lock the door on your way out

Who: Mickey and December
When: evening
Where: her place

He’d spent the day before staying as busy as possible, from sneaking out of Shoshannah and Elle’s apartment as soon as he woke up, starting first to see if he could lend a hand with the power in their building then making the rounds around Little Haven where he was called. He’d patched up more than one thing, fixed a few leaks and even stopped in on the gallery to make sure it was in decent shape.

Though the day he kept him busy it had led into a day where all he had was work at the garage and chatter about the break ins around town. The garage had been spared, but the boss still had them doing inventory and cleaning up whatever else was left from the storm. Mickey had spent the rest of the day trying to put a car that had gotten almost sunk in the storm back together, drying out parts and replacing tubing and fluids.

After it was over he had the paper in one hand, headed back to the Boardwalk to find December. The gala that they’d mentioned seemed like the right idea for her social idea, no churches involved and in a way it sounded fun. Dressing up and seeing the rest of the city in the same state. Once he was at her place, the smile was there, pleased to see that it had mostly survived the storm, just liked he’d prepped for. He pushed the door open to her shop, knocking as he did it. “December?”

December had not gone in to the morgue that night. She'd called in after she'd spoken with her cousin, after she'd told him about who The Tyger really was. And then she'd gone home, downed a fifth of whiskey cut with not much of anything, and she'd slept for a very, very long time.

She'd gotten up and taken a bath only a short while before she heard the voice, and she'd basically curled back up in her bed, staring at the way the lights from outside tilted across her wall. The sound was jarring--enough that she jolted and the bottle she'd had hugged to her chest clattered to the floor, breaking. That was what she got for buying the cheapest booze in the goddamn city. The glass it was in sucked too.

He didn’t see her around, and was close to giving up, writing her off as out for the day until he heard the glass break upstairs. Worry flooded through him and he was already starting up the stairs, quickly as he could. “December?” he called again. “Are you alright?”

At first she thought it was Eric. That he'd changed his mind about allowing her to survive this(physically) and he was showing up to finish her off. It was only after that heart-thudding idea kicked in that she realized that the voice she was hearing wasn't Eric's. She sat up, reaching up to push the heel of one hand into her eye, trying to divert the pain in her head there. Not that it worked. She also realized in a really belated manner that she should answer, though she already heard the footsteps on the stairs. "Here." she called, though her voice wasn't loud enough and it scratched in her throat.

Mickey only barely heard her, but by then he’d limped his way up her stairs and turning towards her room. There was a moment where he hesitated and looked in, spotting her on the bed. “I heard glass breaking.”

"The now overpowering stench of whiskey emanating from my floor should be a good indication of what broke." December mumbled, her words slightly run together. Looking up, she reached over to turn the light on, since it wasn't all that bright in there from the lights outside. She looked a bit like hell, really. Clean hell, what with the bath and all, but hell none the less. "What're you doing here?" she asked, after blinking at him for a few long moments. She was trying to get her bearings, but it was a difficult task at best. Then she looked down again, frown on her features. “Something wrong with your ink?” she asked, mind latching onto that as a possible reason for his presence.

The smell was a give away, at least to the source and Mickey made his way around to the side of her bed, picking up the broken pieces gently. “The tattoo is fine,” he said. “Just normal couple day after itchy. It looks great,” he told her glancing up and watching her for a moment. “I came for something else, but I don’t think it’s as important as why you’re hitting the bottle so hard you’re breaking it.”

"You don't have to do that." she said, watching him as he started cleaning up her mess. "I'll get it." She moved to crawl to the end of the bed but her movements weren't all that fluid. She recognized that she should probably address what he was talking about. And she could probably just tell him that he'd startled her and it had been on the nightstand or something, but really, in that moment she was a bit too frazzled to even think to lie about it.

Mickey looked around and found a trash can within reach of his long arms and grabbed it, dumping the glass into it. “Stay there,” he said before he looked up. “You don’t have shoes on.” When he did glance up, spotting the way she was half stumbling even though she wasn’t on her feet. Picking up another large shard he left the glass for a moment, moving towards her instead. “What’s going on?”

She glanced down at herself, not moving more because her head was aching than because she had the need to obey his command. Usually she bucked against any suggestion of 'orders' but at the moment, she couldn't make herself do anything but remain where she was. She wasn't wearing shoes, he was right. In fact, she wasn't even wearing real clothes. She had on a simple black nightgown with thin straps. When he moved towards her, she didn't seem to catch it right away and in her own mind it was almost like something skipped a beat. Like one second he was picking up glass, the next he was next to her, and she didn't catch the moments in between. So when he spoke at a much closer distance, she jumped a tiny bit. She looked at him then, however, quiet as she tried to figure out what to say. And in the end? She didn't actually decide on anything, she merely spoke, words utterly unchecked as they spilled from her lips. "I know who The Tyger is, and it was the man I was seeing." she said quietly, expression flickering. It wavered between some deep anguish and blankness. That was a reflection of how she felt. She went from sick to hollow and back again.

Mickey was watching her, trying to figure out if it was more than just booze and her being upset, that she wasn’t hurt or needed something. Her words didn’t filter through right away as a result, not completely in what she was saying. When it did hit though his eyes went wider and without thinking one hand went out to her arm, as if steadying her slightly. “I”m sorry,” he said softly, not sure what else to say. What did someone say to that? The murderer, the one that had killed all those people, that darkness and it was the man she’d given everything to. There wasn’t something that could be said about that.

She looked down at his hand on her arm, but didn't try to remove it. It was like she didn't have the energy to. "Don't be sorry because someone else is a fucked up psychopath." she said, voice dull. "Though that could be your cue to exit, stage left. Because I'm pretty sure it says something about me that the only person I felt like I could give my life to was a mass murdering fuck head." Then she paused. "...serial murdering fuck head." she amended. because Eric had told her he wasn't responsible for the park killings.

Mickey shook his head, using the hand on her arm to give her the gentlest of coaxes towards him. “Where would I go?” he said softly. “And I’m apologizing because I can guess your hurting and because I don’t know what else to say.” There was a pause, a quiet moment where he looked at her, ducking his head to find her eyes. “What do you think it says about you?”

She shifted slightly towards him when he urged it, and since he broke her line of sight to make eye contact, she looked up to hold it. "Probably something about how I get attracted to the darkness with people, and how it's telling that I had a rather deep connection with someone who could cut another man open and play with his entrails. Then sew them back in. I mean...that happened. I autopsied the guy. I found that fucking poem. And I told him about it, and about how it was all impacting me, and...he said he wasn't only in it because he wanted to track the investigation from the inside, but that's what it feels like right now." she rambled, only realizing belatedly that she should have shut up a while ago.

“You aren’t attracted to that. You’re attracted to what could be fixed, just like with me. I don’t think there’s anything dark in me for you to be attracted to,” he said, going out on a limb, but needing something to prove her wrong. “That is, assuming you found me attractive and not just interesting because you were drunk.” What she was saying as off putting, worrying, but he kept with her, following along. “You didn’t deserve to be used.”

"Your sister died, and you carry the mark of her memory where you can see it every day as a reminder." December said, her proof that there was darkness in there. In Mickey. It was just a wildly different kind of darkness. She was quiet again. "I went there to talk to him. And I was pretty sure he was going to kill me. He probably should have, I went directly to the police." she said, exhaling as she shut her eyes for a second. "They didn't get him, he's in the wind. But still."

“That’s what you liked about me?” Mickey asked her, giving her a little look. The chastising faded though and fear took it’s place. “Jesus, December you went alone? What if he had hurt you?” he asked, hand on her arm tightening just slightly, protectively. In the wind. He was still loose and December knew his secrets. “You can’t stay here,” he was saying, starting to get up, looking around to determine what she might need to bring with her.

No, but I know exceedingly little about my own motivations at this juncture. went through her head to his first question. "If he was going to kill me, he would have done it." December said, despite that moment of terror where she'd thought Eric had arrived to kill her. Now that she was fully alert, she recognized that it wasn't something that would happen. Not since he let her walk the first time. "He had the perfect opportunity, and didn't take it. He just told me to leave."

Mickey hadn’t let go of her arm, hand still at her elbow and when she spoke he turned back, looking down at her from where he stood. “And now he’s gone. And he knows you know. This isn’t safe. And while you’re fine with risking your life, I’d much rather you not.”

She looked up at him, not saying anything for a long moment. "It would have been easier for him to do it there. I went unarmed. I went and asked him and we talked, then he let me go. It would have been a million times simpler for him to take me down right then and there. He even knew I was going to the cops. It wouldn't make any sense for him to try and kill me after the fact. I'm not risking anything." she tried to assure him.

He dropped so he was sitting again, feeling far too tall, too large, too lurking when she looked up like that. She was already small, but how upset she was, the disheveled look about her, all of it made her seem smaller. Sighing he looked at her again, more on her level now. “I’d still feel better if you stayed somewhere else,” he said softly, not thinking about the movement as his hand went to try and smooth her hair. If he’d thought about it, he wouldn’t have done it. It was too close, too much of an intimate touch, but maybe, in their own way, they were past the decorum and standards for society.

She noticed that the reach for her hair and such was a touch she wouldn't generally have allowed. But, again, she wasn't even really thinking about it, it wasn't registering like it would have before. "I don't have anywhere to go." she said. "And then I'd just be...waiting. Waiting for word that he's done something else, or that he's been caught, and at least here I can sleep. Or...something. I don't know." she said, exhaling as she looked down. It was quite distantly that she started to recognize that he was probably trying to protect her. So she looked back up. "You don't have to look out for me." she said. "If that's what you're doing."

Mickey thought about it for a moment then shrugged. “You could stay with me. Or I can see if Elle would take you in, though their couch isn’t a sleeping on couch really.” She was right in what he was doing though, looking out for her. “I can’t not look out for you. That wouldn’t be like me to just leave you to the world on your own.”

When he put it like that, she had to agree. They'd talked about his wanting to fix things a whole lot the other day, and yeah. She got it. It wouldn't go any differently. "I don't want to stay with strangers, I don't want to leave here. Thanks for the offer, but..." she shook her head. "I don't know." That seemed to be a theme right now. She reached up and dragged her fingers through her hair. "If you're that worried, you can stay here if you want. But I'm not really going to give him the satisfaction of running scared."

That left him in the same place he’d been before, when he’d left her room, not sure of what she’d been offering and what she hadn’t, though this was wildly different circumstances. Circumstances that weren’t drunken escapades, but actual problems. “Would you feel better if I did stay?” he asked instead, voice sounding surer than he felt.

Ticking her gaze to his, she watched his eyes for a moment. "Pretty sure I'm never going to quite feel better again." she admitted. Not after this. "You know that broken thing? I'm thinking this is me, broken. There is so much wrong right now that I don't know that anything's right. At least not with me." The world wasn't effected, but her? Yeah. In a profoundly damaging manner.

Mickey shook his head slowly, keeping his eyes on hers. “Not true,” he told her, emphatically believing it. “Not right now, not right away, but you will feel better. Not perfect, but there will be a better than awful and then better than better than awful and on and on.” Part of him was nervous, worried that she might give up before she got to that point though. “if me being here tonight will help, even if it’s just the slightest bit, then I’m all yours.”

Would having company be better than being alone? She was fairly certain that she didn't have even a little bit of good conversation in her anymore. She was a wreck, plain and simple. "I wouldn't be cutting into your plans?" she asked, wondering. He'd showed up out of the blue, what had he wanted? Wait, had she asked? She thought she had. She'd asked if it was his ink and he'd said no.

He almost laughed, something close to a dry chuckle came out instead. “What plans? I don’t really have a life,” he reminded her. “You pointed that out for me.” Looking away, Mickey studied his hands in his lap instead, stained with grease from work.

She had pointed that out, hadn't she. Following his gaze, she saw the grease on his hands. And she looked to where he'd been gripping her arm, and there were a few light smudges. "You know, I didn't want to be someone else you felt like you had to fix." she told him, sighing slightly. "I really didn't." And yet.

Mickey swallowed hard, but when he looked up at her, he’d mustered up a smile. “I don’t mind you know,” he said even if part of him did miss it, her not expecting anything from him, her not needing him and letting him just be. “It’s what I do. I fix things, people...” Wiping his hands on his pants he turned towards her more. “I’ll stay downstairs, just so someone else is here, maybe it’ll help you relax.”

"That's not the point, though. I don't want to be fixed. And I don't want you coming around just because that's what you figure you're doing. I don't want to be a project, or some abstract agenda. I had wanted you to be around because you wanted to be around." she explained. "This changes things. Turns them into some other line of bullshit." She sighed, and shook her head. "You can't stay downstairs, there's nowhere for you to sleep."

He looked at her for a long moment finally reaching for the paper he’d brought with him, handing it to her. “I’m here because I want to be. And I want to help, to try and fix things because I want to. And yeah, it might change things, but I hate you being here, being miserable and me not doing something about it.” He glanced towards the door, but didn’t get up. Not until she told him to leave. “If you don’t want me here, then I will leave, but I was looking forward to being friends. Sure maybe without everything else, but what’s being friends if I don’t help out.” He didn’t address the issue of where he was going to sleep. That was something else entirely and instead of getting them stuck in the same conversation as before he opted to deal with the task at hand, to see if he could convince her to let him in, stick with their friendship.

She looked at the paper. "...what's this?" she asked, not quite connecting the dots properly there. She could have addressed the other stuff, but at the moment, she just didn't want to. Her will to argue on things wasn't what it could be, which was possibly the best case scenario, considering.

Mickey was hoping she'd comment on the rest, but was able to take it slow step by step. "Um, it's why I came over actually." He pointed towards the article about the gala in the park, then ducked his head, rubbing the back of his neck with a shyer smile. "Thought that you could make good on your whim. Thought it might be fun."

She stared at him for a second. "You want to take me to a gala in the park." she said. She considered for a long moment, then decided that he'd actually made good on all the whims that had been put forth. If he was following up on this one too, and she'd agreed that she'd do whatever, then she had to go. "Am I going to have to look presentable?" she asked.

"Thought it would be fun," he said with a shrug and really, it was just the thing he suggested for her. Something social and outside of her normal comfort zone. Leaning so he could see the article over her shoulder he made a face like he was debating that. "Sounds like even I have to find something nice to wear. Or nice ish, my best suit got ruined in a brawl, but you get the idea. So sure, some semblance of presentable."

She sighed. "Fine. I'll...I have no idea. Figure something out, I suppose." she said, setting the paper down, and she flopped onto her back. "Tell me about the brawl." she said. Because that caught her interest at least a little bit, and she needed something else to concentrate on. That, before she pushed herself up to her feet. She swayed slightly but caught her balance okay. "Follow me." she added, and she started downstairs.

“Well don’t stress about it. That’s not really the point.” Nor was ignoring everything else that he’d said, but he let it go. “The brawl? Um, I was at The Sea and Sky gallery opening, Elle’s roommate runs the place and she invited me. A bunch of...” he trailed off in his explanation as he got up, reaching out when she swayed, but she caught her balance before he caught her. Unsure of what else to do Mickey followed her, getting up and starting down the stairs behind her.

"A bunch of...?" she prompted, following the story. So he went to art galleries? Or was invited to them by chicks? Good to know. She went into the shop below, though she didn't actually flip the sign to 'open' or turn on the sign. Instead, she just started digging through her inks, setting a few out.

"Buncha goons or something busted in and started tearing up the place. Beating people up, wrecking the art and such. Got into a bit of a fight and wound up a little beat up as a result." He watched her dig through the inks, raising an eyebrow. "I already have one new tattoo.." he said slowly.

"It's not for you." she told him, setting everything down, then she dropped into the chair, and took the gun to her wrist. "I think I remember a couple people winding up on my slab from that. A few of them shot, and a couple party goers, right?" she asked, not looking up from where she was starting to mark her wrist.

"Yeah there was some guy shooting, not one of them, just a party goer. I think Shannah and Elle knew him, but I wasn't sure. Probably a couple of the goons wound up pretty messed up as well, same with the party goers." It took a moment before he realized what she was doing and was grabbing a nearby stool and sliding it in front of her. "Hey, hey, what are you doing?"

"Marking the occasion." she said distantly. At the moment, she was making a slow progression across her wrist, a jagged sort of one, not smooth or straight. But it was intended to be jagged. She was also doing it in blood red. "So you fought off the attackers?" she asked, wanting him to give her more of the story.

Mickey sat in front of her, watching the line go across her hand, part of him hating it. It was depressing really. He wanted to stop her, but he got it, that was her thing, plus half done it would probably look worse. Dragging his eyes away from the tattoo on her wrist, he tried to finish the story. “Um yeah a little. There were a few of them tangling with a girl and I helped her out. Couple others as well. Nothing fancy.”

She took her time with the line, adding to it, to give it some depth. Then she put the red away and started to line it and accent it with black. "So you were mr. hero that night?" she asked. Unsurprising, considering his disposition. "And just how many women do you have around you on a regular basis? Or non-regular basis? Seems like you're neck deep in vagina."

His eyes were back on her work, but he was shaking his head. “Not a hero. She did pretty good damage with a high heel,” Mickey told her. “Women around? Not..not many. It’s not like that, we’ve already gone over the ‘not dating anyone’ thing. Elle, Shoshannah. Maybe Eily, but I’m mostly helping her out at this place she’s trying to open.” And taking her out on dates, but he bit back that comment since it sounded like December was accusing him of something.

"That's three women already. How many guys do you go to galleries with, or see outside of work?" she asked. It really wasn't accusational. More she was just really noting the trend, that when he talked about anyone from his personal life, every single time it was a woman.

Mickey made a face, and sighed. "There's Miles," he said pulling the first guy he could think of right away. They hadn't spent much time together, but it was better than nothing. Maybe he did need more guys in his personal life.

"Who's Miles?" she asked. She started to put a couple of 'stitches' across the ends of the 'wound' she'd drawn up on her wrist, though didn't put it across the entire thing. Just a few on each end. Like an unfinished stitch job.

“I know him through Eily. He’s helping out around the place as well. He used to be a soldier, got sent home because he got hurt.” And his head was a bit messed up, but that didn’t bother Mickey too much. From what he’d seen Miles wasn’t completely impossible like he made himself out to be. “Does that help? Doing that?”

"So, Miles is a friend of a friend who happens to be a girl." December said. Finishing up, she set everything aside and looked down at her creation. Which basically looked like a thinly open wound. She didn't answer him right away, considering whether or not it helped. In the end, she wrapped her wrist in a bandage, and she looked up. "It'll mean I never forget." she told him, which wasn't exactly an answer, but it was the answer she had.

“Are you getting at something with this line of questioning?” he asked making a face, but reaching out to help her with the bandage on her wrist. “I don’t think you were going to forget in the first place.”

She didn't stop him from trying to help her. If he wanted to, whatever. It wasn't worth an argument. "Yes. You seem to be surrounded by women." December answered him. "Anyone you ever talk about is a girl. And I know you work with guys, but you don't seem to have them in your personal life. You just have women, all over the place. It's an observation. And maybe you would be less lonely, if you either found a deeper connection with at least one of these women, or maybe you're barking up the wrong tree, and you need some male bonding." She was quiet for a moment. "No, I wouldn't have, but a constant reminder means it'll be fresher in my mind. And the fact that I had a deep, what I'd considered beautiful connection with a serial killer? Is not something I should ever let stray too far from my mind."

“Honestly I feel surrounded by guys all the time with work I guess. I got out with them sometimes,” he said, shaking his head. “Maybe I need a girlfriend, maybe I need a guy to hang out with more. I don’t think it’s an overnight fix.” He kept his hand on the bandage for a moment then glanced up at her. “Why would you want to remember like that? Why should it be something you have to keep at the forefront? That’s going to make it hard to feel that way about anyone ever again.” He might not have much experience, but he had a good feeling that was exactly how it would play out.

"You definitely need a girlfriend. But then again we already discussed the fact that apparently no one in your life bothers to really get to know you, either." She sighed, and sat back. "Because that's the kind of person I am, clearly. I'm the girl who lets her V card get punched by a guy who cut someone open, tortured them for a few hours, then set them the fuck on fire. It's a really special kind of fucked up, and while I'd been aware previously that I had a dark streak and I saw others' more clearly than they did, this is a brand new and very harsh look at who I am as a person. So I'd best not lose sight of that." She sat back up again. "Turn around, I should put some more ointment on your shoulder." she added, eyes falling on his arm. She wanted to get a look at how it was healing, and see if she had done as good a job as she'd thought when she was drunk.

“I’m friends with a bunch of girls who like to talk about themselves. It almost makes sense.” Though Shoshannah had asked hadn’t she? She’d asked more than most people seemed to these days. “You said that you didn’t realize he did that at the time, that he was someone else, not the serial killer when you were with him. It’s not like you jumped into bed with him while he was covered in blood.” he sighed, looking at her. He looked at her, feeling like she was getting herself distracted with himself. He leaned back though, pulling his shirt off, setting it aside and turning his back to her. “I think the fault lies with him, not with you.”

"Well, you're a good listener. So, yeah maybe that does make sense." She listened to him, watching his eyes, trying to find a lie in there. So far, however, she didn't see one. "I still think it says something about me. I just...I don't know. I feel..." she paused, getting out the ointment, and she looked over her work before she slid her fingers over the design, taking her time like she had the first time. She knew she needed to finish her thought, but she felt incredibly vulnerable. Too vulnerable.

“Maybe that’s why I don’t have many guys that I hang out with much,” Mickey said, doing just as she said and listening to her. There was the pause, where she trailed off and he gave her a moment to continue, closing his eyes as she touched him for the briefest of moments. “Feel what?” he asked after it seemed like she wasn’t going to pick up her thought again.

She still didn't answer him for a long time, just concentrating on her work on his shoulder, making sure she was getting all of it. Drawing in a deep breath, she let it out slowly. "Violated." she said, very very quietly. "And I probably shouldn't feel like that, because I believe he was genuine with me, but I talked to him about everything, Michael." she said, using his real name sort of without thinking about it. "I told him everything I felt, what I was doing, I shared it all, and...I can't even describe what that really feels like, just that the closest thing is 'violated'."

He held on to a sense of stillness for a long moment after she said that. While he couldn’t totally relate to the situation, he could imagine how he’d feel if she betrayed him like that. When she called him by his full name he was turning, ignoring that she was working on his shoulder. What he had to say didn’t need to be said over his shoulder. “You have every right to feel that way. That’s what happened. But it’s not your fault. You trusted someone who kept so much from you when you gave them so much. That he used you doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes him one.” Mickey eyes were on hers, intensity and honesty filling the blue of his irises.

She maintained the eye contact, since he'd gone through the trouble of actually turn to capture it. She said nothing, trying to let what he said sink in properly. "I don't know what to do from here." she said. "I was fine with things being ill defined before, but in light of this, I just...I've been lost before but I've never felt lost. I do now."

“I don’t have much in the way of answers,” Mickey said. “But it sounds like defining things might help. What’s not defined well? Maybe we work through that, figure that out, and see if that helps with the lost feeling.”

"My relationship with him hadn't been really all that well defined." December said. "I just...don't know. Like I said, I've never really felt like this before. I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know if I'll be able to really trust in anyone like that again. I'd honestly believed that things were on the level with him. And the scary part is maybe they were. Which puts us back again at the what the fuck kind of twisted bitch am I?"

“You’re only twisted if you were on level with what he did. If you didn’t think he was wrong for doing it,” Mickey pointed out softly. Looking at her for a moment he dropped his eyes to his lap, not sure where to start. “What about me, you trust me don’t you?” he asked, not looking up until after he’d asked the question.

"I saw what he did to those people." December said. "There was a true level of torture to at least the one. Cruelty that you wouldn't want to know existed." she confided. The papers hardly had all the details, after all. "I guess he has a vendetta against the syndicate, which I can understand, but not...the brutal torture and murder of people. That's...something else. Taking them down is fine, but he's done something else entirely." She sighed, and looked down as well. "I don't know." she answered his question. "Should I?"

“‘An eye for an eye’ is rather Old Testament,” Mickey said making a face. “And if he wanted to bring down crime there’s other ways like you said. Two wrongs to make a right. And taking a life, no matter how ill used, isn’t right.” Reaching for her hand, the one with the newly tattooed wrist, he closed his own hand over it. “Have I given you a reason not to yet?” he asked first then shook his head. “I’m not like that. Honestly, I’m about as trustworthy as they get.”

"And everything I know about you suggests just that. But I didn't have any reason to suspect anything was wrong with Eric, either. He was a military man, we talked for hours about all kinds of things... he never set off my internal alarms. Which is hard to do, by the way. But he never did. The only reason I suspected anything was...it's stupid, even." She sighed and used her free hand to tug her fingers through her hair, but stopped before she did it, because she still had ointment there. So she reached up to smooth it over his shoulder without making him move to do it. "He had said initially that he didn't know the poem The Tyger. Then later he was talking about it like he did. He said he just hadn't remembered, but he was a smarter man than that. So it was just one little trip up. Otherwise I'd never have known."

“Well I can tell you with a certainty that I am not very smart,” Mickey said with a smile that lacked most of his normal humor. “You would have known. Something else would have tripped up, somewhere else he would have slipped or something would have come up in the next body. You would have figured it out December.” He squeezed her hand lightly, not registering that he was leaning into her touch.

She didn't think so. She liked that he wanted to tell her that, either because he believed it or because he wanted her to believe it. Either way the sentiment was sweet. But she didn't believe it. She thought that Eric could quite effectively have just never let on what he did. If he could get away scott free, then he could have. She'd never have known. December kept smoothing the ointment into his skin, being gentle about it at the edges where it was going to be the most tender. "I wonder if I see the world how I want to see it. And that was what fucked me up with Eric. Like maybe there were things I hadn't seen, I just didn't want to see them."

Somewhere in it, her hand on his bare shoulder started to get distracting. He wasn’t drunk off his ass this time, barely able to feel it except where it hurt. This time he was fully away of her hand on him, smoothing across his skin. The distraction showed in his features, but he forced himself to stay with her, with what she was saying. “Of course you do. Everyone does from time to time. He made you happy and you wanted to stay happy, so maybe you missed things. It’s human.”

"Well what he did was pretty inhuman." December said. She sighed. She traced her fingers in small circles, along the raised inked lines. "And I had always liked to think better of myself. Like I had a sharper eye, that I wasn't swept up in all that bullshit like everyone else was. But apparently not. I don't want to be 'human', I want to see everything clearly."

Goosebumps were starting across Mickey’s arm and in the back of his mind he was wondering if she was doing the small circles thing on purpose or just because she was thinking about something else. When he opened his mouth to speak there was an instant where his breath hitched, just a tiny little hitch that had him stumbling over the first word. “Human isn’t bad,” he said clearing his throat as if to hide the stumble. “You probably normally do have a sharper eye, but you aren’t immune to being human. Just like I’m not, just like everyone else isn’t.”

It was slight, but she caught it. With the fact that they were so close, and there wasn't anything else to distract, she noticed. Glancing at his shoulder, she noticed the goosebumps as well. Huh. She considered him for a long moment, tuning in to everything she hadn't been before. His breathing, his eyes, how close he was. "How are you falling victim to being human?" she asked, voice slightly quieter than it had been.

He watched her go from talking to paying attention to him and knew he was caught. “I...uh..” he started, stumbling over the words again, feeling heat rise to his cheeks which had him ducking his head without pulling away. “Same ways anyone else would be.” Like right now, getting caught up in something stupid and simple that she didn’t even know she was doing because it was something he wasn’t used to feeling.

She considered that, considered him. She shifted her touch just a little, so her fingernails were against his skin, and she traced them down, along the outside of his ink, not where it would hurt, but she just wanted to see what he would do. How he might react. It was a distraction from the shit storm in her head, and she wanted to latch onto it.

Now she was officially torturing him wasn’t she? The nails down his back got a small shiver out of him, eyes closing as he kept his head down. He needed to leave. Right this instant leave or he was bound to do something stupid under the pretense that it might make her feel better or something equally gallant and absolute complete bullshit. Needing to leave or not he didn’t move, just waited for her to be done with her little experiment.

She was watching, trying to see if he was going to give her anything like a more pronounced reaction, and there was a shiver. She also thought he might have shut his eyes there, and she continued the trail down his back and against the side of his ribs. Feather light, she kept it like that on purpose, before she dropped her hand down onto her knee, wanting to see how he would react.

He was torn between wanting her to stop, just to give him a chance to breathe, and not wanting her to stop. When she finally pulled her hand away Mickey let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding, taking a moment before he looked up at her. His breathing wasn’t even, shorter than it had been before and while part of him was screaming to grab his shirt, pull it on and go, he didn’t. Instead he watched her eyes, trying to figure out what the point of that was, what she had in mind with it or if she was just testing him in some way.

December liked the reactions she was getting. It was very very much helping her disposition. It was helping her forget for now. Taking her outside of her own head. She didn't try to break the eye contact, instead she merely watched his, not saying anything for a while. When she did, she drifted a tiny bit closer. Almost imperceptible. "So what now?" she asked. "Looks like you're distracted."

While he couldn’t see where she moved closer, Mickey was sure he felt the space between them get smaller. Swallowing hard he half nodded. “Quite, but...I have no idea. I keep thinking I’m going to get up and leave...” But he wasn’t. He was still there, staring at her, waiting for something else to happen.

"You'd have to put on your shirt." she told him. She also reached back up to slide her hand over his tattoo again. He probably should go. He'd made his views on things very very clear. How he didn't believe in sex before marriage, and he didn't even have a girlfriend, and there was the part where she was pretty sure that he wasn't actually into her. It was probably cheating, since she was guessing he was more or less untouched. So it couldn't be too hard to get the reactions out of him. And yet.

He had an answer, something in response to getting his shirt and then she was touching him again and he forgot it. The touch had him leaning into her more, still not close enough to be touching her, but it was like she was guiding him there. “You’re...making that hard.”

"I'm not actually stopping you." she pointed out, trailing her fingers down his spine this time. She ticked her gaze down to his lips, then back up to his eyes. "Is this my fault?" she asked. "Do you want to go, or are you just thinking that you're going to?"

“You’re the one giving me reasons to stay,” Mickey said, breath hitching louder this time when her fingers went down his spine. His hand went out to her, catching the elbow of the arm that wasn’t on him, almost gripping it but not hard. Still his hand covered her arm, the size difference between them more obvious. “I have no idea what I want,” he admitted.

She glanced down at his hand on her arm, and recognized that she probably wasn't in a position to make sound decisions. Right now she was chasing that distraction, the pushing back of every dark vein in her head. And he was working like a charm. "Don't overthink it. What do you want?" she asked. "Close your eyes, and don't really think about it, just look for truth."

Not thinking wasn’t something he was good at. Not in situations like this, though he was sure he hadn’t been here in too long. “Don’t do that,” he told her trying to shake his head, but not able to pull away enough. “You know everything I want. I’ve already told you all that.” His hand on her arm was drawing her closer though, not something he meant to do but something he was doing anyway.

December noticed his drawing her in. And she let him, though she was certain that at any given moment he was going to have a shot of clarity to the system and he'd do that leaving thing. "I don't know everything you want. I know you don't believe in anything happening before marriage. That you're saving yourself. But I also know you like me touching you right now. So..." She let one shoulder rise up then fall slightly. "It's not so cut and dried."

Her words stopped him, eyes focusing better on her as he tried his best to catch his breath. “No middle ground then?” he asked when he was sure he could speak without tripping on every word. “Either I go against what I believe in, or I leave?” That was how it sounded, but he wasn’t sure he was thinking clearly either.

"There could be middle ground. Is there middle ground for you?" she asked. Because she honestly could go with a middle ground right now. While she was happy for the distraction, she also wasn't entirely certain she wouldn't freeze up if things went too far. But as far as she had understood, people with beliefs like his didn't have a lot of grey area.

Mickey had no idea if there was middle ground of not. Right now he wanted there to be, he wanted it badly. He wanted a chance for this moment not to pass, but not risk everything he believed in, the way he’d lived his life. “There has to be,” he said softly, watching her eyes.

December really was desperate for things to stop in her head. To really just...fucking stop. So, she did what was likely the stupid thing. She kissed him. It was really not hard to close the distance, he was right there. She didn't pull him in, she just leaned that little bit forwards to brush her lips against his. From there, she didn't know what else to do. She took her own advice and didn't overthink it. It was just waiting to see if he was going to return it.

It took a second, like he didn’t think she’d do it, like he didn’t guess that she’d actually kiss him, before he kissed her back. When he did it was slightly eager, but still controlled, just like so much else about him. The hand on her arm tightened, enough to keep her there, keep her from pulling away.

She was half a tick from pulling back before he started to return the kiss. When he did that, she shifted closer, putting her free hand up against the back of his neck, drawing him closer. He'd pulled up a chair, but the sturdier one was the one she was seated on. So, she had a very very vague idea of getting him there. Drawing the kiss out, she kept it slow for a moment, before she deepened it, not sure where the line was there for him, but she was going to find out.

He’d told her earlier that everyone was susceptible to being human and even with all his convictions, his rules and his ideas about the order things should go in, Mickey fell as well and found his other hand going to her lower back, holding her against him. The deeper kiss got a soft noise out of him, something surprised, but he didn’t jerk back. Instead he let her, meeting it with his own kiss in return, mimicking her movements when he wasn’t sure what to do.

If he wanted her against him, she gave it to him. She shifted, being a little firmer with things than he was. But she expected that. That was alright with her. She smoothed her hand over his chest, and pushed against him just a tiny bit, just enough to truly get his attention. That was what she wanted. She'd liked the noise, she wanted to hear more of that.

Her hand on his chest definitely had Mickey's attention, enough that he gasped into this kiss slightly, pulling back just a tiny bit to try and catch his breath. He let go of her arm, smoothing his hand along her hairline as he kept her close even as the kiss dwindled off. He had no idea what he was doing, other than trying to breathe, but he was opening his eyes, searching for hers, for something, some sort of direction of just what he was doing, what they were doing. Insecurity was written all over his features and his eyes were bright with confusion and the thrill of kissing her.

She had a decision to make. And she made it quickly. Because she could suggest they go back upstairs. That they head to her bedroom. But she wanted to keep him feeling safe within the middle ground, so instead she went in a different direction. She pulled back, though not far, and she pulled him with her. "Sit back here." she instructed, wanting him to sit back in the leather chair she had for her customers. It was sturdy. It would hold the both of them easily, and it would mean she could be on top--meaning she could call more of the shots, which he might actually require.

When she pulled back he made a soft involuntary noise, not wanting her to move away from him. So much that he went with her when she pulled not thinking twice about it. He should be thinking, reconsidering it, but he managed to get up from one chair, moving into the other, assuming she’d get out of his way when he did.

The protesting sort of sound was nice. She liked that. December did move, pushing him back against the chair so it reclined. It wasn't a bed, it was still a chair, but it'd be more comfortable. She crawled over him, til she straddled his hips, then she settled herself back down. She gazed down at him, and thought about giving him another out, but in the end she didn't, instead just diving forward to kiss him again.

It was almost too much, her pushing him back and the sense of falling as the chair went with him, her straddling him. The thought of needing to leave again crossed his mind, and he thought about getting up, but he’d have to move her, which he didn’t want to do. “December,” he started to protest but her name got cut off in the kiss and just like before, he gave in after a slight hesitation, sliding his hand into her hair.

She was just about to pull back, to stop and just head upstairs alone, but then he returned the kiss. So she took that as a cue that he wasn't actually going to stop her. Instead, he was going with it. So she went with it took, and let herself stop thinking again. Just...kissing him. It was different than it had been with Eric, but not bad. In fact, the total opposite of Eric right now was a plus. Even physically, Mickey and Eric were very different.

Mickey wasn’t completely out of his depth, kissing her deeply just like she had before. He’d been kissed before, not in the position he’d gotten himself into, but at least part of it he had a grasp on. He wasn’t sure where it was going to go, but Mickey forced himself to stop thinking about where it was going and just be right where he was now.

She kissed him until she needed to draw breath, then she pulled back just a little, though it was really just to kiss along his jaw then down his neck. That, as she pushed against him enough to get his attention. Sure, there were clothes between them and such, but did that really mean she neglected that? Nope. It didn't.

The kisses down his neck were one thing, something for him to get caught up in, not pushing too many boundaries even if he felt like he should be kissing down her neck, not the other way around. Her body against his like that though, that had him jumping, starting to sit up and pulling away from her slightly. “December,” he said, breath short and ragged, but fairly certain that was too much too fast.

She went when he pushed her, so it meant she sat back up. Her breath was uneven, and she looked down at him. She opened her mouth, about to tell him that their clothes were on, she hadn't even attempted to remove them, but in the end she shut it again. This was why she'd not asked him to stay the other night. Because he wasn't this guy. And apparently, 'middle ground' was so mild your average high school student went farther on a first date. Or, maybe they didn't, it wasn't like she'd been to highschool. She closed her eyes shut tight for a few heartbeats that she could feel thudding in her chest, in her ears. "Okay." she said after she gave herself another second. Then she slid off the chair.

He watched her, hating that she looked like she wanted to say something and then said nothing. Her moment that she took, that had him sitting up more, opening his mouth to say something, but then she was leaving and that, that he knew wasn’t good. “Wait, stop,” he said, already trying to get up to go after her.

December put her hands up in protest, even if her back was already to him. "Don't." she said, sounding tired. Drained. Not angry, however. "I get it." She didn't need some explanation on it. She had known his beliefs and the fact that he took them seriously before she'd even kissed him, so there was that. It had been a stupid idea in the first place to even try to go there.

“Do you?” he asked, running a hand through his hair. “Because I’m not sure if you do. I’m not sure I do.” He hated that she sounded so tired, so torn up when he wanted something different, when he wanted to help.

"I get that you're not in for this. And that you don't really have a middle ground." December told him. "So, fine. I understand. I'm not going to give you shit for it. But I'm also not going to get myself all worked up, and go in for this, when you're just..." she sighed. "I get it. So. Okay. Understood. I'm going upstairs now, and going back to bed, and you can lock your door on the way out. It shouldn't have been open to start with, I just...forgot." She'd been a little too distraught to remember the whole door lock thing. That and she knew a locked door wouldn't stop certain people from getting in.

Mickey reached for his shirt, pulling it on because he was feeling exposed, but not because he wanted to leave. “I said I’d stay. I can still stay,” he said, rushed because he didn’t like her sending him away like that. That wasn’t why he was here. “I don’t know what I have, I don’t even know what you want.” He took a step around her, touching her arm, trying to get her to turn and look at him.

The flinch that normally happened when people tried to touch her kicked in right at that point, when he tried to touch her arm. It was pronounced, impossible to miss, though she did look back over her shoulder at him. "I'm not going to be someone else you're fixing. I refuse to be that. So you don't get to stay." She drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "I'm fine. And I'll be fine, and that's that. Maybe at some point you'll figure out your own end of things, and when you do, you go ahead and let me know. But right now, I'm a little too fucked to wade through it. Not right now, not tonight. It's nothing against you, I just...found out the closest person in my life is a goddamn serial killer, so I might need a little time to not have to navigate landmines with someone else." Which was the bare bones truth. And he didn't know what was up or what he was doing, and she just...yeah. Not tonight. Not after what she was going through. She needed simplicity, not a huge trigger-fest of issues to work around. "I'm sorry I even started anything. I shouldn't have done that." She did feel like it was her fault.

The flinch had him putting his hand away, feeling bad that he’d done that to her. “I’m not...come on December. We said friends. This isn’t friends. This is...I don’t know what it is. It was us talking then us kissing and it’s not like that was bad, but I barely know you and you barely know me. Or at least not like that....” He let out a little sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s...that’s not going to fix anything for either one of us, but I can be here. Because I worried if I leave now you’re gonna go back on your word and we’re gonna go backwards. And if you shut me out, I’m not sure who else you’re gonna let in again.”

Well, he wasn't wrong. It was an astute observation on his end, and probably wholly accurate. And while she'd been liking the idea of them as friends, of having someone else in her life, it was all getting very complicated very quickly. And it was too much for her to handle right now. She needed things to be as uncomplicated as possible, at least until she could feel emotionally stable again. And she had no idea when that might actually occur. If it ever did. "I said I was sorry." she said, addressing the point about them kissing not being 'friends'. She also took it as him shutting down that sort of thing, the pointing out of the discrepancy very clear to her. "I think I need to be alone right now. Like I said, lock up, please. I'd appreciate it." she told him, turning towards the stairs to start heading up them.

He got a few steps after her, not fast enough to keep up with her even if she wasn’t moving quickly. “Sorry isn’t what I want to hear,” Mickey said after her. “And I’m not going. I’ll lock up but I’m not leaving. I won’t let you get rid of me that way.”

"Well how about the 'get the fuck out of my house, Mickey, before I call the cops', would that work to get rid of you?" she snapped, turning around on the steps to look down at him. "And I don't really give a damn what you want to hear right now, maybe this isn't really about you, and maybe you don't always get your goddamn way. Maybe no one does. But you know what I need right now? Silence. And no one's bullshit, and no one else's issues, and I just--I can't do this right now. Okay? Can't do it. So go. Please."

“Call ‘um,” Mickey said, not budging. “This isn’t about me and my issues. Yeah, so I suck at that,” he said nodding back towards the chair they’d been in. “But I’m a good friend, the best you could find and everything in me says at I shouldn’t leave. But I can be quiet. Go to bed. I’ll be here if you need me.” He lumbered back towards the door, locking it up when he got there.

"I want you gone! Just fucking go!" she shouted, frustration level really starting to spike. She wasn't up for this. Nothing in her suggested even for a moment that she could. Any other day of her life, she could have. But not tonight. "I don't care. I want to be alone. I don't want you here. I don't want anyone here."

That had him looking back at her, the way she was yelling and him and telling him to leave. Moving back towards her, he waited at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her. “Do you trust me at all?” he asked softly, despite the fact that she was yelling at him, telling him to get lost.

"I don't trust anybody." December said. It was flat, and she knew it wasn't the answer he wanted. He was looking for 'yes'. And it was possible she even did trust him, but she knew the best way to get him to leave, and right now that was not going with the truth. If it even was true. At the moment, she just kind of didn't know anything.

That hurt but it didn’t show on Mickey’s face. He was good at hiding that. “Guess you figured it out then,” he said, tone as flat as hers. “Earlier I at least got an I don’t know.”

"I guess so. Will you leave now?" she asked. She didn't want to have to call the cops. She wanted them to be busy hunting down Eric. Plus, it was the boardwalk. There was no guarantee that they'd even show. Half the time they didn't, and the other half they were looking the other way anyhow. She really didn't want to be doing this to Mickey, but it was probably for the best. He could fuck off, get out of her life, and she could go back to the way things were. Where she didn't talk to anybody, did her job, and shut up about it. That way she couldn’t feel like this ever again. Both utterly fucked up and rejected at the same time.

Mickey took a step back, nodding a little and running his hand through his hair again. “Yeah, sure,” he said, starting back towards the door. He still didn’t want to, but at this point...at this point she’d just taken everything they had and thrown it away like it was nothing. Maybe it was for the best it didn’t get any farther physically than it did. He was feeling used enough as is on top of everything else. Once he was at the door he looked up at her again, hurt showing for an instant because he wanted her to see it. “Still gonna go on Friday, to the gala thing. If you change your mind. Show up however you want, presentable or not.” He gave her one last look then left, making sure the door locked behind him.

She saw it, of course. And she hated that it was there, but at the same time--best for him in the long run. She was a train wreck, she was sure of that now. Nothing good was going to come of any kind of connection with her. End of story. Standing, she headed back upstairs, to go back to sleep, with the full intention of staying there as long as possible.