know you don't believe me. But most people would have let me disappear, and never thought twice about me again. Especially considering, let's face it, sweetheart, you don't like me." she said, confident in that fact at the very least. "So this isn't because you're sentimental. It's not because deep down, you've got warm fuzzies for me. It's because somewhere in there something else is driving you." she continued. "So you're cutting me out, but you haven't stopped yet. I figure eventually you will. Just not yet." She was silent for a few moments, keeping her eyes on his. "Something happened a few years ago. I don't know what it was, but it had to be when everything changed. I don't know if you're a cop anymore. Maybe you are, and you're just really deep under cover. Maybe not. Maybe you got into something you couldn't get out of. I know how the families work in this town." She stopped. "You haven't denied it yet. Told me I'm wrong, that you've got nothing to do with the police."

"I have nothing to do with the police," Brett told her, bluntly. He didn't - not any more, and stubbornly sticking to that meant he could bypass everything else that she'd said, all her little theories. It brought him no pleasure that, for once, she'd got some things wrong. he definitely wasn't correcting her though - for once he didn't actually like it that she was wrong. If he had his way, she'd be right. And, at some points, she was - she'd just over-simplified things. Over-simplified what his motivations were.

She nodded, keeping her eyes on his. "Not anymore?" she asked. Because she knew. She just wanted to know if he was going to lie to her. Whether he did or not was going to hold one hell of a lot of weight in her mind. If asked, she wouldn't even have been able to say why, even in her own mind. Maybe it was because she didn't lie to him. The only thing, really, that she'd not said was that she knew about his past. And that wasn't lying, that was omission, at least in her own mind.

"Not if I can help it," Brett replied, still avoiding the question. Really, that answer could have had any number of connotations. She knew, though, they both knew that. She'd worked it out. But, as far as Brett was concerned, he wasn't that guy. That guy was dead.

Funny how she knew she was still cold. Freezing, a little dirty, exhausted, frazzled, and it seemed distant to her. With them, talking about this, it focused all of her attention in. Even the ache from her shoulder was just not playing in at the moment. What happened earlier, her fears, even the fears she'd put out there without saying they were fears--that he was leaving her. None of that was on her mind right then, it was all him. This. "What happened?" she asked, voice soft.

He looked down at her and all expression disappeared from his face as he walled everything away. "I wised up," he told her, his voice deep and empty. It was, in fact, the truth. He had wised up - just not in the way she'd probably take away from that statement. He'd been naive. He'd naively believed that he could trust people, that he could do something good. That there was a point. There wasn't, and he couldn't, and he'd learned his lesson now. Small issues aside, anyhow.

She could see it, the walls. After all, he lived with them more or less constantly, it was pretty rare that they even lowered a little. They'd even talked about that, lying in her bed, in the dark. Last time, when everything seemed to have cracked. Not saying anything for a long moment, she just watched that stoney look he was giving her, watched his eyes. She shook her head a slight bit, something flickering in her own expression, but she wound up not saying anything. She had things she wanted to say. But they didn't filter through high enough to reach articulation.

"It was a long time ago. I guess some habits just don't go away," he told her - an explanation for his behaviour with the questioning. That said, he turned on his heel and walked out of the bathroom, crossing to pour himself a large whiskey. He downed half of it in one go, just wanting to forget right now. And wanting something to distract him, and her, from her almost inevitable questions.

She let him walk away, though she was surprised that he didn't leave. That's what she'd fully expected him to do there. Walk out. But no, he went for the bottle, which was usually her trick. Though tonight she was stone cold sober. She could see him out there, getting the drink, and she didn't do anything for a few long moments. Then she pushed herself to her feet, and walked over to the doorframe, leaning in it as she watched him. Saying nothing for a good few minutes, she just thought about everything. About him, what she knew, what she didn't know. "You should get out, Brett." she said softly, just loud enough to carry to him across the wide space. That, instead of pressing for information. Mostly, because he hadn't lied to her. That meant something. To her that meant a lot. "Whatever happened, however you got where you are...you should get out."

He laughed at that, downing the rest of the whiskey and pouring another one. he didn't offer her any though - she drank too much as it was. "Right, Princess. Of course," he agreed, toasting her before most of the current glass followed the last. He wiped a stray trickle of amber liquid from the corner of his mouth with the back of the hand which held the glass. "And what makes you think I'd fucking want to do that?" he asked, drawing on the anger that was never far away, adding in a hefty dose of sarcasm for good measure. "Since I'm fairly sure that you don't fucking mean that you're kicking me out of here..." No, she was talking about his life - if what he had could even be called a 'life'.

"I'm not kicking you out." she confirmed. Especially not if he was going in for the seriously heavy drinking. The man barely had any. It was a feat if she could convince him to have a drink with her. So yeah, if he was going to kill a bottle on his own? She wasn't really thinking it was a good plan for him to be out anywhere. Or alone. "Do you really want me to answer that?" she asked him, instead of answering the question. "I will, if you want me to."

"You'll do what you fucking want anyway, Princess," Brett told her, which was his honest opinion. No matter if she had brain damage these days or not, he was still of the opinion that she was just that - a princess who did what she wanted in life. She always had that air about her. It was fucking annoying. It suited her.

"Will I." she said, it not really a question, or anything. She imagined he believed that, it sounded like he did. He'd likely be surprised at what she did hold back on. But now wasn't really the time to argue the point, either. "Either way...whether we're playing pretend that you want to stay in, or not, you should get out. I've seen what they do, I know you have. They use people up, then throw away what's left. And if you aren't going to work your way up, which we both know you could, if you wanted to, then it's never going to get better. You'll still have day in, day out of exactly what you're doing now, and it does not make you a happy man. You aren't doing this because you like it. Because you want it." She frowned again, that flicker of an expression. "You need to get out."

"And where, exactly, would I go?" he asked her, knowing they'd had this conversation before and it had ended with her telling him that he was wrong in his assumption that she'd have people she could run to if she decided to leave town. And he'd told her that he had nobody. There was no 'out' for him. This was all there was.

"Anywhere but here." she answered, still watching him, waiting to see if he was going to have another drink. "I know you don't have a lot left, or you can't have a lot left but..." she looked away a moment, gazing towards the window. "I could probably get some for you. Pay you back, give an advance, whatever you wanted to call it. Go somewhere else. Start over. Anything that isn't this." She did remember he didn't have anyone, but in his case, that might be better. Taking off to start from scratch might actually work for him, he didn't have anything like she did. He didn't have the damage she did.

Brett threw back the rest of the whiskey and banged the glass down on the table. "I told you that I don't want your fucking money," he growled at her, his voice verging on menacing.

She flinched, just a slight bit. Almost unnoticeable, really, but not quite. "I'm just trying to help." she told him, tone as soft as it had been since she'd started talking to him. "And I know. You didn't ask me for my help, and you don't need anything from me, or anyone else. You're just fine on your own and it's none of my business anyways." she filled in for him, because she could already hear the arguments he'd give her. "But I want to."

Brett turned away from her and poured himself another drink, starting to feel the first one hit home. "You don't always get what you want, Princess," he told her, without turning around again. She might be the kind of person, as far as he was concerned, who didn't always appreciate that, but there it was. There was no way to help him. No way at all. Even if he ran, he had nowhere to run to. He couldn't go back to where he was, and he wouldn't know what to do with himself out there if he left. He'd probably end up enlisting, getting his brains blown out overseas in some muddy field instead. Hardly a rosy prospect. At least this way he was still breathing.

She didn't say anything for a few long moments, watching his back. "Why won't you?" she asked. "Leave, get out, at least get out from under the O'Malley's?" she asked. "You don't like what you're doing. You keep yourself at this low level, So much so that they don't even know what kind of an asset they've got. I'm sure I wasn't the first person you were meant to throw in the river, I was just the first one who hung on too long." Part of her wanted to cross over to him, but she was giving him his space just now. "So, why? Do they have something over you?"

"Over me?" he asked her, turning back to her, gesturing enough that the whiskey in the glass he held slopped over the edge. "Yeah - everything I've fucking been and done over the last three years. I think that counts enough." He started toward her. "I don't know if you really appreciate who these people are, Princess, but unless you know a way to fly me to the moon, there's no getting away from them. They're not just here, in this city - they're fucking global. Fingers in every pie, and they don't let go. Not even for someone that's just the low life scum that I am. I'd just become a liability, and that's so fucking easy to deal with they wouldn't even lose sleep over it."

She watched him walking towards her, and she kept her eyes on his. "You think I don't appreciate who they are?" she asked, looking actually hurt on that score. Mostly because she reached up, sliding her fingers over the scar on her neck. "You're under the impression that I don't know. That I've forgotten somehow that I was in the way, and so they took me out permanently? I wouldn't play ball, so they sent a lot of people in and they choked the fucking life out of me while they laughed?" She looked hard away again, before she turned her eyes back on him. "I understand. But I also know people disappear all the time. Change your name. Get lost in a small town somewhere. They've got enough of their own problems, they wouldn't go looking for you, you haven't been enough of a thorn in their side. Or, turn evidence in. Go the other way and take them down, then have the cops give you a new name and place to go."

She got another laugh at that. "Sweetheart, I was a cop - where the fuck do you think I came from before I became this? How do you think I got my in to the family in the first place? I go to the city and they're likely to do the Syndicate's job for them." After all, some of them still believed he'd murdered his captain. And others, well, he didn't know how many of them knew the truth and had helped screw him over. he didn't intend to put himself in a position to find out either. He'd tried to go back, when everything got fucked - he knew now that that road was closed. "And yeah, I know you know what they're capable of. I wasn't questioning that. It was their reach I don't think you get. You don't just walk away."

She listened, putting things together, or more, having suspicions confirmed. "So you got in what...undercover? Is that what you're talking about, how you got in? But if that's the case, then why--" she stopped there. She stopped, she looked at him, and she just went over what she knew. Not about him, about the way the city worked. How things were run. Just how many cops were on the take. He could have been, though she didn't know if she could see it or not. But it was that or he was sold out. That someone over at the precinct fucked him over. Or hell, could have been several people, knowing what she did about the corruption in this town. Once upon a time she might have been able to pull strings. Lean on certain people, move things around. It wouldn't have been easy, but she could have. Of course, once upon a time, she wouldn't have cared enough to put in the effort, either. Too bad now when she did, she didn't have the power.

Brett frowned, seriously thrown by that being where she went with that. About what that said about what she thought about him, that she assumed he'd been undercover, rather than he'd just taken the road of corruption like so many others had done before him. His head swam for a moment - possibly the alcohol, more likely the shock of what she'd said - and he clawed his way back to something, anything, that he could consider to be normal. He grasped hold of his cover story. "That's what you think? No, sweetcheeks - I'd just fucking had enough of it. So, I took a few choice bits of evidence, and quite a bit of hard cash that my 'colleagues' had taken from one of the O'Malley's jobs a few weeks before, and I returned it to them. They were so damn grateful, they offered me a job. Which had been what I'd been after, at the time." His tone was sarcastic and biting, belittling to both of them. Him for what he'd done - and her for thinking better of him. It was harsher, because he was covering. He didn't know what to think right now. He hated it when she saw him.

Seeing the frown, she wondered what it meant, especially after he started speaking. Even if she'd just been considering that maybe he'd been on the take, she still didn't know if she could properly see it. Just up and handing over shit? Not even sliding in the usual way, with a little money here and there to grease the wheels of his life then finding himself beneath those wheels? To her, she didn't know if it made sense. To her, she didn't think it did. Not with how she saw him, not with knowing what she knew, that medal, tucked away in the back of his closet. And she knew a lot could happen to a person, she knew just the city itself tended to erode humanity all on it's own, but still. He was so careful. All the time, he was so careful. She didn't know if she could honestly see him just deciding one day that that was a good plan. That that was the road he wanted to take. About all she could see is if there was some catalyst to it. A death in the family, some other injustice that befell him. "What was it?" she asked, looking up at him, stepping a little closer. "That pushed you over the edge hard enough that you'd do something like that? And don't tell me it was just some random whim because you don't do whims. Especially not something like that. That would have been throwing your life away so what was it? Or do you really expect me to believe it was just some random 'oh well' decision one day that just seemed like a good idea at the time?"

"Throwing my life away had been working for the city. Throwing my life away had been wearing that fucking uniform for all those years. Don't talk to me about throwing my life away," Brett spat at her with honest bitterness. He hadn't seen it that way at the time, but now, looking back, knowing what he knew now - he'd been throwing his life away just as much in those days. He knew better now. He wasn't any better off, but he could see himself for what he'd been: a blind, deluded fool.

It made a difference to that little girl, and her mother. Eris thought, but knew better than to say. She couldn't fault him for feeling that way either. Not with the way things were. She didn't have an argument for it. The cops had never once helped her, she knew. Not once, and maybe if they had, when she'd been a child, things might have wound up differently. Or, maybe not. Who knew. Not her. Still, though. She understood. There was a blackness in Eidolon City. One that crept in and settled over everyone and everything. She knew it well. Looking away for a long moment, she let her mind go over everything. What he said, what it meant. What it meant to her. At the moment, she'd given up the ghost of pretending that it didn't. It would have felt wrong to her, to deny it. "Is this better?" she asked, looking back to him, finding the blue of his eyes again. "What you're doing now. Is this better."

No, it wasn't better and he knew it wasn't better. But he didn't know if it was any worse - the illusion had been better. When he'd been living his life, he'd been happy with it - with his work, anyhow. He'd not had that much of a life outside his work, but that had been the way he liked it. A few drinks with the guys, he'd had some laughs. he'd felt like he was making a difference. He'd been proud of who he was. But now, well - that had all been a lie, hadn't it? Things had never been the way he'd thought they were. At least he had no illusions left. He hated his life, every moment of it. He hated the world he had to live in, but at least it was honest. Small comfort. He didn't answer her question. he couldn't answer her question.

He didn't really need to. A non-answer was as good as a negative one for her. In the end she nodded slightly, and exhaled, leaning back against the doorframe again, even if it was only half a step back from where she'd stepped closer to him. She'd had the urge to reach out and touch him, and thought that was likely a terrible idea. She didn't even know what it would accomplish, beyond making him back up again. Or possibly leave. "If there was a way out, would you take it?" she asked him, voice soft. Light. She still was studying him, his posture, how he held himself, the tension in his frame. He was always tense just now he seemed all the more so. Likely that had to do with the drink in his hand. The clear stressors she was picking up on.

"There's no way out, Princess," Brett repeated with an air of finality. He'd told her that before, and he really believed it. Someone had wanted him screwed over. The way he saw it, someone had wanted him dead. For months he'd wondered why he was even actually still alive, but he'd come to the conclusion that maybe where he was right now was as good as dead. Maybe he'd just been needed to be that far out of the way. Or maybe someone just thought this far more fucking entertaining. But, whatever the reason, he didn't see himself the way she'd said - he didn't believe that nobody would come looking. Someone, somewhere - or someones - had gone to great lengths to set him up. He wouldn't be allowed to just walk away, even if the O'Malleys and the Syndicate in general let him go.

She shook her head and took that step back towards him, up much closer now. Inside his personal space at the very least. "Answer the question. Yes or no. If there was a way out, would you take it." she repeated for him. She didn't even know what she was planning yet, she just knew that the gears were turning. And sure, granted, her gears weren't even all there anymore, but she wasn't entirely without her mind. Not yet, anyhow. She'd thought it before, that he'd saved her life. Maybe she could return the favor. Just not in the literal sense.

He looked down at her, the close proximity only serving to reinforce how petite she was in comparison to him. She seemed almost breakable at times - and at other times, she seemed to be made of steel. "They won't let me go, Princess," he said, his voice softer, as though he were explaining something to a child that they would only really understand when they were older.

"Everyone has a price, Brett." she said, voice just as soft as his had been, but there was conviction in there. "Your worst enemy is the person that can afford to pay it. Just answer. Please." Once upon a time, there was a woman named Eris. And she was a woman who got what she wanted. She didn't know if she could still do it, but she could try. It wasn't as if she had a whole lot to lose. Especially after tonight. After her walk, where not even something so simple could have gone well. When she'd been mocked, laughed at, and why not? Her life was a joke. But maybe she could do this. Maybe.

"Let it go, Julia," he told her, his voice barely above a whisper. He couldn't believe that there was a chance. His mind, the place he was at, the depression which had gone untreated for years now - none of it would let him answer the question. Let him even acknowledge that there was a choice to be made there. He'd never even investigated whether he could get out or not. All his theories, all his certainties about who would come after him if he tried - none of it was based on hard fact. It was the reason that the big bad in his mind changed at whim from the city police, to the O'Malley's, to the Syndicate, to something else in the shadows. Everything was based on his deepest fears, and on the fact that he'd simply given up. He didn't try anymore. But she was there, doing everything she always did, poking at him, prodding, pushing. She wouldn't just leave him alone - and he wouldn't just walk away.

She couldn't. Not now. She could stay quiet, but she knew herself. It would eat at the back of her mind. The what if. Maybe it would be enough to give him the shot, if she could possibly swing it. And if he didn't take it, he didn't. But he'd have a choice, anyhow. But because he'd used her name, because of how he sounded then, she did what he asked, for all appearances. Besides, it wasn't as if he'd approve of any activities she'd have to do in order to even start getting him out from under. It wouldn't be easy by any means. She reached out a slight bit, to brush her fingertips over the back of his hand. The one that probably hadn't been broken, but she'd tended to when he'd first found her. She kept it brief, not actually wanting to illicit the reaction of him pulling away. "Alright." she answered him, tone matching his, just so he'd know she was technically letting it go. For now.

She might not have lingered, but he still flinched a little when she touched him, that touch so soft, so light - and so unexpected. he hadn't been prepared for it. Not that he ever really was. They didn't touch much, and that was for the best.

She caught the flinch, since she'd been waiting for it. And so he didn't have to, even if she didn't especially want to, she stepped back, giving him his space back. Part of her really thought she needed to examine some things. Like her wanting to touch him, not wanting him to draw back, and wanting to be in his personal space. He could barely stand her presence at the best of times, it was, in fact, masochistic to even go there. But then that was her problem with him. Looking at it with an objective eye, she knew she had the tendencies. He hurt her feelings because she had them these days to hurt. He took his anger issues out on her, and yes, he also did other things, like fix the lock on her window, or clean up the water from the floor, or, his most recent trend, he wrote her notes sometimes so she'd get her medication right. But she knew that was some inner drive he was satisfying, probably some tattered remnant of a hero complex. Any time she touched him he pulled away, and she wasn't ever really going to forget the look he'd given her that first night at his place. That thread of revulsion. So, he kind of just took his shit out on her, and all, she just wouldn't get rid of him. And, really, she didn't want to be rid of him. She was just all kinds of damaged when it came to the man, now wasn't she. The other part of her wanted to keep ignoring as long as humanly possible. Sometimes it was just a more difficult task than others. Now wasn't the time to be going over any of this, and she leaned her back against the doorframe, and went back to watching him, quiet. Waiting, though she didn't really know what she was waiting for.

"You'll lock your doors tonight. Keep your windows closed," he said, a hint of a question in there, even though he knew she would do anyway. Most nights, though, she didn't have bruises from some guy in an alleyway. It made a difference - he needed to be sure. His tone hadn't changed at all, it was still quiet, quieter than normal, absent of his usual sarcasm and ire as he watched her watching him.

"I will." she said, keeping her tone the same as well. "Promise." She exhaled quietly, still watching him and she was thinking she'd never seen him like this. Not really. Certain hallmarks of Brett Trent were missing, and she didn't know if that worried her or not. "I don't think he followed me. I just...walked around for a while afterwards, I was too--" afraid "--I didn't want to come straight back here just in case." She gave a brief flicker of a smile, that really didn't reach her eyes, and didn't remain, some pale ghost that almost was gone before it existed. "I guess a girl can't get some air around here without finding trouble."

He had that urge to tell her to come back - to just drop the charade and move back in again. But she'd left, hadn't she - that had been her choice. She'd made that decision - she hadn't even pretended to involve him in it. So, he wouldn't put himself out there like that, no matter how fucking stupid he thought it was. He was still convinced she couldn't really cope, between the drugs and the alcohol and now men on the street, she was stupidly vulnerable on her own. And this, this was why you were staying away, Brett reminded himself - because he'd been doing a fair job of distancing himself, minimising what he'd decided was his responsibility. And now he was here, with thoughts of, what - rescuing her? Some shit like that, or so it seemed. Doing something, anyway. Something that wouldn't be wanted, or appreciated. She wanted out on her own, for her own reasons - she wouldn't come back, so he wouldn't ask her. "Good. Well..." He was still holding the half glass of whiskey in one hand, only right now, he didn't much want it anymore. He'd already had too much, and being drunk was never a plan - it lowered his control. But he wasn't just going to leave it there - a glass was more of a draw than a bottle, and he had firm ideas about her drinking. So, instead, he crossed to pour the liquid down the kitchen sink, his back to her.

She watched him, then moved to almost follow, but not quite. She leaned one hand against the wall and tugged her socks off of her feet, dropping them down to the floor. She'd get them later. Are you leaving? she wanted to ask, but she didn't. Clearly, he wasn't finishing his drink. And wasn't leaving it out where she'd get at it. Though for once, she wasn't planning on having anything to drink. Not after tonight, not after the run in with whats-his-name. She was too paranoid to drink. So, she wanted to ask him if he was leaving. And she didn't want him to. She just didn't know if there was a way to ask him to stay without kicking things into a different place, and she didn't mind where they were just now. It was different.

He turned back and looked at her for a moment or two across the floor, as if he was considering saying something. If he was, he didn't know what it was, which, he decided, meant that he had nothing else to say. Which, he knew, meant there was only one other thing to say. "Night, Princess," he said, starting for the door.

Her heart sank and she knew that was just a bad sign but still. "Wait..." she started, not even sure what she might say after that, since it wasn't like she'd had a plan here. "Can't you stay for a little while?" she asked. "You've been drinking, that's not so good with driving, and I'm still..." she didn't quite know what word she wanted to fill in the blank with. Nothing actually seemed acceptable, even if a few fit the bill. Things like jittery, afraid, nervous, paranoid...to name a few.

He stopped, though he didn't turn back to her. He didn't know what to say to that. Sure, he'd been drinking - but he'd driven after drinking a hell of a lot more in the past and done okay. So, she wanted him to stay - on her terms, he recognised that. The drinking thing was just an excuse, he was sure - she wanted him to stay because of that last, that 'I'm still', but she'd made her choice, hadn't she? She'd walked out on him. She'd decided to leave. No matter what she claimed for her reasons, she'd left. "Thought you said it was dangerous for me to be around you," he said, eventually.

Being it took him a minute to answer, she was positive he wasn't going to say anything at all, and just walk out. She realized she'd been almost holding her breath, and she let it out slowly when he did say something. Not that it was a positive that he'd stay. But it wasn't a flat refusal yet either. "At your place. Where your crew could show up at any given moment." she said. "...they wouldn't find you here." Not unless they were having him tailed, and she didn't believe he'd given them any reason to want to do so. He was more careful than that.

"Why do you want me to stay?" he asked her, not knowing why he even did at first. Then he told himself it was because he needed to hear the answer. Needed to hear that she just wanted him to be between her and the door, nothing else. He could hate her for that, he could work with that.

Wasn't that just the loaded fucking question. I just do. I like having you here. I miss you. I keep thinking every time you leave that it's going to be the last time I see you, and if you had your way, I think that might be true. Like tonight, you didn't expect me back. I was just going to come home to another note. She looked away for a moment, then back to him. In the end she just answered, not thinking about it. "I don't want you to leave." Which was kind of an answer, even if he probably wouldn't understand it. She didn't think she could explain it, either.

"Well, clearly, doll - what with the 'stay for a while' of it all. I kinda gathered that part," he said, finally regaining his sarcasm, and the volume of his voice returning to normal with it. He was almost relieved to get that back - he'd been thrown for far too long.

"No, I--" she started, but then stopped, sagging back against the wall again. "...nevermind, doesn't matter anyway, does it?" she asked. "You don't want to be here. You're avoiding me. Me seeing you tonight, that was an accident. I wasn't meant to be back yet, right?" she asked, not expecting an answer from him. Not with the tone back, with things feeling all broken again. She was back to her initial assessment--she couldn't do this tonight.

Brett raised an eyebrow. "I'm avoiding you?" he asked, sounding surprised even though, okay, that was exactly what he was doing and he knew it. He backed down from that point. "Sweetheart - you were the one that walked out. I was just giving you some damn space. You didn't want me around - you've got your own life to be getting on with, so you can get on with it. You don't..." need me. "You can just get on with it without me." Which clearly he believed - what with him still trying to do things for her from the background. Clearly.

Ticking her gaze back to him, she didn't say anything for a few long moments, finding a whole lot of holes there. "This from the man who just earlier pointed out that I can't take care of myself, and I agreed with you?" she asked. "And I needed to not be at your apartment, where I could be found at any given moment, getting us both killed. It didn't have anything to do with needing space from you. But you've been making it pretty clear that you want nothing to do with me. So, you're avoiding. You glared at me like I had mortally offended you just by showing up."

"You never asked for my help," Brett pointed out, as an actual response to that. He'd given it because he thought she needed it, but she hadn't asked for it and he hadn't asked her if she wanted it. He didn't want to deal with the repercussions of ever having to discuss what he was doing for her. Either way - he didn't want to be told to stop, and he didn't want her thanks. It was just something he did, he didn't want to deal with anything coming from that.

"I asked you to stay." she said. Because no, she hadn't asked for his help. Though really, that didn't explain why he'd glared at her when she'd turned up when she apparently wasn't meant to. It didn't explain why he did it in the first place, though she imagined it was just something to clear his conscience. Some little thing he could do, and look at, and say 'there, it's fine'. That, without having to deal with her at all. She was getting reminded again, of everything. Of the feeling that he was gone. Leaving. and she didn't want that.

And I asked you why, Brett thought, aware that she still hadn't really answered that. The glare returned for a minute as he looked at her, and then he turned away, stalking over to the windows and starting to pull across whatever makeshift covering happened to be there for each one - it was a ragtag mix of different things. It seemed he was staying, though hell knew why. He remembered what had happened the last time he'd stayed. The dream, and then waking and calling her by that name - the name he knew belonged to... Him, though not him. Dream him. Whatever that had been - just thinking about it left him confused. But the emotion behind it had been clear. And he didn't want that emotion.

She watched him shutting the world out. Which was fine by her, really. She walked over and shut the door, locking it, and then she leaned her back against it, looking back at him again. "Are you staying?" she asked. Because she had to. She didn't want to be wrong, thinking he meant to, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to start thinking about why he was. Why he might do something she asked. Why he would do anything for her, especially something that required his presence to be in hers.

"Looks that way, doesn't it, Princess," he said, drawing a sheet over the final window. "Anyway, I go home and they'll probably just wake me up in the middle of the night. Been like that, last few days. Maybe this way I'll get some fucking sleep." he looked across at her, unsmilingly. "Guess I'll have to resurrect that alibi you gave me," he said, referring to the 'girlfriend' she'd left him in a note.

He might not have smiled, but she did, just a little bit. It was a quiet little half smirk. She was okay with him using that excuse. Both the need of sleep, and the abibis she'd given him. "Am I Shelley or Amber?" she asked. Which, with her memory, might have been a feat. Or, it just showed that she'd put that much effort into the two personas. Which was the truth. She had. She'd put a hell of a lot of thought into it, even if he'd ignored that entirely since she'd left.

"Told you - Amber," he said, though he'd only chosen that one because she'd told him that she thought Shelley was more his speed and he'd wanted to be contrary. He'd not actually used either of them. And neither of them was actually his style. Not that he had that much of a style - but neither of them would be the type of woman who would really attract him. One was far too nice, the other far too out there.

"That was last time. It could have switched." she said. The little half smile was still there as she crossed the room again. "You know if you really wanted to sell the story, you'd let me give you a love bite." she said, picking up the note he'd left her. It was for her morning medication, but she needed the night ones. So, she went to her lamp shade, where she had the two other notes pinned, and she had it turned to the night meds. Opening up the drawer, she started following the written instructions.

Brett's eyes fell on the papers and he crossed the floor in a few short strides, ripping them from the shade. "What the fuck is this?" he demanded, gesturing them at her, stepping into her personal space. His ire wasn't entirely caused by the papers, but they were a legitimate outlet. She'd ramped him up with what she'd said - with the suggestion that he'd go from girl to girl in such a callous way. And with the comment about the love bite, which just left him not knowing how to react. Anger was always his fall back, after all. "I told you to burn these!"

She wasn't expecting that, mostly she was expecting to be glared at for the suggestion of the bite, but him coming barreling down on her with the fury in full swing--that startled her. Enough that she dropped the bottle she'd been opening, scattering pills across the floor as she made a move to scramble back--which was a lot more possible when there wasn't a bed directly behind a person. So all that happened was she dropped back onto the bed and looked up at him, confused. "It helped me--" she started. "You laid it all out, it worked, and I got one note, and didn't expect you'd ever be back, then a while later I got a second one, and then you were just gone again, so I just--it worked. I didn't think I'd ever see you again. Or hear from you. I got one for the morning, one for the night, I just--it helped me."

He felt one of her pills crush underneath his foot as he stepped forward as she stepped back. "How do you know if you've followed it - if you've still got it? You were meant to destroy it - that was the final step. I was going to fucking replace them." Only he hadn't, had he? He hadn't - and she'd found herself a system. Like he'd told her to. Found some way where she wasn't going to be reliant on him. She had it down. She really didn't need him now. She'd only asked him to stay tonight because she needed a fucking guard dog. "You go on and on about how you don't want them to be able to tie me to you and then you keep notes from me?" he pointed out to her, feeling the need to make this about more than just that, to take the heat off of his lack of follow through.

She looked up at him, watching his eyes. "You haven't signed your name. I doubt anyone's going to come round looking for handwriting samples. and I...you know if I try to copy things down I fuck it up. And I wasn't going to ask anyone else to do it for me." she said. "...I turn the shade." she said, making a light gesture towards the lamp. "I follow what's there, then turn it when I'm finished. I wake up, it's the morning one, I turn it, and when I come home, I follow the night ones, and turn it again." she explained. She looked back at him. "I didn't think you'd be back." And technically, he hadn't been. If she'd only gone by the notes he'd left, she'd only have taken her meds twice in however many days it had been. It felt like a long time, though she knew her sense of time wasn't spot on.

He looked at her, not saying anything for a few minutes, then nodded, once, not looking particularly happy. "You found your system," he pointed out, really wishing he hadn't said he'd stay now. He wanted to leave. He shouldn't have poured away that drink either. He could do with it right now.

"It's worked so far." she said. She'd been keeping herself properly medicated, or that's what it felt like. "I'm clearer, I think it's been working." She couldn't say for sure, but she thought so. "Do you want to help me rewrite it?" she asked. "So there's...so it's not from you? If you're that worried?" She didn't especially want to do that. She didn't want to own up to not wanting to do that, but every time she read the morning one, there was the greeting on top. Where he called her princess. And it was his handwriting. And wow, wasn't that fucking ten shades of pathetic of her, now that she was thinking about it? Why yes, yes it was. "I'm sorry." she added, feeling like she owed it even if she wasn't sure what she owed it for. But he was massively upset, that much was clear.

"Do whatever the fuck you want - it's your damn system," he told her, turning away again, though he didn't move from right beside the bed. He knew he should really be feeling better about this. He'd wanted her to find a system - he'd encouraged her to find a system. Something that worked for her, so she'd be alright. He'd been trying to think of ways that she could get that organised. Hell, he'd been telling himself for days that once she did that, he didn't have to feel that she was his responsibility any more. Only, now that they'd reached that point - he hated it. Really fucking hated it. He didn't want her to have some stupid system that cut him out of the loop entirely. And he hated what that said about him - hated that he hated it.

"Can I have it back then, please?" she asked, holding out her hand for the note he still held. She also had to wonder how many of her meds he'd stepped on. And she knew she didn't have the first clue on how to get more. That was something she'd been deliberately not thinking about because it was scary. She'd take the note back all crumpled and taped back together if she could. She didn't want to rewrite it, she wanted the one he'd done.

He dropped them on the bed beside her, without looking back round again. "You should get a dog," he told her. "For protection." After all, that's what she wanted him here for right now, wasn't it? Because she was ruffled after some bastard had jumped her in an alleyway. She had a gun - she should have a dog. "Hell, it'd probably help you to find your way around." Would be about right - replacing him with some mutt.

She took up the notes, and started smoothing them back out. "Maybe." she said, voice a mumble. She wanted to know what he was so pissed about, though maybe it really was just that she'd kept the note when it clearly stated she'd been meant to get rid of it. She hadn't thought it would really put him in any danger, even if she was caught. Then she looked over the edge of the bed at her scattered meds, and dropped down onto the floor to start picking them back up one by one.

He stepped out of her way as she went down on her knees, deciding not to help her with that. She could do on her own, after all. She didn't need him, didn't need his help. Not anymore.

She silently collected her pills, and put them back up on the nightstand, then stayed where she was. She looked at him, or, more correctly, at his back. Staying silent for a long few minutes, she just studied him, tried to figure out what the fuck went sideways this time. "I apologized." she said. "Are you that upset that I kept them?" she asked him, because she knew he wasn't going to break the silence. At least, she didn't think he would.

"I wasn't looking for a fucking apology, darling," he said, his tone empty this time. The anger had seeped out of it once more. "Glad you found something that works for you. Guess I didn't need to call round." I won't make that mistake again.

Well at least he wasn't barking at her again. Still, she stayed where she was. "Then why are you..." she made a vague gesture at him. "You're...riled." She hesitated over wording, because she didn't know what it was. Anger, or what. He didn't sound angry anymore, and she didn't know if 'upset' actually covered it either. So she went with the closest thing she could come up with that didn't put too fine a point on things. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," he told her, turning round and looking down at her as he lied. Almost lied - there was no real way that he could properly explain what was wrong. The fact that it wasn't just the notes - though the realisation that she had a workable system, that she no longer needed him meant that he was more wound up about that than he had been originally. He was still pissed about the thoughts of the kind of guy she thought he was - not that that made the damn slightest bit of difference in any event. It never made any difference what kind of a guy women thought he was, eventually even the best of them would cringe and back away. And she would sooner than most if he let her close enough to put her mouth on his neck. She'd see - he hated that look in their eyes when they saw.

She got up, and walked over to the bottles she had, and she poured a glass, and she walked closer to him, setting it down on the nearest flat surface to him. "You look like you need another drink." she told him, not getting closer than just outside arm's reach, because she didn't figure that would be welcome. "If nothing's wrong, why are you...twitching?" she asked, again hesitating on her word usage, but that was more acceptable than some.

He ignored the drink. Even though he'd been thinking only minutes before that he wanted one, he ignored it because she'd told him that he looked like he needed one. That was reason enough for him. He hated it when she could read him like that. Hated it when she seemed to see right through him. Well, if she could fucking do that, then there was no reason for him to answer her damn questions, was there? "I'm not 'twitching'."

Eris squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, counting to five to give herself a second so she didn't sink into frustration immediately. "Aren't you." she said. "Now you're just insulting my intelligence. Because you know, for a minute there, things were alright, and then you flew off the handle, and now you're being quiet and tense, so if you aren't twitching, and 'nothing's wrong', then what?" she asked. "Explain it to me."

There was part of Brett that really wanted to be five years old and just tell her 'no'. It was none of her damn business anyway. "There's nothing to tell," he said, instead. "And you don't get to be either one of my 'pretend girlfriends'," he added, bitterness seeping into his tone at the fact she may think he'd have both. Like his life situation didn't make him enough of a bastard already, he needed to add on playing around as well.

"Bullshit." she said flatly at the first thing. But at least he said something afterwards, even if she figured it was just deflection. When he said it, though, it stung, on some level. "Oh, that's right. I forgot. You'd never lower yourself to be with one of my kind in the first place, right?" she asked. "So I don't even fit the bill for pretend. Understood." she said, turning at that and walking away, off into the middle of the loft that was less well lit.

He stared at her as she walked away. That hadn't, in fact, been what he'd meant, not what he'd meant at all. And now she was walking away because of it? "Don't tell me you're ashamed, of what you were," he snapped at her as she turned her back on him. "Or is this you pushing some kind of 'standards' on me. Have you taken a look at my life lately, Princess? Don't give me that 'your kind' crap." He didn't know whether he would have done differently, if things hadn't turned out the way they had. If he could have borne having women look at him. If he had been someone they could look at without that horror in their eyes. "This is about the girls, isn't it?" he said, latching onto that as a realisation. That was where she'd gotten this from. Because he'd come to her damn place and never actually sampled the goods, and she knew it.

"No, it's about the way you looked at me, that first night." she said, not looking back at him as she said it, not wanting to. "When you brought me to your place. It came up. What you might want out of me, because hey, that's sure as fuck what Gray thought when I was there, and I just wanted to know if it was going to be coming from you too. And it was quite clear enough, what you thought. Of that, of me, I know revulsion when I see it. So, right. I'm a dirty whore. Not good enough for pretend. Check. I've remembered my place now, thanks. The girls you'd not touch with a ten foot pole just underline the point."

Her continued to stare at her, even if she wasn't looking at him. "The way I looked at you, that first night, was to do with the fact that you felt you even had to ask. And about the fact that if I ever get my hands on that fucking doctor I swear I'm going to wring his fucking neck," he told her, tightly. He was still angry about that revelation. About the fact that he'd been played for a fool yet again. Gray had just been yet another lesson that nobody could be trusted. Nobody at all.

That had her looking back, but not fully. She only partially turned, and looked back at him over her shoulder. She didn't say anything for a long few moments. She didn't know if she believed him or not. Or, she believed him about being pissed at Gray, even if she had trouble understanding why, but she didn't know what she thought about that other part. Because if that was the case, then...she wasn't sure what to think.

"Do you still have trouble with that? With the concept that not everyone is after something? Or is it just that you're pissed that I didn't want it - like some kind of weird rejection bullshit?" he asked her, in his usual way not bothering for tact or kindness at all. For him that was the exception, rather than the rule. He remembered what she'd said to him - how she'd told him that she'd not being making him an offer, that it would have been just for payment. Services rendered or whatever. It hadn't even occurred to him, not even before she made it plain and clear, that she'd actually wanted him. But that had more to do with him than her. Brett never thought of himself like that. It had been a long time since he'd considered himself someone that anyone would want.

"Most everyone is, and that doesn't have anything to do with now." she answered him, though the bit about her being pissed about being rejected cut deep. "I'm not pissed that you didn't want it, I'm pissed because I'm apparently not even good enough to be your pretend girlfriend. Isn't that what you said? That I don't get to be her?" she asked. "I imagined it had to do with your distaste for my former profession. I don't really have much of a reason to believe otherwise."

"No, sweetheart - I said you don't get to be either of them - since you seem to have decided that I'd be doing both of them," Brett shot back, which was really his issue with the whole thing.

She frowned at him, finally turning fully to face him. "...when did I say that?" she asked, honestly confused there, so it pulled her out of her anger for a moment, because she had missed something. She even started going back over things she'd said, trying to figure out where she'd implied it, if she had. She knew she'd told him in the initial notes that if he told the guys that he had both he'd be the envy of them all, but she didn't think that was quite what he was going on about.

"Oh, about ten minutes ago - when you asked me which girl it'd be that I'd be using for my alibi for where I was tonight, and I said Amber because that's who I'd told you before - and you said it might not have been. You implied that it could have been either," he said, tightly, meeting her eyes.

"...and as far as I know, you've never actually used either one of them as your alibi, since you didn't seem terribly for the idea in the first place, so if you were, you could have changed your mind about which girl you were going to go with." she said, then walked slightly closer, but she was still fairly far away. She kept up eye contact for a few long moments. "Are you actually pissed at me because you thought I was saying you'd two-time?" she asked, just a little bewildered there. Because...that couldn't be it. "On imaginary girls?"

That was, in fact, it. He just really fucking loathed it when she put it into words like that - it sounded petty and insane. But it wasn't about that - it was about what she thought of him, and he'd thought she'd thought that... "It doesn't fucking matter," he said, turning and finally snatching up the whiskey she'd poured for him and stalking over to the window, even though the blinds there were closed. He leaned against the wall, looking vaguely out of the crack between the blinds and the frame, at the darkness outside, as he sipped the drink and waited for her to start laughing. Bitch.

She watched him walk away, taking the drink with him. She'd figured he needed one. What she couldn't figure out was why he was pissed about that. Okay, sure, Brett could find pretty thin excuses for being angry with her. He made a career out of it. This was pretty ridiculous, even for him, though. She walked over closer, sitting on the arm of the loveseat as she kept her eyes on him. "Let's pretend for a second it does." she said. "Why are you mad about that?" she asked. Unless he was just covering for something else, but by now she had no clue what.

He didn't answer at first, taking another sip of the drink, feeling it burn its way down his throat, before he turned his head enough that he could take her in. "Just what kind of a bastard do you think I am? Oh, right, yeah - the kind that would only help a girl if he got to fuck her. Right, I forgot. So, shouldn't be surprised if you added to that, right?" he said, bitterly, turning back to the thin slice of window and downing the rest of the whiskey.

Eris was silent when he said that. She took it in, the shock of it, and it shut her up for a good few minutes as she let it sink in, and she tried to understand how to respond to it. When she did speak, her tone was quiet, her voice soft. "I didn't know you then." she said. "And I'd just come out of a situation that was exactly like that. I slept with a few knives, just in case. And then he went away. And you were there, and you came in, and you started ordering me around. Treating me like I was some...pet, or prisoner, or both." she continued, keeping her eyes on him, not letting her gaze stray. "That was then." she said. "I don't exactly see you in the same light as that night."

"...But you showed earlier on that you're pretty fucking convinced of things about me, just on the basis of that night," her pointed out to her as he crossed to get himself another drink, fairly determined to seek oblivion the easy way tonight. Some nights he hated having a good head for drink. Most nights though he just stayed sober. "So, what - you don't think I'm the kind of guy who'd expect fucks for favours, but you make sweeping assumptions on the basis of one look that happened at the same time? Bullshit, sweetheart. Bull-fucking-shit. You see me in exactly the same light. But you know what - that's fine. I don't give a damn. Think about me whatever you want. go on - go ahead," he said, turning to her, again gesturing enough with the glass that the whiskey went flying, more so this time, creating a sweeping pattern of drops across the floor as some split over the edge.

That was the second time he'd dumped some whiskey on her floor. Not that she especially cared. It usually had water all over it from the rain and leaky roof, alcohol wasn't going to hurt anything. Mostly, she noticed because it was rare for him. "They're different things." she told him. "And one's personal. You were a cop. I'm fairly certain that you were a good cop. You wouldn't have hit that end of your rope if you hadn't been, it wouldn't have been...what did you call it? Wising up?" she suggested, thinking that had been how he'd worded it. "So, yes. I would imagine that the look you gave me, along with the knowledge that you never one went in for a little play at Babylon that you aren't exactly keen on my kind. That's hardly the same thing as being a cheater. Which..." she stopped, and just looked at him for a moment. "Considering you seem offended, I'm going to assume you wouldn't do. But then you'd have to let someone in first, which you also don't do, so if anyone made it, I'd have to assume she was pretty special. Which would mean you wouldn't do something like that to her."

"What? Because you have to let someone in to take them to bed? Come on darling, you of all people should know that that's a pile of crap. Or even more than that - seeing someone, you don't just meet someone and go 'oh, hey, she's special, let's go there' and that's it. Maybe this is news to you, but it works the other way round - she becomes special as you get to know her." He wasn't entirely sure that that made perfect sense, but right now he didn't care.

"We're not talking about sex." Eris reminded him. "We're talking about relationships. You can't two time on someone you're just fucking now and then, or just did once." she continued. "Which is what you were offended about. The fact that apparently, I'd think you were that kind of a bastard." she said, using his word there. "Which I don't. And alright, I'm going to take your word on that. That this hypothetical girl becomes special as you get to know her." she said. She sure as hell hadn't had that experience in her life. Unless one counted him, and she didn't figure he'd appreciate the comparison. Plus it would be owning up to the fact that she liked him. That she wanted him around, that she hated the idea of him disappearing on her, that occasionally, she had stray thoughts. "What's it got to do with this? Just...you get to know a girl, she become special and then...? You start a relationship? You let her in?"

Brett looked confused for a moment, and covered it with finishing off the rest of his whiskey. Head for drink or not, it was really starting to hit home now. "No - no, that's not..." Not what he'd meant and not how it worked. Not that it mattered now anyhow - he'd been talking about the past. "And it doesn't fucking... It doesn't matter. Because no, I don't. Whatever - no, you're right - I don't let them in." he didn't need to get screwed again.

She watched him tripping all over everything, which wasn't pleasant. Brett wasn't really the type to do that. Even when he was thrown, he didn't. But then again, he'd killed quite a lot of whiskey already tonight. She exhaled, and slid back down onto the loveseat, keeping her eyes on him, legs stretched over the arm, and she curled her arm beneath her head to cradle it. "When was the last time you did?" she asked him. "The last time you actually let someone in. Some lucky girl who liked your ink, and the color of your eyes, and that little scratch in your voice when you first wake up in the morning."

Brett looked across and snorted slightly, a harsh little laugh. "Long before I had the ink, precious," he gave her. At least for any girl who knew what he sounded like in the mornings, anyhow.

"Why's it been so long?" she asked. Because she'd gotten pretty good looks at the dragon, at the very least. It wasn't new. Very much, it wasn't new. She kept her gaze on him, thinking to herself that it was a shame. Because really...just taking an objective point of view, he was a very well put together man. And, looking vaguely pissed off all the time even worked for him, so that was a good thing. Either way, though, she could definitely look at him and see someone she was physically attracted to. Which was usually what drew people in. So he had to have had girls who'd come on to him at the very least. "You can't tell me there's been no interest from the fairer sex."

Oh, there'd been interest. And before the fire, he rather enjoyed that interest - took full advantage of it, even. And after the fire, well, there'd still been interest. At least once he was mobile again - being covered in bandages and high on pain meds did nothing for your love life, after all. Unfortunately, he'd discovered pretty damn quickly that having a body mostly covered in horrific scarring didn't do much for your love life either. After a few goes at that, he'd simply cut his losses, and the bitterness started. In those days it had only been confined to his love life - or lack of it - but that was the root. As it was, he didn't actually answer her questions, pointedly looking away.

She waited, gave him a few good minutes to answer, and when he didn't, she shifted, and stood up, walking over to him. "Why'd you shut everyone out?" she asked. "What happened?" Because okay, if he wasn't going to feed her a line about women just not getting their heads turned, she needed to ask the more important question. She wondered if it had to do with the fire. She was thinking back on the photograph, the wheelchair, the bandages, where she could see the edges of the burn on his neck.

"Having nice eyes and a tattoo or two isn't actually enough," he told her - which was actually more than he would have said, if he'd been sober, but alcohol loosened his tongue. Another reason why he generally didn't drink. He figured and hoped that maybe she'd take that to mean that his shitty personality got in the way.

"It's enough to get someone to notice you." She said. "So, why did you shut the door? Why haven't you let anyone in?" she asked. "That doesn't answer that. I know you do it, you push people away. You do it to me all the time. I just want to know why? What happened that you started doing that, and as long ago as we're talking?" She didn't really expect he'd answer her, but she couldn't not ask.

"Let's just say they don't like what they find there if they do. So - I just save them the damn trouble," he told her, looking at his empty glass, as if puzzled as to where the whiskey had gone. He was sure he hadn't drunk enough to have drunk it all. Oh well - there was more in the bottle. He crossed to pour himself that more.

She let him walk past, seeing him going for the bottle again. He was going to be hurting in the morning. Maybe she'd get him to drink some water before he crashed. Leaning her hip against the cabinet, she didn't say anything for a minute, just letting him pour his drink. "You get hurt a few times?" she asked. "Or badly enough just once?" She almost said 'burned' but had the good graces not to put it in those terms. Even if he didn't know she knew, she didn't find it fair.

He glanced around at her, giving her a humorless smile. "I wised up," he told her, repeating his statement of earlier before throwing back half the glass he'd just poured.

"To what exactly? Women are evil? People suck? Nobody's worth it?" she asked, providing a few different options for him, even if she didn't know that any would fit. She suspected it was something else. Something more personal. Like he likely hadn't been a good cop with the attitude he had now, so something had to have crashed and burned on him. In a hard, hard way, and maybe it was the fire, but maybe not. She was still filling in little pieces of Brett's timeline for herself.

Brett shot her a glare. "I already told you to what. And this little session of twenty questions is over," he told her, daring her to ask another, just so he could tell her what to stick it. Because clearly she needed it spelling out to her, and he wasn't going to play that little game. He'd wised up because he'd learned that look in their eyes, learnt to spot the moment that it turned to disgust, maybe revulsion. Learned that life was just better without that, that he was better off without that.

"Not really. You told me earlier that you quit being a cop because this city's a fucked up place, or something along those lines, but we're not talking about your career anymore. You're telling me it's the same thing? That for some reason that and you not letting anyone in was the same thing?" she asked, though those were rhetorical. She looked at him for a long moment, just assessing for a few. "I'm not sure your timeline adds up on that, sweetheart. You said you stopped letting people in before your ink." she said. "But you haven't been in your current line of work that long."

Brett smiled a little at that, amused and somewhat satisfied that, for once, she wasn't that on the ball. It was good to see, since she usually got more than he'd like her two. See, you're not infallible, bitch, he thought, cruelly - and he didn't answer either her question, or her musings. Let them be rhetorical, even if they weren't meant that way - and he wasn't convinced they totally were - he didn't care. And if she really thought his timeline was screwed, then that was her problem, wasn't it?

She shouldn't have been surprised that he didn't answer. She did catch the smile, though, and that had a flicker of a frown moving over her features. Eventually she exhaled, and moved away from the cabinet, and him, to get herself a glass of water. "So is that it then, you're just going to ignore me for the rest of the night?" she asked.

"I was considering getting some shut eye," he told her, turning slightly to track her across the room, though he didn't physically follow her. "Assuming, of course, that you don't expect me to stand watch or anything," he added, his tone suggesting that he probably wouldn't do that even if she wanted it.

She frowned, and looked back over her shoulder at him. "...stand watch?" she asked. "Are you a guard dog now?" Then she was thinking about him mentioning her getting a dog. She leaned back against the counter, and eyed him, glass held in against her shoulder. "Is that why you think I asked you to stay?"

"You're 'still...' remember," Brett reminded her. "I can fill in the blank, darling. Some guy jumps you in an alley and you have to pull a gun on him? Even if he didn't realise who you are, you're jumpy, you don't want to be alone - you're already high strung enough watching your back, I get why this pushed you over." His words might have been understanding, but his tone was darker than that - he understood why he was being used. Hell, he was used to it - tall dark and looming as he could be. People often used him simply for his presence.

Eris was more apt to go on tone with Brett, considering it meant more than whatever he was saying. Like the pet names. Sure, he'd just called her darling, but it wasn't because he wanted to be endearing, or let her know she was endeared to him. What Brett said and what he meant were often not things that matched up perfectly. Keeping her gaze on him, she didn't say anything for a long moment. "No, I didn't want to be alone." she confirmed. "I also haven't seen you in..." she frowned slightly, then shook her head. She didn't know, exactly, so she wouldn't put a count on the days when she might get it wrong. "A while."

Brett knew it was four days, give or take a few hours, but if she wasn't counting than neither was he. "So, you've seen me now - somehow I find it hard to believe that you actually take any pleasure in me and my sparkling personality," he said, sarcastically. If she did, then she was a fucking masochistic bitch, in his opinion. He was hardly nice to her, most of the time.

She didn't say anything to that. She could contradict him, but she didn't know how. She didn't know what to say, how to say it, anything. Besides she wanted him around. There was a part of her that liked him around. That liked him, despite the personality conflicts involved. He was the only real companionship she had. And while she was aware that said something about her, she wasn't willing to look at that at the moment either. Looking down at the floor for a moment, she pushed off of the counter, and went back over to fix the notes on her lampshade, so she could count out her night medication like she'd been starting to do before he'd decided to freak out on her. "Believe what you want." she said, even if it was vastly late. "You will anyways." Which was really what he pulled on her all the time.

"Makes two of us," Brett grumbled, going back to his whiskey as he turned away - he didn't want to see her dealing with her medication. Dealing with what had, for weeks now, been his job. God that was pathetic - he should be happy about that, that she could do that on her own. He took another large mouthful of whiskey instead.

She fixed the notes, then went through the ritual that was laid out for her by his note, following all of the instructions one at a time. She swallowed her meds down, then turned the shade, and shut he drawer, bottles back inside. Then she shifted, and watched him again, where he was turned away from her. A lot went through her mind, but she didn't know what to say. Or if she could say any of it, for that matter. Probably, she couldn't. But part of her knew at least one thing she couldn't ask later, since there might not be a later. And that was if he planned on returning at all, or if this was it. She kept living with that over her head, the idea that he was going to go missing on her, and so far he hadn't, but well. He did see now that she had a system, and he'd only been coming by to drop off notes. So it was a viable assumption that he'd leave and stay gone.

He held the whiskey glass cradled in his hand, but after that last mouthful, he stopped actually drinking. He didn't actually want any more. He'd had too much, he knew. He was drunk, and he didn't get drunk - he hated getting drunk. He'd already said too much, and he could feel the alcohol affecting his behaviour. he was all over the damn place. So, he stopped, for now anyway. And he said nothing to her. If he said nothing, then maybe that drive to drink more wouldn't return.

Well, at least he wasn't pouring himself another. Standing, she walked into the bathroom, and started drawing a bath. She dumped some soap into the water to give herself a bubble bath, and she went to stand in the doorframe, eyes back on him. She knew she did that a lot. Watched. They did it to each other. Of course they probably made careers out of doing things to one another, really. She just wasn't ready to let go. "If I ask you something I need to know, will you answer me?" she asked, tone light. A little distant.

"Depends on what you want to know," Brett replied, after a moment or two. He wasn't going to promise her something he wasn't sure he'd follow through with. And he'd already told her he was no longer going to play her questions game.

Eris didn't ask her question right away. She just looked at him, and weighed it. On the one hand, she might get an answer out of him, considering he hadn't shot her down immediately. On the other, he was unhappy with her and drunk. Just asking could potentially push the outcome, and she didn't want to do that. And god she wanted to know. It was eating at her, but part of her was just...afraid of finding out. Of hearing him tell her it was over. In the end she nodded, then turned back to walk into the bathroom, tugging her clothes off to slide into the hot water, and she leaned over to turn the spout off, before she laid back in the bubbles and looked up at the watermarked, cracked ceiling.

He hadn't been turned towards her as he stood there, so he'd actually been waiting for the question - only, it didn't come. And then there was the slosh of water, the sound of her getting into the bath and Brett looked round, confused. She was gone. What the fuck? "It that it?" he asked, striding across the floor to the bathroom, though he stopped outside, not even in the doorway. Privacy, always privacy. She could prance about in a towel if she saw fit, but he wasn't going to intrude on her in the bath, even if he was pissed at her just leaving, and even if he smelled what were probably bubbles. "Thought you had a damn question!"

"I do." Eris said, looking over towards the door. "You didn't sound like you were too keen on answering. Plus, didn't you already tell me I was out of them for the night?" she asked him, not in a pointed manner at all. He had, technically told her that. She just usually ignored the shit out of him when he said any such thing. She slid down farther in the water, leaning her back against the back of the tub. The hot water felt nice, even if it wasn't necessarily doing it's job in relaxing her. She was just as tense as she had been a few minutes ago.

"I said that before you asked if I'd answer a question," Brett pointed out, not buying her words for a second. "Didn't exactly stop you, did it? So, what is it - you ask and then you just... don't?" Fucking confusing woman.

Looking over, she didn't say anything for a long moment. She sat up a little, knees drawn up to her chest, and she rested her cheek on her wet knee. She could hear the bubbles popping, the light little white noise that she heard so much more clearly in this position. She could see him, even if he wasn't looking at her, which was expected. It was why she hadn't really hesitated on getting into the bath in the first place, Brett had no interest in seeing her sans clothing, and he was, oddly enough, kind of a gentleman at times. Drawing in a deep breath, she let it out slowly, trying to center herself a little. It wasn't really working, though. But it was a little easier, the idea of asking the question when he wasn't looking at her, and very likely wouldn't even if he wanted to. In fact, it might be easier on him, too, since he could latch onto the excuse of not having to make anything even close to eye contact. It was still a minute or two before she said anything, and when she spoke, her voice was soft. Quiet. "Are you leaving?" she asked. "...after tonight. Are you going to be gone?" Don't answer, don't answer, don't answer.... She should have kept her fucking mouth shut.

Brett frowned, wondering what exactly she was asking there. "...Princess, I don't go and sooner or later they'll start looking for me. I know I don't exactly work the nine to five, but I still have a job to go to," he pointed out.

That actually made her smile, just a tiny bit. She exhaled, since she'd held her breath. "Not that." she said. "Nevermind." She didn't really know if she had it in her to clarify. To ask twice, only put a finer point on it. To ask in no uncertain terms if she was going to see him again, or if this was it. Because he'd have no reason to be by. There wasn't any window to fix, he wasn't leaving notes because she'd kept the others...so really...what? He'd been avoiding her in the first place, it didn't make sense that he'd come back just to say hi.

"Not that? Then what?" he asked her, after a moment, still confused. He really didn't know what she was asking here. He was really fucking sure that she wasn't asking him to, say, move in or anything like that, so... No, he didn't get what he was being asked. Enough that he couldn't even really refuse to answer the question.

Did you miss the 'nevermind' there, Trent? she thought, but didn't say. She instead looked at the bubbles for a moment, then back to him, the curve of his shoulder. "I want to know if when you leave here tomorrow, if I'm ever going to see you again." she made herself say. And she supposed that wasn't actually a question, she hadn't phrased it as such. And she wished her voice had come out sounding at least a little louder, a little stronger, but it didn't. It was quiet, and had a soft edge beneath it. Then she looked back at the bubbles again, because she didn't want to see if he did react at all. She also went back to hoping he just didn't answer her.

"Would it even matter?" he asked her. It wasn't like she needed him anymore. Unless, of course, she was lonely and scared - but he'd already pointed out she could just get a dog for that. Really, that was all she needed. Ironic, really, given that she used to tell him that she wasn't his pet. How the tables turned. He couldn't believe that she'd actually given a damn about seeing him just for his own sake - after all, he generally made her life hell, upset her, the whole deal.

Of course not, I'm just dragging things out and making myself sick for absolutely no reason at all, Brett. she thought. It took her a minute to figure out what to say. She could ask him if he really thought she'd be asking if it didn't. And she almost did, but at the last minute, she knew that that was just shoving off any actual meaning. And it probably wouldn't matter to him even if it did matter to her, but it was a smidge more likely that he might at least think about it for two seconds if she admitted it mattered. Maybe. Or, maybe she was clutching at straws, and just didn't want to face up to the truth. "Yes. It would matter to me." she said, almost too quietly.

Why? He didn't ask the question. He wasn't sure he actually wanted to know the answer. He actually didn't know what to answer at all, couldn't come up with a good way to take things. He could say no, just to be contrary and to show that he wasn't a person who would jump just because she called. Only - well, it didn't matter whether he wanted to come round or not, did it? And wouldn't it be better for him just to get her out of his life - hadn't that been what he'd been saying? So, he should do that and be grateful. Anyway, she frustrated him, annoyed him, pissed him off - it wasn't as if he was doing either of them any favours. So what if it mattered to her. Why the hell did it matter to her anyway? What was that? He was a moody, grumpy, pissy bastard with no tact and who at every possible opportunity seemed determined to twist the knife and make things as painful for other people as possible.

Or maybe he was reading this whole thing wrong. After all, she hadn't actually said she wanted to see him again. It mattered to her to know whether or not she'd see him again. "That keen to make sure I'm out of your life?" he asked, on the tail of that recognition that things could be turned around. He wasn't entirely convinced she'd meant them that way though.

If she'd had something to throw at him, she probably would have aimed for his head. This was spectacularly fucking difficult for her in the first place, and he had to go and make it all harder. His answer there made her want to get up, get dressed and go for another fucking walk. Just disappear for a bit, then come back later. She shot a glare at his back, and then squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment. "...Brett." she said, tone carefully controlled. "If I wanted you out of my life, why exactly would I ask you to stay?" she asked, because either he was being deliberately obtuse, or he was fucking blind. "If you're that eager to get yourself out of mine, then--" fine. Do what you're going to do. But don't rub acid in my wounds when I'm vulnerable, you prick. she finished silently.

"That was tonight, specific situation - not the future," Brett pointed out, though he knew that was one of the reasons he hadn't been entirely convinced by his own interpretation.

"And I'm asking about the future." she said. "And you've been avoiding me. And you haven't wanted to see me, so...I just...wanted to know." she said, tripping over her words. I need to know if I'm going to keep waiting for you to come back or if I should know that it's not going to happen. Then I need to figure out just how hard I'm going to try to find you, and how long it'll take before I start taking bigger risks to do it. For you to likely just reject me anyhow, glare at me for existing, if I manage it. When I manage it. Yeah this was just a bad, bad fucking night.

He didn't deny her claim that he hadn't wanted to see her. It was right, after all. Wrong, but correct. Fucking contradictions. "You're building your own life, Princess," Brett pointed out. He was hedging around the point, he knew. He didn't want to admit that he knew she didn't need him. That would suggest that he gave a damn - that he'd noticed he wasn't needed. That he cared at all about whether he was or not. That it mattered whether he was or not.

That doesn't mean it can't include you. was her first thought. After that came the thoughts about how it wasn't actually a life, it was an echo. Lives were things people had when they could go out, do things, make plans, have goals, all that. She didn't have that. She had a shelf life. She was kind of like a broken wind up toy, and she was waiting for the spring to snap. Wasn't that a lovely mental image. "Am I?" she asked, a light little whisper, not really meant for him to hear. "What's that supposed to mean? Or...what does it mean to you?" since apparently it did, because it had to do with why he didn't want to see her. Maybe. She didn't know, she was starting to get confused.

What did he mean by that? He didn't think he'd thought about it too clearly, but maybe he had at some point, enough to have an idea of what he thought. Maybe it had always just been ticking along in the back of his mind, never really being actively thought about, but there all the same, being processed. She didn't need him - and it would never have occurred to him that maybe she would want him in her life. Being in her life had never actually been part of the plan. He hadn't killed her, and he'd delivered her to Dr Gray. And then he'd walked away. That had meant to have been the end of it. he'd only been called back in because Gray hadn't been able to deal with her. And, for some reason, Brett could. he could handle all her vagaries, all the shit that happened in those first few weeks after he'd not dropped her in the river. He was only called in when he was needed, at first. Only, slowly, he'd started pre-empting being needed. he'd started learning her pills and her timetables, what she did and when. He'd started working out when Gray wouldn't be around, and when he might be needed. And slowly he'd just started to be there. Not all the time. Not necessarily regularly. But enough - he'd been needed. And then Gray had disappeared, and he'd taken her home. And he'd taken control of her life, because she'd needed it. His entire involvement in her life had been because she needed him. She'd never said anything - and if she had, then maybe he would have felt different about things. If he'd thought that he was doing what she wanted. No, he'd been doing what she needed, not what she wanted. There was a huge difference there. Only, now, she didn't need him any longer.

"I'm just the guy who didn't kill you, Princess. You don't need that reminder hanging around. Don't need that connection either," he told her, eventually. He'd probably left the response far too long.

Eris had started thinking he wasn't going to answer her. That maybe he'd walk away and be gone without saying anything at all. But eventually he spoke, and when he did, she didn't know what to do with his answer. The first thing that happened was she spoke, not thinking about the response at all as it was just a knee jerk, automatic reaction. "You don't remind me of that." When she thought about him, that wasn't what she really thought about. The associations she had with Brett weren't to her near death, they were to everything afterwards. Like that first clear memory, the only thing she could pick out of the murky mess that was her mind in those first few days...weeks? Whatever. Until she'd started getting better. "You're the only thing I remember." she said, that broken thought making it's way to vocalization too, and she winced faintly, and figured she needed to finish it now. "I remember bits and pieces of what happened, and all it was was pain, and that...mocking laughter, and glass was breaking. And everything was dark, and I couldn't breathe. And then there was nothing. And everything got really, really messy but I remember you. I--remember your eyes. They're blue, really...bright. And that's clear." She stopped talking, because she felt like she'd said too much and like it wasn't even connected to what was being talked about in the first place.

He should go. He should really go - leave, walk out and not look back. Except he really had had too much to drink now, and it was too far to walk - especially with the part of town he'd have to cross. Drunk guy walking: that just equaled a target out there at this time of night. But she'd started talking about his eyes. She's just an observant bitch, it doesn't mean anything, he told himself firmly.

She looked over at him again, what she could see of him, and she didn't know what else to say. She shifted, curling up a little against the back of the tub, the water sloshing a little over the edge onto the floor. "I just...I remember that. And afterwards, when things would get really...difficult, you were there sometimes." And here we are, my point. I don't really feel like I'm ready for you to not be there. I don't want you to not be there. I didn't want to leave in the first place, and now you're not here at all, except for tonight, and that was an accident and I don't like it. I don't want that. And I got lost in here somewhere and now I don't know what to say and you're just being quiet and you didn't want to see me anyhow, and I don't even know why you're still here.

There it was, he could read through the lines - she didn't really want him around, it just always came back to the same thing. She didn't want to be alone. She only wanted him there because sometimes she needed someone there. Strangely, that didn't make him feel any better. It should have done - what with his reasonings. that he'd been there because she needed him. He'd done things that she'd needed. That he'd been pissed at the thought he wasn't needed any more. And now she was telling him, sort of, that she needed him just for him, just to be there. But that didn't make him feel any better. In ways, it made him feel worse. He was a nothing, an object...

...This was too fucking complicated. "There's a phone in my building," he pointed out. "You have the number."

"Do I?" she asked. She didn't actually know if she did. She probably did. She just didn't remember where. "...and it would just be...interrupting you, wouldn't it? Since you don't want to be here. You don't actually want anything to do with me." And it was for the best, right? For him. He shouldn't have anything to do with her. It could get him killed. So, it was her being selfish that she didn't want to give things up. That just didn't actually play in for her. She could be selfish.

Brett looked baffled by that - and very nearly actually turned to look into the bathroom, before he stopped himself mid-turn. He really didn't want to be looking in on the naked woman covered in bubbles. Really not. "Interrupting me? Princess, you know what my life's like - either I'm in. Or I'm out. It's hardly like I have a social whirl of entertaining to do at that apartment," he pointed out. At most, he had to deal with his neighbour stopping him in the hallway - something she'd never used to do, unless it was to apologise for those little brats she called kids. But lately, she'd stopped him a couple of times to ask after 'that nice young woman', wondering where she'd gone.

He was calling her princess again. It wasn't fair. "So I wouldn't be cutting in on Amber's time. Doesn't change the other thing. The part where you don't want anything to do with me." she said. she'd seen him almost-turn, had for a second thought he was going to look back at her, and part of her had wondered if she'd have minded. But then she was in the bath, with the door wide open, having a conversation with him. So maybe not. It wasn't as if he would have seen anything. He'd seen more of her other times, when he say, unzipped her dress for her. And her focus needed to not be on that.

"I never said I didn't want anything to do with you," Brett pointed out, leaning back against the wall, his shoulder by the door frame. He was really tempted to just slide down and sit on the floor - beginning to feel a little woosy. Fucking alcohol. But, he didn't.

"Then why've you been avoiding me?" she asked. "Why did you look at me like that when I came back?" She didn't really see another way there. She didn't get why he'd be doing that if he for some reason did want to continue having anything to do with her. It was his way of backing off, cutting himself off, cutting her out. And other people, normal, non masochistic fucking bitches would take the hint. a nasty little voice in her head told her.

"You're the one that left," Brett told her, stubbornly. She'd left and he'd had to find her - no matter what she said for her excuses for doing that, she'd left him. He'd figured she didn't want him around, but he'd kept on doing things. They'd been things that had needed to be done, but he didn't want to deal with her asking him why he was still there, when she'd clearly walked out. if he didn't see her, he didn't have to deal with the way she'd look at him if she thought he was being a complete fucking sap for running around after her. And he didn't have to deal with... the things he didn't want to deal with. The 'c' word would never actually come into it.

"Not because I wanted to." she said, again, a more knee-jerk reaction than anything, and if she'd had a few seconds to think about it, she likely would have come up with something else. But it was said, and it wasn't like she hadn't said it before. ...or had she? Now she didn't know. Now she couldn't remember what she'd said, besides she'd told him why it was she'd left in the first place, that she hadn't wanted to put him in danger. Which he steadfastly refused to believe. Still, though. Fuck.

"But you wanted to go when I was gone. You didn't want to discuss it with me. you didn't want to let me know where you were going," Brett snapped back. No, she'd just waited until he'd left and walked out on him. And he'd come home to an empty apartment and three fucking notes. And she thought he was the one that wanted nothing to do with her. What a joke.

She sat up abruptly, more water splashing over the side of the tub as she gripped it, glaring at his back. "And if I would have waited for you to get fucking home I wouldn't have left." she snapped, and instantly regretted it. Fuck. God fucking damnit. She didn't want him to know that. She didn't want him even considering that or what it might mean, though she imagined he might miss it because he missed everything else in the goddamn world when it came to her.

"Then you wouldn't have left!" Brett snapped back at her, again nearly turning into the room. "I never asked you to leave, I never wanted you leave - that was your decision and you made it. So... I let you go," he said, already regretting what he'd said by the time he was halfway through saying it, and only admitting the last bit because he'd already said to much, so what the hell.

"Yes, it was my decision, I didn't want the both of us killed!" she snapped back, going right back into statements without thinking them through since he was snapping at her too. "And if your boys are going to be showing up in the middle of the fucking night pounding on your door and stumbling in needing you for god knows what, then that was a distinct fucking possibility! It's not like they wouldn't recognize me! And you were pissed, and you were gone, and I knew I needed to leave before you got back or I'd just stay. And then we'd be right back where we were and who knows when they would have showed up again and anyways, you didn't--" she stopped. Because actually, he had just told her that he'd never wanted her to leave. And he'd kind of said that before, if she was thinking about it. Not that he'd wanted her there, but he hadn't wanted her gone. And now she was just confused again and so she shut up, and sat down low enough again so that if he did happen to turn around to glare at her, he wouldn't get an unwanted eyeful.

Brett didn't say anything for a long time - mostly because he wasn't convinced he'd know what he said before it left his mouth. And that was a sure sign of when to cut his loses. "...I'm going to bed," he told her, pushing up off the wall and starting across the room. She could hang out in the bath all she wanted, and maybe he'd be asleep by the time she got out. Course, maybe he'd just be lying there pretending he wasn't thinking about her all covered in bubbles and soapy, but...

She blinked. "What?" she asked, shocked out of her pissy frame of mind. "Just--you're going to bed? That's it?" she asked, staring at his back, wide eyed. "You're seriously cutting out right now, to go sleep." Typical. Hell, she didn't even know if she'd gotten an answer to her question. If he'd ever be around again or what. Just...whatever, he thought she was starting some new life and she had his number. Right. God.

"What?" Brett asked, finally rounding on her from some distance away - but it was the first time since she got into the bath that he'd even done that much. "Yes, I'm going to bed - you've already said that you couldn't deal with this shit tonight. We're going round in fucking circles." he bit back the 'what do you want from me' comment just before he said it and glared at her for a moment instead. And then, after a moment, once he felt his eyes start to really drift properly over the view, he turned away again. "So - I'm going to bed."

"Now you're suddenly concerned with my inability to deal with bullshit tonight?" Eris asked. She shook her head and then--abruptly, she laughed, and drew in a deep breath, covering her face with her hands for a moment. "God you're the most frustrating person I have ever met in my entire life." she said, dragging her fingers back through her wet hair to get it away from her face. At this point it was about all she could do. Look at the entirety of the situation and if she didn't laugh? She was going to scream.

And yet you still apparently want me around, Brett thought to himself as he sat down on the bed and started to take off his shoes. Being here would mean sleeping fully clothed again, but he could do that. Hell, some nights he never even got to bed, so clothes weren't an issue. Just her - her and her having the audacity to call him frustrating. Like she shouldn't be taking a look in the mirror right now.

She ducked her head under the water for a few moments, then got out of the tub, wrapping herself up with a towel, and taking her brush with her out into the main room. She started killing lights, though, starting with the bathroom, and then the ones around the main loft, leaving the one by the bedside, the one that had his notes pinned to the shade. She sat on the arm of the loveseat again and watched him from there, reaching up to start brushing her hair out. She did that for a few moments before she sighed. "You need to drink some water before you go to sleep." she told him.

Brett kicked his shoes under the bed and pulled his tie off - he hated that damn thing, but it was expected, generally. "I'll be fine," he growled at her as he thumbed the top button of his shirt open. He knew it would expose slightly more of his scar, but that couldn't be helped - he wouldn't be able to sleep with a tight collar. Of course, with her being all how she was being tonight he wasn't sure he'd get any sleep anyway - especially not after the dreams he'd had last time he was here.

"Of course you will." she said, not really having expected anything different. Still, she got up, and crossed to get him a glass of water anyways, and walked back to him, setting her brush down on the nightstand, and she held the glass out towards him. "Or you'll be fantastically hungover, and we'll have a repeat of last time." she said. "I don't really want to deal with a bear in the morning." Nevermind he was being a bear right now.

The jacket came off and he hung it over the bottom of the bed, then his shoulder holster, complete with pistol, got hung over the post at the top of the bed, were he'd be able to reach it easily in the night. He glanced up at her, holding her eyes as he took the water, without thanks.

She stood there, waiting. Just to make sure he drank it. Why she was deciding this was the point to press, she didn't know, but it was. Crossing her arms across her stomach, partially to keep her towel in place, she kept her eyes on his, at least for a moment. Then they drifted, mostly down to the scar she could see more of at the moment, though she didn't make it obvious that was what she was doing. To make sure it wasn't so obvious she didn't let her eyes linger, she just let them drift down the rest of him, then back up.

Brett had been looking directly at her, so he noted when her eyes left his, the way they dropped. He didn't know exactly what she was looking at, but long habit made him drop his own eyes as he ducked his chin to the left, covering the burn scar as best he could without actually reaching up to pull the shirt back across. He didn't even realise that she hadn't lingered, it was just an instinctual reaction, a habitual tick.

When he did that, she had the urge to reach out and tip his face where she wanted it. It'd be easy, really. She'd just reach out, slide her fingertips just beneath his jaw line and tilt. But that of course was in a world where he wouldn't flinch from the barest of contact with her, and would actually let her do anything of the sort. Which was a world that they didn't actually occupy. Nope, here in reality-land, he twitched, drew away, and possibly got up and either walked away for another drink, or left entirely, deciding he didn't want to deal with the possibility of her actually doing something like that. So, even if her hand twitched slightly as the urge hit, she didn't follow through with the action. "What?" she asked, voice quiet. "You ducked your head." Even if she was fairly certain she knew why, she still asked the question.

Brett looked back up at her, but he didn't raise his chin up as much as he normally would. "...And you looked away, so fucking what?" he shot back at her, taking the offensive as a defensive move.

Being she hadn't really figured she'd get some different reaction, the aggression didn't phase her. "Not away from you." she pointed out, arching a brow at him. "So it wasn't technically 'away'. If I was doing that I'd look at something else, or off in the distance, or fill in the blank." Now would be a good time to figure out what she was doing with this or where she was headed with it, but she didn't know. Apparently she was at the 'winging it' portion of the proceedings for the evening.

Brett raised an eyebrow at that. "And your point is what, exactly?" he asked, not knowing where she was going with that either. She'd glanced down, he'd ducked his head - he didn't know what that had to do with technicalities, enough that he dropped the aggressive tone - mostly, anyhow.

That's an excellent question. Eris commended him silently. It just didn't help her out at all. She didn't think 'I have no idea' would fly for an answer. "You ducked your head. It blocked my view." she said instead. "You know you can relax a little more than you let yourself." she said. "Get a little more comfortable as it were." She almost reached out to tug at the collar of his shirt, but didn't. That just would have gotten a bad reaction, and she sort of expected one in the first place so she might as well not go for atomic bomb levels.

"I'm not here to give you a view," Brett pointed out, closing down and tensing up rather more as she told him to relax. He was sure they'd already been over this before - he didn't relax, he was near enough always tense - even when he was drunk. Problem was that he was aware that he was drunk, so he was currently watching himself even more.

"Yeah, I know." she said, sighing slightly. "Doesn't mean you can't get more comfortable." she added, moving to walk back behind her screen so she could pull a nightgown on. "Last time you slept in your clothes. Looks like you're intending that tonight too. You don't have to." she said to him, from where she was. She was pretty positive he'd have to have a personality transplant to actually go with what she said, but she couldn't not say it.

He downed the glass of water he'd been holding and set the glass aside as she disappeared behind the screen. "Somehow I doubt your nightdresses would fit me, Princess," he called, sarcastically as he pulled off his belt, set his wallet on the nightstand and lay down, doing a good impression of a relaxed position even if he wasn't actually relaxing. It was all he could do not to just switch off the lights, hide the scar he was incredibly aware of right now that way.

She smirked faintly. "Was I offering you my clothes?" she asked in response to that. She walked back out again, and she stopped at the side of the screen, looking at him. "I'm fairly certain that you don't go commando." she said. "And it's even publicly acceptable for men to wander the streets sans a shirt at the very least." She wasn't necessarily pressing the point, more just pointing out small snatches of logic. She did notice he'd drank the water. Or dumped it on the floor where she couldn't see it, but she doubted that.

Publicly acceptable or not, Brett hadn't been seen out without shirt and long trousers for over a decade now, and that wasn't changing just because some broad pointed it out. "I'm plenty comfortable, sweetheart - don't you worry about me," he told her, keeping with the sarcasm, reaching up to prop one hand lazily behind his head as he looked over at her.

"Mmhmm." she responded, keeping his gaze for a moment, before she walked back over to the bed. She went to his side, though, reaching out to shut off the lamp, dropping them into darkness. She walked around the foot of the bed again, knowing the place fairly well in the dark--mostly because it wasn't as if she had an over abundance of furniture. She went to the window that was nearest the bed instead of lying down, reaching behind the covering to open it a slight bit, letting a breeze in.

He watched her as she walked across the room, unable to avoid noticing how her figure moved in the silky thing she was wearing. He was almost grateful as she took them into darkness, though he carried on tracking her in the black - by sound alone until his eyes got used to the dark and he could make out a vague outline moving through the room. He didn't give her any response to the musing noise she'd made, and he dropped his arm back down again, settling it over his stomach.

"You know I know it's there, right?" she asked, after a few minutes in silence. She was letting the breeze from the window flow down her back, since she had it to the window, her face turned towards the bed. She couldn't see him there, but she could feel his presence there. Or, she imagined she could. Reaching up, she tugged her fingers through her hair, trying to let the air flow from the window dry it some. "The scar." she added, just so that he didn't do something silly like ask her what she was referring to.

He snorted a small laugh at that, his only response, and one lacking in any real humour at all. So like her at times - she thought she knew things. She said she knew things. She really had no idea. She'd seen the part of the scar on his neck, she thought that that was it. What did she know - she knew nothing.

She didn't continue for a few, basically staying at the window until she started to get a chill, and she shut it, heading back over towards the bed. She sat down on it first, then slid beneath the blanket, curling on her side towards him, head propped up on her arm. "So if you know I know it's there, why go to the trouble of hiding it, or feeling self conscious?" she asked. Not that she thought it was an effort with him. It was probably automatic, a response he wasn't really doing on purpose. Or, the head turn was that, at least.

He almost told her to shut up. Just blatantly, baldly told her to shut her fucking mouth. What was it with women and their picking at issues, knowing just where to press? "You don't know what you're talking about," he said, in the end, his voice tight and, for once, emotionless. He didn't want her to know how close to the bone she was needling right now.

She was quiet for another few moments, just listening. Not really for anything more he said, but to his breathing. "Then enlighten me." she requested, voice light. She didn't actually imagine he would, but she wanted him to. And maybe she wanted him to know that she wanted him to. For as much as he accused her of wanting him out of her life, and everything that went with it, he liked to conveniently forget that she made it no secret that she wanted to know everything about him. So, now and then, she made it more blatant, at least the intention, even if she hadn't been belligerent with the request itself.

He didn't want her pity. He never wanted anyone's fucking pity. He never wanted anyone to hear what had happened and be all 'awww' about it and give sympathies and whatever other bullshit that they spewed at times like that. They could save that for someone who wanted it - he didn't. "...There was a fire. I got pretty badly burned. It's not just that," he told her, meaning the small proportion she would have been able to see. Hopefully, now, she'd drop the subject.

There was a part of Eris that was actually just a tiny bit amazed that he didn't tell her to shut the fuck up and go to sleep, or just roll over and ignore her. That he actually answered, and with the truth. It had to be the amount of whiskey in his system. "How extensive are we talking?" she asked, voice light, something nearing soft, almost gentle but not quite. There was still the her-ness to it, that inquisitive nature that she never found much of a reason to suppress. Particularly not with him. It wasn't like he volunteered information.

"All over - go to sleep," Brett told her, near enough spitting the admission out. He really just wanted her to shut up right now. He didn't want to be talking about this. She needed to learn to shut up and let things go.

Well, there it was. Less harsh than she expected, at least wording-wise. Tone-wise, it was, but still. She did shut up, at least for a few minutes, letting him possibly calm down a little bit before she spoke again. "Is that why you don't let anyone in?" she asked. "Because you don't want them to see you?" Because he'd turned to block her view, she had to admit she'd lived with the man and never caught sight of him without a shirt, or covered up. And now she was on night number two where he spent the night, and decided to do it fully clothed. It was a reasonable, logical leap to make. She had that feeling again, that she was getting pieces to fit into his puzzle that made other things make sense. That made knowing him and dealing with him make more sense.

Brett turned onto his side, facing away from her. "Go to sleep," he told her once again, thumping his pillows into shape beneath his head.

That was as good as a confirmation for her. She let it drop for the moment, even if she wanted to keep talking to him about it. Find out more, see what he would say. See what he would tell her about it, if he really got going, but she wasn't sure now was the time to really prod. Of course, she still didn't know if he was just going to be gone from now on yet either, so maybe it was her only time to prod. Either way, she tugged the blanket lightly, what with him still lying on top of it, and she reached out and just barely touched the back of his shoulder. "Traditionally speaking, one sleeps beneath the covers."

"You're all about propriety tonight, aren't you doll?" Brett pointed out. First about clothing, now about how people slept. It was almost a theme. Still, he moved to shuffle himself under the covers, just happening to move himself away from her touch at the same time. At least she'd let the subject drop.

She smiled faintly at that. "Would you rather I started getting into impropriety?" she asked. "Because I'm sure you know I know all about that." What with her profession and all. Or, ex-profession. She was a singer now. Sort of. Maybe. For a while, anyhow. Until the heat got to be too much, or until the novelty of old songs did. She really wasn't sure what she thought would be the end of her yet. At least he got under the covers, and she shifted, tugging them up a little, and she got more comfortable.

"I'd prefer that you go to sleep," Brett growled, knowing she probably did know all about that and not wanting to dwell on that fact for any number of reasons. Plus, he really didn't appreciate her teasing him like that.

Eris fell silent again for a few long moments, though her thoughts didn't quiet with her. They were on him. About what she'd just said, about knowing about impropriety. About her current occupation and her former. Which brought her back to something that she'd kept meaning to ask him but things hadn't ever been the right time. And now was as good as any, she imagined. "...Brett, have you been back to Babylon since...well, since my untimely demise?" she asked, frowning to herself in the dark.

Brett didn't answer her at first, because he had and he didn't think she really wanted to know about what he'd found there, the changes that had been made. He really didn't think that she'd like hearing about that. "Yeah, I've been back," he told her, somewhat reluctantly.

She sat up, leaning her hand down on the mattress, feeling the ache in her shoulder as she did so, but she looked down at him in the dark. Mostly it was the tone he used that caught her attention. That and a light little thread of unease that she'd had since thinking about it all. "What's happening there?" she asked, voice soft. Almost a whisper. She wasn't entirely positive she wanted to know, but it was more like she needed to. She'd built the place from the ground up, taken the old hotel and made something of it. She'd changed the face of the working girl's life there. And while it had all been just good business before, taking care of the girls, making sure they were well cared for and protected, there were parts of her now that felt the same, it just stemmed from somewhere beyond cold practicality.

She really shouldn't ask so many questions - especially about things she could do nothing about. All it would do would be to ram home just how fucking helpless she was in this situation. Just reinforce that knowledge. It wouldn't help her, not at all. "Let it go, Princess - that's not your life anymore," he advised her, speaking from experience - he knew what it was like to let a life go, to lock that away.

That wasn't a good sign. And it hit her harder than she would have anticipated, really. She'd suspected that things wouldn't have gone well, and she had understood that under mob control, things would change, but if he was flat out telling her to let it go? Yeah, that was just a bad, bad sign. Irrationally, she wanted to get dressed and go there, right now. To see for herself, and... Get yourself fucking killed. she filled in her own blank there. She looked towards the window, not saying anything for the moment.

He didn't encourage her to fill the silence. he'd told her to let it go, and he was going to take that to mean she was doing just that. Of course, he knew better - he knew her far too fucking well by now. her habits and tendencies, anyhow. She wouldn't be letting this go. But he could make like maybe she was, and make his own life a little easier for it. In the immediacy, anyhow.

She could have demanded he tell her. But at the moment, it just didn't seem like she could do it. Not on his part, but on her own. In the end she pulled the covers back and got out of bed, walking into the loft, arms around herself as she tried to decide what to do. If anything. It wasn't like there were choices. Though on the table right now were 'have a drink' or 'go for a walk and try to find Babylon'. Or maybe she'd just go sit down and spin her wheels, she didn't know, she just knew lying down at the moment was not going to fly.

He sighed, silently, and rolled onto his back as she got out of bed. Yeah, that whole 'maybe she's let it go' hope didn't even last as long as he'd thought maybe it would. Damn. "You can't do anything about it - and thinking that maybe you would would be suicide, you know that," he reminded her, guessing at what she was thinking right now.

"Yeah, I know that." she said, not even denying that her mind had gone there. Was still there, really. She leaned against the arm of the loveseat, and stared into the blackness of the loft. "How bad is it?" she asked, expecting him not to answer her again. In fact, it was almost a rhetorical question, her tone suggesting she already knew he wasn't going to say. Babylon wasn't that far. Maybe she could get a cab. She had a little cash, and like...six rounds.

Brett pulled himself up and off the bed and walked over to her. "It could be a lot worse, so let it go," he told her, softly, actually for one being nice about something, or attempting that. He really didn't want to tell her how much Babylon had changed since she'd been gone. He'd avoided talking about it so far and he'd like to continue that. It wouldn't help anything and she wouldn't be any better off.

She looked towards him as she heard him get nearer, and there was enough faint light that she could barely see him. Part of her noted that his tone was gentle, and she appreciated that, but it really slammed everything home. If he was being like this then it was bad. Hell, this told her more than if he'd told her in detail that it was. Something else was occurring to her, and she didn't even know if he knew the answer. Which was, who had been in on her death? Who, inside Babylon, had fucked her over? She didn't actually know. Someone had to have been in on it, that much was quite clear, but she'd never asked if he knew. Hell, she hadn't ever asked if he knew who'd done the deed on her. If he knew for certain who'd been looking down into her eyes as he choked her. And then her mind wandered a little and she wondered how he dealt with that person on a daily basis. But it didn't wander that long, before it was back on Babylon.

He'd positioned himself subtly, between her and the door. He'd managed it just in his approach, not making a thing of it at all, but if she suddenly decided to up and leave, he'd be in her way. She'd have quite a time of it. That was assuming that that was on the cards, at least. He didn't know how much she'd cared about the place, and about the people who worked there. From there conversations, he'd gathered that she had, at least, had a decent working relationship with the girls, but they hadn't really gone in depth. But the business had been hers, and he knew how much she latched onto things, plus with her reactions - he knew enough about her to make educated guesses.

Eris really hadn't caught his positioning, she was just looking at him. "Do you know who was in on it?" she asked, after another few minutes of silence. "On the inside, from Babylon. Do you know how it all went down, or were you just on cleanup detail and they didn't tell you anything? Did you hear, I...what do you know about the attempt on my life?" she asked. Really, this seemed to her like it was a conversation that they should have had by now, but they just didn't. It hadn't come up, it hadn't preyed on her mind.

"No, I don't know," Brett told her, honestly, still using that same tone. There was nothing here for him to be pissed about, and whilst he had a tendency to be a bastard and an ass to her and people in general, there was a time and a place - and that wasn't when they were discussing her betrayal and attempted murder. "They don't tell me - I didn't even know who it would be that night until I got there. All I knew was a where and a when." And didn't that sound cold and clinical. Though, of course, that's because it had been. That was just the way it worked. And Brett didn't ask questions. He didn't want to know, and he didn't want to draw attention to himself. What information he found out, what information he kept squirrelled away, he did that indirectly.

She nodded, even if he probably couldn't see her very well. Right. Okay, so he didn't know. She had her suspicions. And she was wondering if she could still trust Clayton or not. If he'd been in on it, or if he'd been duped. Really, she didn't think either was more likely than the other. It might get her in, though. But even if it did, what would she do? Start at the top and pick people off til the place was hers again? And with the mafia involvement, there were likely to be a lot of Brett's fabulous coworkers littering the joint. Fuck.

He reached out and put a hand on her arm. "Let it go," he told her again. "Come back to bed," he added - a phrase that, under normal circumstances, he would never have actually uttered. But right now didn't qualify in any way as 'normal circumstances'.

His hand on her arm surprised her. It was warm. Not really something that he did, generally speaking. which again, said to her that things were bad. Very very bad. Bad enough that he was being nice to her. Supportive, even, one might say. She looked down at his hand, then back up to him. "You know I'm thinking about going over there. I don't...I don't think I could find it on my own but I could get a cab. I have six shots." Not that she sounded like she was going to leap up any second and do it. Because she wasn't. Probably. But that was where her mind was.

"It wouldn't be enough," he told her. He'd considered the same thing, once upon a time. When he'd first realised what had been done to him, what had happened. He'd considered just going in and taking people out, as many as he could before they took him down. Which they would have done. You didn't open fire in a police station without getting very dead, after all. There were always going to be more guns against you, and it would be the same in Babylon. Especially now.

"I know." she said quietly. She let out a slow exhale and dragged her fingers through her hair, though she used her opposite hand, so she didn't make him move his hand on her arm. She didn't really want him to, though she was dimly surprised in the back of her mind that it was still there at all. "I just--" she stopped. She didn't know if she could explain it properly. Especially at the moment. She gave a rueful little half smile in the dark. "I could take out the first six Syndicate boys I saw." she said, tone quiet but dark.

"And what good would that do?" he asked her, calmly, gently. "The Syndicate would hardly even lose a step. And then you'd be as dead as they intended you to be in the first place." And so would he be, he knew, but didn't say. Because if she tried to go, then he'd try to stop her - so, he'd be right there with her.

He was right, she understood that. She got it. And she could say what came to mind which was 'It'll make me feel better' but there was that her beind dead part. He'd been right the first time. It would in fact, be suicide. In the end she did wind up saying what she'd first thought, voice a quiet little mumble. "I'd feel better." This was going to be eating at her for a while, she could tell. In fact, this was trumping her earlier encounter in the alley with guy-she-couldn't-quite-remember.

"No you wouldn't. You'd feel dead - for real dead. And you'd probably be dead before you even got your six shots off. There's nothing you can do there, so let it go - come back to bed," he pressed once again.

Dead didn't actually feel so bad, you know, it was the dying part that actually sucked. And the recovery afterwards. Coming back, that didn't feel good. And now I'm just hovering in this broken little existence of mine that's got a shelf life anyways, and so really, sweetheart, what exactly is there that's worth sticking around for? You're even leaving me. she thought, but at least had the good sense not to share. She was thinking if she had only been fucked over by say, Rosaline, then maybe she'd have a shot. Sort of. She'd still wind up dead, in all likelihood. But still. Shit, she didn't know. She also didn't move, but she didn't say anything further either.

He shifted his hand on her arm to actually lightly grip, pulling her towards the bed, since she wasn't actually moving herself. He wondered if he'd actually get any sleep tonight. What the likelihood was of her waiting until he dropped off and then slipping away. He wouldn't put it passed her, which meant that if he did sleep, it'd be fitful. Great, just what he needed.

She didn't resist, aware that she was exhausted. She had had a bad night, it had really kind of only gotten worse, with a few confusing parts in the middle there, but whatever. And now this. Plus, she was thinking if she tried to leave, he might stop her. Realistically speaking, he'd be fully capable of doing that. He was a hell of a lot bigger than she was, stronger, and even if he was buzzed, he still could take her down fairly easily. So, it wasn't worth it to fight him on things. So, when he started to pull her towards the bed, she went, some distant piece of the back of her mind thinking this was a scenario she'd never imagined she'd find herself in. Brett asking her to come back to bed, and leading her there.

Asking her to come back to bed, leading her there - it was all going fine until they actually got back to the bed, and then it was all a bit more real. he hesitated just a tiny amount as they reached it, only for half a step as he decided and changed direction a little to lead her round to the side she'd originally got out of. He pushed her down into a sitting position, standing before her and waiting to make sure she'd actually be getting into bed. Then his intention was to walk round to the other side and get in there.

Eris went with whatever, sitting down when he urged her to, and she thought this was probably the most contact they'd ever had that wasn't directly to do with one of them being injured. She stayed sitting there for a minute, but he was hovering, so she curled up on her side, figuring that was what he was waiting for. Again, she was thinking that his behavior told her everything she needed to know. That things were bad. Probably more than bad. And man was it blindsiding her. She really, really wouldn't ever have guessed it would impact her like it was, but she was wrong on that.

When she curled up, he did what he intended, walking back round and climbing into bed, pulling the covers up and over the both of them. He rested his head back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling in the darkness, listening to the sound of breathing.

She laid there, mind still going. She'd never been any good at letting things go, and this wasn't going to be one of them. She knew that, she knew herself. Like she wasn't going to be able to let Brett's situation go either. And hey, look, both were equally as likely to get her killed. Awesome. She just had a whole lot of wonderful times to look forward to. Oh well. She was silent for a while, before she spoke again. "It was meant to be a safe place." she said. "Babylon. Being a working girl in this city, it's dangerous at the best of times, even when there isn't a killer wandering around taking them out." she continued. "I know that a little too well. And I just...it was meant to be a place where the girls would be safe, things would be done by their rules and there would be rules. Ones that got kept, and it meant that if clients wanted certain things it meant they were sent to a girl who was willing to do that, instead of just having them grab whoever was on the corner and forcing it." She stopped talking there, not even sure why she was speaking in the first place.

Oh, there are still rules, Brett thought to himself. They just weren't rules like they used to be. They were more along the 'you do what I say, when I say it' type of rules. He doubted that would be any kind of comfort at all, so he kept quiet about things. He didn't particularly want to get into the inner working of a whore house in any event, but he really didn't want to have to tell her about how it was now.

"Are there any days when there are less of them there?" she asked. She didn't know if he'd know, but it was worth asking. She'd need more bullets. Or help, which she didn't think she'd get. Plus, she didn't know if she could trust anyone that wasn't the man lying quietly behind her, but she wasn't asking him. He had enough problems and she wanted to get him out of trouble, not into more. "Is Clayton still there?"

"Princess, I'm not going to answer that question - I'm not gonna let you go get yourself killed," Brett said, looking over at her. He could just make out her outline. It didn't matter what day she went, as far as he was concerned, she went in, she'd get dead - maybe not there and then, but they'd know she was still alive then and they'd hunt her down. That was just the way it worked. "...But yeah, Clayton's still there. He was your bodyguard, right?" Brett asked, betraying the fact that he'd actually paid attention in the past.

"Yes, he was." Eris said, voice distant. "He wasn't there when it happened, I don't know where he was." she recalled, though her memory wasn't the best on things so she might have been wrong. She was silent again, curling up a little more on herself, and her eyes were open, looking towards the window where she could see a sliver of light. "You wouldn't be 'letting' me. It's not on your head. None of it's on your head."

"Okay, let me put that another way - you try and go back there and I will do everything I can to stop you," he told her, bluntly. "It's not the right thing to do. It won't help anything. It won't achieve anything. Except for getting you killed. That's not going to happen, so you better get used to that." Practically, he knew that all she had to do was wait for him to walk out of the door. Hell, she knew that - she'd done exactly that last time, hadn't she? She'd wanted to do something. She'd known his presence would stop it being done, so she'd just patiently waited until he left and then done it anyway.

"How fast would you get called in if there was trouble?" she asked. Not that she thought he would answer, or he'd tell her right away, just to say so. Because she did, in fact, know that there wasn't a whole lot he could do to stop her. He wasn't going to stick around to be sure she didn't do anything of the kind. She still didn't even know if he'd ever be back. That had been sidestepped. But she believed him when he said he would do what he could to stop her if he was able. Though she didn't know what he would do if she went ahead and he had to show up at the scene.

"Depends how fast they could find me. It's not on my usual round," Brett told her, talking about the various jobs he was regularly set. he'd managed to avoid being sent to play bouncer at Babylon so far - which wasn't that much of a task, since most of the guys fought tooth and nail for the assignments. After all, they got to play with the 'perks' when there was a quiet spot.

She shifted slightly, turning her head a little towards him but not fully. "What would you do if you were? And it turned out to be me?" she asked, not expecting him to answer that. Mostly she just kind of wanted to know how fucked he'd be. How it might go, since if he got called in and she wasn't toast yet, he might have to shoot at her. Might not be so fun, not that she expected it to be a great time.

"It's not gonna happen - because you're not gonna go back to Babylon. Where did you put my gun?" he asked her, deciding that she was in more danger with it than she was without it - killer on the loose, or no killer on the loose. He was going to take it back even if he had to tear this place apart to find it.

She sat up, looking down at him. "Don't." she said. "Please." She'd drawn it today, even. She'd been scared. She didn't know if she'd even be able to go for a walk without it now. Go anywhere, and...fuck. "Please don't take it." she said, voice quiet. It didn't take a brain surgeon to put together that he figured if he took it away, maybe she'd wise up. Like he'd apparently done.

"Then tell me - promise me - that you're not going to go there," Brett pressed, not entirely convinced that he would believe her even if she did promise. That would mean trusting her, and he reminded himself that he didn't trust anyone.

That's cheating. went through her mind, because she didn't do promises. He didn't either, really, they weren't exactly the types to extract that sort of thing from one another. And she didn't want to lie to him. She'd done so well with not lying to him, she didn't want to start now. It was important to her to keep that. "You know I can't let this go, you know I just...you know me." she said, the fact that she was upset leaking into her tone, though it wasn't anger by any stretch of the imagination.

"Then I'm taking the gun. Julia, I'm not going to let you do this. Whether you let it go or not - I'm not going to let you walk in there, I'm not going to let you throw yourself away like that," he told her. "What would be the point? To make yourself feel better? You think that would actually work? You think that you'd feel like you'd achieved something, before your lights finally went out, if you took down a handful of them? You think you wouldn't actually feel like you'd just lost completely, in those last few minutes? You wouldn't have changed anything - and there'd be nobody left to change anything if they killed you. This isn't the way to do things - this is just you feeling mad and feeling sorry for yourself and everything you lost. This wouldn't even be you going out in a blaze of glory - this would be you going out doing something fucking stupid, and completely pointless. So, either you promise me you won't do it - and make me believe you on that - or I'm taking back my gun." He was serious, very serious about that. He knew exactly how she was feeling right now, he'd had everything taken away from him as well. He'd known what it was like to be standing with a gun full of bullets, imaging what could be done with them. And he knew how futile that action would be if you followed through.

She listened to him, her name standing out to her. He'd used it twice in one night. That was a record. She also noted that it sounded like he was speaking from a perspective of someone who'd been there. Or, he just knew her that well. "So what is the way to do it?" she asked, because he'd said that more than once tonight. That it wasn't the way to do it, so clearly he had some opinion on what was the 'right' way. She didn't think there was one. And he might have thought she'd be throwing a lot away but there wasn't anything, was there?

"Not like this," he told her. "There's no point doing something you know is going to fail. If you need to do something, if you need to go back there, then plan it - figure out something that at least has some chance of working. I don't know what, but I know this doesn't. If you can't let it go, don't let it go - but don't go throwing everything away. Bide your time, use your brain, come up with something. I know you're not stupid - there's got to be a better way than this."

"Throw what away?" she asked, voice mild. "I don't see a whole lot around me that's all that precious." she told him, sighing as she looked down at him. It didn't mean she wasn't listening to him, though. It didn't mean she didn't think that a plan would be good. And he was right, she wasn't stupid, she was just damaged. She'd need help. She'd probably need a lot of help. Fuck. That left her again in a position where she didn't actually have anyone. No one but him. And she really couldn't ask him to do anything like that, not that he'd agree even if she did.

"You're still alive, aren't you?" Brett pointed out, looking back up at her. "That's something - might not be a lot, but it's something. Would nothing at all be better? Would being dead be better? What do you want, Princess? What do you actually want?" he posed to her. Did she really want to die? Had she decided that this was all too much and was just looking for a slightly better death than slitting her wrists in the tub, or ODing on her pills?

She had to think about that. Honestly, she had to think about it. She couldn't give him an automatic answer, because it wasn't there. "I don't know." she said finally. "I know this isn't it. This...it's just an echo. My existence? It's not a real existence. I'm a shadow, because I have to be. I know I've got a shelf life here. I can't keep singing, because I can't learn new songs. The novelty will wear off, and right, I draw a little bit of a crowd. That's not going to last. And my picture was in the paper the other day, so I haven't been able to work. He says that he needs to give people time to forget it. I don't know." she sighed and reached up to drag her fingers through her hair. "We've talked about this. I don't know where to go. I don't know what to do. And you know I don't let things go. So, I'm here, I'm a broken little doll, and now I know that everything I built has crashed. And my girls are probably being treated worse than if they were on the street, and I...was meant to protect them from that. And I don't have anyone I can trust that isn't you. And I still don't even know if you're gone. ...only now apparently you might be leaving and taking your gun with you." Her tone was soft, throughout all of it, and lacked any note of accusation. She didn't exactly blame him for wanting to take the gun. She just desperately didn't want him to.

That hadn't actually been what he'd meant, but he wasn't going to immediately pull her up on that. Usually, he knew he would have done - along with probably calling her some name or other to really drive home how much she'd failed with the misunderstanding. Not right now though, like he knew when he'd be pushing things too far, he knew when not to push at all. "Why would you be doing this? To protect your girls? You really think that you getting gunned down in front of them would protect them?" he asked instead.

She again took a moment before she answered. "No. But it might take out some of the people who hurt them." she said. "I don't know, Brett, I don't have the answers. I just know that I...this is bothering me. And you know me. I know me. I don't let things go. And I don't have this great life that I'm going to be distracted by, I'm going to be here. Alone. Spinning my wheels." It was the truth.

Brett didn't say anything at first, thinking things through. Thinking about what he wanted to say to her. He had thoughts running through his head, but he wasn't sure how many of those he wanted to let loose. "If it were me," he said, after a minute or so. "If I was in that situation. Taking out some of them wouldn't be enough. I'd want to get all of them. Even if I couldn't do anything right away, that would be what I'd be looking towards. Trying to find a way to do that."

Eris let that sink in. "So a long con, as it were." she said. "Something to plan for long term and follow through with it." Which she'd done more than enough times in her life. She just had one problem. "...works much better for people who aren't fucked in the head though, love." she said, a note of something resembling defeat in her tone. "And I still don't think I could do it alone. I'd need information, I'd need someone on the inside, I'd need contacts that I definitely used to have, but don't anymore." she said. "...I'd have to trust people not to fuck me over the first second they got opportunity to. And I really don't know anyone who's greatest goal in life is to put their ass on the line to bring down an organized crime syndicate." She laughed lightly, though there was no humor to it. "Especially not for a bunch of whores."

Don't you? Brett thought to himself. He considered the wealth of information he had squirreled away in places that couldn't be tracked back to him. The evidence he'd collected so far over three long years. He had nothing left of his life, but he'd still been collecting the information he'd initially gone undercover to get. He just didn't have anyone to give it to these days - it wasn't like he could go to the cops now, was it? He knew what it was to not be able to achieve anything on his own, and the idea had occurred that possibly he could use her, that if he couldn't accomplish things legally, then maybe she could, by other means. He hated himself for the very thought that he would ever 'use' someone, but maybe that was how far he'd fallen now, that he'd even consider that. Once he would have thought of it as them working together, but that would involve trust. Somehow, he trusted he to live at his apartment, but he didn't know if he trusted her with this. "Yeah, a long con - if you want to put it like that. You sound like you're already writing things off, but you know what needs to be done. Part of it being a long con is that not everything's there at the start..."

"I could see angles, but that's if I was..." she stopped, then laughed again, an unpleasant sound. "If I was still Eris." she finished. "If I was still her, then I'd have a lot of the contacts in place that I'd need. There was a reason that I was able to remain neutral. There was a reason your boys had to roll in and kill me to get what was mine. But I don't have any of that. And again, I'd need people to work with, it's not like it's a job that just anyone can hack, especially not alone. With me, I can't even be seen, let alone start making deals. Or starting to throw in misinformation. Because you know that's how you start it. Dissention in the ranks. Organized crime works because people fall in line and if they don't, they wake up on the bottom of the river. If you want to crack that, you crack the foundation. You take out someone key higher up quietlike, and then start spreading the paranoia you need to get everyone wondering who the fuck screwed them over." she said, not even realizing she was already plotting. It was, in fact, that easy for her.

"You told me last week that you came up from nothing. So, you've done it before. And so, it'd be harder this time round - but you already know the ropes, don't you. You know who's who. Who's vulnerable. You're already thinking ideas." He shrugged a little. "Least give it some thought, before you go deciding that a hail of bullets is a better alternative," he gave, figuring that at the very least he could get out of this a result that meant she'd not go there. Give her something else to think about for a while.

"I don't have the same skillset I had." Eris said, lying down finally, curling on her side facing him. She realized she was closer to him than she intended, but she didn't move. "I was able to do what I was before because I had the head for it, I don't anymore. Or, sure, I can see the lines, I know how to manipulate people. I know what buttons to push but there's no way in hell I'd be able to keep it all straight anymore, and that's even if I was inclined. Which I just...I used to do it because I was just after what I was after and I didn't care about anything. Things're... different now." She woke up with emotions and she still didn't think it was a fair trade some days. "And if anyone figured out that I wasn't on top of my game which would be fairly easy, really, then it'd be leaving myself open for them to fuck me over, and I might not even realize it." she said, which was an honest to god huge fear of hers, and that was clear in her tone. "You don't do that to me. Pretty much everyone else would. I'm still sure if my lovely landlord knew he'd be twisting the knife as often as possible."

"...And yet you'd happily walk in there with a handful of bullets and let them take you down that way," Brett pointed out. He didn't add any more to that, and his tone betrayed that it wasn't a question, merely an observation. Either way could end up with failure and death - of course, there was always the other option. Give in, give up, get on with it. Some days, Brett didn't know which option he'd chosen anymore.

"I wouldn't say 'happily'." Eris said. "But anyways...I don't know. I don't know if I could do it." she said honestly. "And in the end, Where does it leave me? Do I take Babylon back? Would I even want to? Would I be capable of it? I don't...there are things I know I wouldn't be willing to do anymore. They were necessary before. And say everything worked, and let's forget what I'm not willing to do, and the Syndicate gets taken down, and there's confetti and champagne, and everything. ...what's next? Is there a next?"

"Definitely questions," Brett agreed, his tone neutral. He didn't have answers for her, and he wouldn't pretend that he did. He had his own thinking to do on this situation - and it wasn't going to be right here and now. She might be in the mood to make rush decisions, but he'd given up on that a long time ago.

"Are you taking the gun away?" she asked him, after a few long moments. She hadn't actually expected him to have answers for her, she was glad he hadn't tried to fill in blanks. Because really, he didn't know what she would or would not have to do. And it wasn't like he was going to contribute to her ultimate fate or anything. Not when she wasn't about to ask him to help her and hell, he might leave tomorrow and that would be that. Or, well. Sort of. Even if he didn't come back she still planned to try and help his situation out. Which she imagined was something to consider to hold her back from taking care of things at Babylon.

"So far, you've not promised me," Brett pointed out. If she did, well, then he still had to decide whether he trusted her with that or not. But so far they hadn't even reached that point. He'd been serious when he said he'd take the gun away, and if she didn't give him a reason no to, he'd follow through with that.

She sighed. "What exactly am I promising?" she asked. So she'd have it fully on record, and she could decide properly whether or not she was doing anything of the sort. She didn't want to give something like that without knowing. Not when it actually meant something to her.

"That you're not going to walk into Babylon and start shooting," Brett reminded her. Sometimes it was more obvious than others that her memory was, in fact, shot to shit.

"I promise." she told him, reaching out to touch his arm lightly. It wasn't like he wasn't within reach, and most people shook or whatever. Not that that was what she was going for. In fact, if pressed, she wouldn't really know what she was going for. But, that was what she did anyhow. Impulse control wasn't always her strongest suit these days.

And now he had to decide whether or not he believed her. In all honesty, he didn't. Not entirely, not totally. He didn't trust her not to tell him exactly what he wanted to hear, and then just disregard it the moment his back was turned. It didn't matter that he rarely asked her for much, if anything. It didn't matter that he'd for the first time asked her directly for a promise. Brett found trusting people nigh on impossible these days. But, he was trusting her with her own life. There was only so much he could do. "Maybe," he allowed. He'd see whether he walked out with it in the morning or not.

She exhaled, feeling cheated. What did he want from her? He makes her promise then just gives her a 'maybe'? Didn't seem fair, especially since it hadn't been like she'd handed over a promise on a whim. Taking her hand back she rolled over onto her other side, putting her back to him. She wanted to go for a walk again, leave, clear her head, but she knew it wouldn't actually work like that. Plus, she wouldn't be able to take the gun. He'd not let her. He'd probably think that she'd just leave and not return with it or something. Because apparently, it was offensive for her to imply he'd cheat on imaginary girlfriends, but he wouldn't put anything past her. Right.

He didn't say anything when she turned over. He didn't push her for anything else, and he wasn't going to promise her anything else. He didn't know whether she wanted him to, but he wouldn't anyhow. As far as he was concerned, the best thing they could both do right now was to get some sleep. Hell knew, he really needed it. He was going to be hellishly hung over in the morning as it was - being tired on top of that would help nothing at all.