heroes and villains

Who: Patrick and Eris
Where: her apartment
When: late evening

It was late, and in true O’Malley fashion, Bull was drunk. That wouldn’t surprise most, but he’d been honestly trying to change. He’d wanted to change. The library had seemed like a good enough as any place to start, and Patrick had ventured out in the afternoon to the Alexandrian. The climb up the massive steps was almost triumphant, but his optimism began to wane as soon as he’d pushed through the equally large doors. There were so many... books. And the people reading them did not look like him. They looked smart, and dedicated, and he could almost feel their critical eyes on him as he’d cautiously walked up to a bookstack. You don’t belong here, their eyes read. He knew they were right.

He’d spent all of ten minutes in the library. The rest of the afternoon had been spent at the Round, off-duty. Some of the money he’d promised Eily he’d save was blown on more drinks than most could handle, and then? He’d had an idea. Eris Stockard was the one who’d suggested he’d change in the first place. That was a terrible idea. Yes, she obviously needed to know this, which was how Patrick found himself banging ferociously on the first door he could find in the building she’d been sitting on when they’d conversed in the Sprawl. He’d almost tripped on the few steps coming up, but recovered. He pressed his face and most of his weight against the door and balled his fist to bang a few more times.

Hearing the banging, Eris looked out into the hall. She saw Bull out there, pounding on a door, up the hall a space, and she crossed her arms, leveling an Unamused expression on him. "Stop terrifying the neighbors, Bull." she said, sounding bored. She was actually vaguely surprised to see him but at the same time not as much as she would have been a week ago. "If you're looking for my door, it's right over here."

Patrick turned, looking very much like the Bull he was. And that? Was angry. "Stockard!" he called, and charged towards her, though tripping on his own feet to fall flat on his face in front of her door. "Ow." he groaned, a bit of dirt covering the bruises that were healing on his scruffy face. There’d be new bruises now from where he’d bumped his head. "Son of a..."

She hadn't been going to move, though she arched a brow as he faceplanted at her feet. "What did I tell you about the drinking?" she asked, sighing. "I believe I mentioned something about stopping that." she noted. "You're not a very good listener, are you." Squatting down, she peered at him with a frown. "If you're going for intimidating, cupcake, you're missing the mark by juuuuust a smidge."

He managed to lift his head to meet her eyes. "You ain’t gonna tell me what to do anymore." Patrick sighed. "Don’t work like that. ‘Be yourself,’ ever heard of that, eh? That’s what you’re supposed to tell people." Slowly, he pushed himself to his knees with his arms.

"Yourself is a train wreck, dear." Eris said. "Being yourself if you happen to be Bull O'Malley is a sad, pathetic ending waiting to happen." she pointed out, staying where she was for the moment, as she was entirely unsure he was going to make it to his feet and stay on them. "Therefore I have to tell you, being yourself in your case is a poor plan at best, and the world's most inefficient suicide at worst."

"Keep it coming." he sneered, and put a hand on the doorframe to help himself up, since it seemed like she had no intention of helping. "S’not like you’re one to talk." he slurred out, and winced a bit as a pain struck his head. That would hurt more tomorrow. "That’s all you do, though. Talk talk talk. Tryin’ to scare me with your fancy words, Stockard. You got no real fight in you."

"What word exactly did I use that would be considered 'fancy'?" Eris asked, getting to her feet and she walked into her apartment, figuring even if she tried to shut the door on him it wouldn't work, so she didn't bother with the potential property damage. Instead she just went and sat on the windowsill, eyes on him. "And what about them is 'scary'? Are you hallucinating entire conversations now? Because that's never a good sign." she told him.

He was up now, somehow. Stumbling inside, looking for a chair or a bed to crash down on. "‘Bull you’re gonna go to jail and rot. Bull you’re such a piece of shit, blah blah blah...’ Tryin’ to teach me right from wrong. Who are you to teach anybody, Eris? You’re just a dead woman." Yeah, sense. Coherence. Two things that were pretty much gone, left back at the Round with the other drunkards.

"Obviously it was a bad job, since you're already failing spectacularly." Eris pointed out, watching him look for something to crash on. There was the couch, but it wasn't a very nice one. She avoided sitting on it. "As for who I am to teach, well. You just said it, didn't you? I'm a dead woman." she said, tone flat. "Stands to reason if anyone knew, it would be me, now doesn't it?" she posed. "If anyone knows exactly what the fuck they're talking about, it's me. End of story."

Patrick didn’t make it to the couch, instead sitting on the floor in front of it. He leaned his head back onto the cushions and stretched his long legs out in front of him. "Mmmm." he mumbled, and shot another deceiving look at her. "Why can’t you go to hell already, then? Messin’ up my life with your stupid whorehouse. Everything is wrong, darlin. People I could trust are cops. Fuckin’ Konovich bastards takin’ us out." He could’ve rambled for far longer, but fatigue stopped him.

Rolling her eyes, Eris sighed and shook her head. "I'm not messing up your life, you dimwitted, overgrown child, you tried to kill me. This is your fault." she told him. "And by the way? It's only small children and cowards who don't man up and take responsibility for their own shit. You might want to think about that, peaches, because you? Are the world's biggest whiney bitch who ever lived. Look at you."

His blood was on fire and Bull saw red. The blade he’d stabbed her with was still on him, and he very much wished to throw it at her. But. Something held him back. It might’ve been the echoes of the conversation out on the street. "It ain’t my fault nobody thought I was good for anything. Killed a boy when I was fifteen, you know that? No one blinked. No one put me away. No one re-..." Patrick stopped, and shook his head. "...don’t know why I came here. I thought that... I don’t know what I thought, Stockard."

"No, it's your fault you never taught them otherwise, or ever tried for anything different." Eris said. "We are who we make ourselves to be, just as much as we are who the city makes us. I wound up where I was because that's what I decided I wanted, and I got it. No one told me I'd be one of the ghosts haunting this city, but I am. If I went with what everyone else said, no one ever would've known my name and I probably would have been gutted in an alley years ago. Your problem is you don't do a whole lot of thinking for yourself." she said. "And you never had the right people pointing you in the right direction. That and abysmally poor impulse control, but I think we've gone over that before." she said. "And you came here because you're feeling sorry for yourself, and wanted to either bitch at me or have me bitch you out for being a pussy."

Something hit him then, a spark of energy in the form of anger, or fury, or really just that pure impulse she’d commented on, and Patrick was up, across the room and towering over her at the window sill, close enough that she’d feel his breath. "I think..." he breathed. "I think I came here ‘cause I like you. You said you’d help me and I believed you and now..." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I just can’t, Eris. They’re gone and they left this, this thing behind that doesn’t work properly and it makes me so angry all the time and you..." Patrick chuckled slightly, his face red and eyes drooping. "You’re the only one who’s not afraid. I could gut you here, right now. You’re sayin’ all these things and I want to, sugar. But I can’t. Because you’re the only one who sees me."

Well, Eris had had a split second where she thought 'and here's where he pushes me out the window'. That was a much more likely scenario than the one that actually happened, and it took her a moment to catch up with current events. Like Bull O'Malley telling her he liked her. That...there weren't words for that that would properly describe that.

She watched his eyes, those drunk, lost eyes and wondered exactly how she'd gotten here. It wasn't something she wondered all that often, as she generally made a point in her life to know exactly how she got wherever she happened to be a the time. But in that moment there? She really, really had to wonder. It took her a second to speak, though to her credit, she just spent that time watching his eyes as she considered his words. "Man. Up. Patrick." she said, tone not biting, just firm. In that whole not-afraid-of-him-gutting-her manner he was apparently attracted to. "Don't give me this 'I can't' bullshit. If you can't then you're not trying hard enough. And it's been what, a few days? Not even? Maybe two?" she said, not actually clear on how many days it had been but she was willing to bet he wouldn't either with as much alcohol as he had in his system right now. "And you don't like me, you just aren't used to anyone bothering."

Eris was right, he’d lost track of time. It felt like he’d been suffering for quite awhile, and maybe he had been, in a way. Life had gone to hell after the losses of his family members, after he’d lost all direction. His emotions were just much easier to express with the help of alcohol. "Maybe." he agreed, though Patrick wasn’t positive as to what he was agreeing on. Her words were settling in, and he moved back to a less threatening position. Standing in front of her, he started to become more aware of his surroundings. He really had no idea how he’d even gotten there. "How do you do it?" he then asked, curious. "You lost it all... how d’you not just disappear? I told Eily we could leave and never look back. She’s not interested in runnin’."

I have someone around who won't let me. Eris thought, the immediate, purely truthful answer to his question. But she wasn't saying that. "You realize that disappearing isn't really disappearing," she said, not sure he did. "Even if you left, your life wouldn't be all that different. You'd be in a different place, sure, but you'd have to start over from scratch. It isn't like your story would just end there, 'they rode off into the sunset and lived happily ever after' or some bullshit like that. You'd go, and you'd have to learn a new place. You'd have to meet people, you'd have to re-build your life, and so far that doesn't seem to be your forte." she said. "How I do it is...complicated."

Patrick actually smiled at the thought of being someone else, in a different place. Maybe people would like him. He’d be a good guy. The thought turned into a dark frown, however, when he remembered that was just impossible. He’d always be this version of himself. Bull O’Malley. Especially when he could barely quit drinking and barging into people’s homes. "I wanna know." he told her, not really caring that it wasn’t his business.

Eris drew in a deep breath and let it out in a rush. "I don't look at the big picture anymore." she told him, eyes on him as she spoke. "The big picture sucks. The big picture is always going to suck. So, I don't go there anymore, I don't torture myself. I have a job. And I have someone who won't let me let go." she admitted. Which was not a confession that she wanted to make, but it was all she had on this. So, Patrick got to hear it.

He nodded slowly, and kind of awkwardly shoved his hands into his pockets as he listened. "Someone." he mumbled, not really inquiring, but mulling over her words in his head. After a moment, his eyes locked on her again. Patrick smiled sadly. "Do you believe in an alternate universe, Stockard? I’d like to think I’m a hero somewhere. Instead of the bad guy?" He turned around, and headed towards the door, not even sure if she was listening anymore. "Or maybe I’m dead, like m’brothers. Then we’d have somethin’ in common, you an’ me."

"Someone who is a fragment in my life, and that’s my fault. They just won’t go away. Sometimes I think it’s just to punish me longer, because once I’m gone, then it’s over.” she said, giving a rueful half smile that didn’t reach her eyes by a long shot. “You're not dead." Eris said. "Or, you don't have to be." she added. "Oddly, it's what I'm trying to prevent." Not that she really understood why she'd do something like that. But then her motivations were off the map sometimes, since the whole brain damage thing. Occasionally...she just did things, and didn't necessarily get why until much later. "I don't believe in alternate universes. If you have some deep down desire to be the hero of the story? Be the hero. But I'll warn you. Being the hero sucks just as much as being the villain. And it hurts just as much too. You're not liked any better. You're never perfect, and when you fuck up, it hits harder, because you were actually trying for something that meant something." She was quiet for a long moment.

"We have more in common than you'd think, Patrick." she said, eyes on him. "I just hide it better than you. I was always the villain of the story. I just never minded. Not til recently, and I found out that for me...once a villain always a villain. Maybe it doesn't have to be like that for you."

His hand reached out to balance himself on the door frame as he listened with his back to her. The last part made him chuckle, and Patrick pivoted to eye her from across the room. "You think ‘hero’ would look good on me, darlin?" She was saying it was even a possibility, and that was funny enough. "And someday I’m gonna have to find out what makes you so bad. ‘Cause you might have been a threat to my family, but I don’t see you as no villain."

"I think it'd be a better one than the one you've got going on right now." Eris told him. But at the last bit, she smiled. It wasn't a pleasant one, so much, but there was a true darkness to it as she kept her gaze leveled on him. "That was the beauty of it, sweetheart." she told him. "The worst villains? Are the ones you don't see coming." She didn't say anything for a moment. "I could teach you a thing about evil, I could teach you a thing about good. I could teach you a lot of things. You go sleep that off." she said. "Forget that part where you like me. Remember that I'm the only one who really sees you. If you're ever brave enough to face it, you know where to find me."

It would be hard for him to forget that liking bit with her smiling like that – puzzling him even more in the process. She was a world of confusion, and Patrick was pretty sure that wasn’t just the alcohol in his system. He agreed she could probably teach him quite a bit, and she had already started. He also had no doubts that she was a very good teacher. "A hero has gotta be brave." he told her, and turned back to leave. "G’night, Eris."

"Goodnight, Patrick." Eris said, watching him go, and she didn't imagine it would be too long before he wandered back. Hopefully without being falling down drunk next time. She didn't know what she was doing with this, where she was going. But it was better than spending her nights endlessly just waiting for the day to start again, that same cycle she couldn't escape...because someone wouldn't let her.