no crying at the round

who: jason and eris
where: one more round
when: early evening

Eris got in after spending most of her day at the office. And then, after it was technically time for the office to shut down, she'd spent a little bit of time in the apartment. Not much, just a tiny bit, writing a few things down. It had been enough to make her want a drink before she retired for the night, and so she hadn't gone upstairs straight away. She'd headed into the Round. Getting herself a bottle of cheap red wine, she headed back towards her usual booth--and in what was rapidly becoming common--she found Jason. Standing back for a few long moments, she assessed him. Then she approached, sitting across from him in the booth. "You look like you're having a very bad day, dear." she noted.

Jason for his part had been steadily making his way through a fairly good bottle of scotch and was approaching the bottom of it when Eris arrived. “Your observation skills as always are second to none Eris,” he said, barely trying to conceal the slur in his voice. He didn’t even want to consider how he was going to fair at walking given that he hadn’t left the booth since talking to Charlie when he’d arrived.

"Yeah, I'm good like that." she replied drily, pouring herself a glass of the wine she'd gotten, and she focused on him. "So what's the drama today?" she asked. "Because no one pounds scotch like that who hasn't had a really heavy dose of it." Or they were raging alcoholics, and while she considered the idea that Jason was heading in that direction, she didn't think he was there yet.

Had it been anyone else asking, he would have plainly told them that it was none of their business and to fuck off but Eris wasn’t anyone; she’d been the one if not setting him on the path he’d wound up on then certainly had given him a helpful shove along it. “I left,” he said simply, pouring himself another glass of whiskey and not caring as it slopped over the sides and on to the table. “I’m out. Gone. Cast out.” He was exaggerating a little but drinking over two thirds of a bottle of scotch alone will do that to a person.

Eris arched a brow at him. "...you left or you were cast out, sweetie? Because it can't be both." she commented. "What happened? You bring up going your own way and it didn't go well?" Since that's what she'd been encouraging him to do. Though occasionally it sucked to be right so fucking often. But she was back to being on this weird path of hers, so she was going to sit and deal with it. Which included drunky mc crippy drunkerson here.

“Are you sure about that?” Jason replied, looking at her sideways which only served to make him look even less with it than he already was. “He said it was his way or the highway, all or nothing. Never mind the fact we’ve been running around together for sixteen years...” He paused to gulp down some of his drink, the whiskey having lost it’s burn a few glasses back and now sliding down as easily as water. “Christ, he’s such a fucking dick and I was too stupid to see it.”

"Then that's being cast out. That isn't you leaving. You leaving is telling someone where to shove it and going on your own steam. If you're told it's my way or the highway, they've got the power. It's an ultimatum." she explained, and she signaled one of the waitresses to bring some water. "So, sixteen years of bullshit. And he's a dick. Also, you're only stupid if you could have made an informed assessment."

In spite of the suit and the bottle in front of him, in reality he just looked incredibly young and lost as he twisted the glass in his hands. “He thought I would pick him, that he was the only thing that mattered enough to me to stick with and I just couldn’t deal with it any more. Being that guy who he wanted me to be,” he explained, eyes prickling a little. “You were right about him and you barely know him, informed assessment or not, I should have realised sooner I was barking up the wrong tree.” He rubbed at his eyes, trying to stop any tears before they had a chance to fall.

Eris slapped her hand down on the table between them. "Oh, hell no. Suck it up, cupcake, you are not crying in this bar." she hissed at him. "This is the goddamn One More Round, and they eat little bitches like you alive if you start sobbing. Knock it off." she snapped. Though it was for his own good. She also poured him a glass of water from the pitcher the waitress dropped off, and she landed it in front of him with a click. "Now. Arrogant assholes always think you'll pick them, and he sort of set up a world for you where you'd already felt trapped even without the ultimatum, so of course he assumed that. It's his deal. As for me knowing the score without knowing him well, I just know the type. I've seen a whole lot of little bastards just like him come and go over the years, and they're pretty damn easy to spot if you know what you're looking for. You didn't know what you were looking for and if you're accurate on the sixteen years thing then this started when you were kids, which means this is your life and what you know. It's always easier to see the flaws in something from the outside, kid. Don't be too hard on yourself."

The noise startled him enough to halt the tears out of surprise if nothing else, in the process knocking over his glass. He wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t heed Eris’s advice and sitting up a little straighter accepted the glass she’d put in front of him, even if he did so with a small wobble. He drank from it as she spoke, far faster than perhaps he should of and the glass almost empty by the time she’d finished. “You’re probably right,” he admitted, dragging a sleeve across his mouth. “It took Charlie going to prison to figure Dodge out, I just figure that I should’ve woken up more than I did when he wouldn’t come back. He’s always had a good nose for bullshit, guess I just wasn’t ready to admit it to myself.”

"Congratulations, you're human." Eris told him, pouring him more water. "Here's the thing. People in general are all idiots. They want to believe what's easiest, they want to look no further than the simplest of solutions and people don't figure out the big bullshit lies around them unless they have to, or situations change and with them perspectives do. Even players get played, sometimes. And maybe you weren't ready to admit things to yourself, but part of you did know something wasn't right. It was your wording, your language that let me see what was going on. I just happen to know what I’m listening for."

There was some vague comfort to be found in Eris’s words but it didn’t touch the ache that had been in his chest all day, the one that refused to be dissuaded regardless how much alcohol Jason threw at it. “Maybe there was no avoiding it but I really hoped it wasn’t going to go down like this,” he told her, drinking his refilled glass with a little more decorum than it’s predecessor. “With a massive argument and me taking off. I guess I was kidding myself that Dodge could be a grown up about things.” He shrugged his shoulders and took another sip of his water, his eyes vaguely fixed on the pitcher.

"Well of course not. The other thing about people is they don't like being outside of their comfort zones. You just got a hard kick in the ass out of yours." Eris told him. "It'll suck for a while." Because it would. She knew all about that particular brand of bullshit. "As for people being grown up about things...honey, don't ever actually expect people to be adults about things. Not when it comes to the major life stuff. People get pains in their asses over things, and they whip out the coping mechanisms of toddlers right alongside their most petty of manipulations. Expect the worst, and maybe occasionally you'll be pleasantly surprised."

He nodded sadly and for the first time that day, he found himself wishing he was less drunk than he was; getting drunk was easy and soothing in a hollow, fleeting way but he knew deep down it was hardly a long term solution to how he was feeling. “I’ll try and keep that in mind,” he told her, draining the rest of his glass, his mind unconsciously drifting for a moment to the other matter of the day, namely Eily and his feelings for her whatever they might be, and wondering what the worst case scenario there was.

Eris poured him more water. "Keep drinking." she instructed, tone oddly gentle. "But yes, keep that in mind. It isn't fun, and makes for a bit of a bitch of an existence sometimes, but you might fare better in the long run." She sipped her wine finally, watching him. "What prompted all of this life shattering business, anyhow? You just come out and ask him to do something else for a bit?"

Giving her a vague attempt at a salute, Jason tugged the pitcher towards himself and refilled his glass, this time managing to not slop liquid all over the table though there was still a little that missed it and splashed onto his jacket. He barely noticed it though and continued to do as he was told, alternating between sips and gulps of water before pausing to shake his head. “No, that came later in the conversation...argument. Hell I’m not sure what it was, both maybe?” he told her, setting down his drink for a moment to rub his hands across his face to try and wake-up a little. “Started off talking about a girl of all things. Old flame of mine who Dodge thinks is only gonna get me into trouble and I disagreed. Don’t think he knew quite how to take it.”

Being intimately familiar with argument-conversations, Eris could follow that it was both. "He didn't know how to take you disagreeing with him?" she asked. "How much trouble is the girl?" Any number of things could influence events, of course. Her first notion was that the girl had deliberately done something, though it was an unfounded idea so far. She'd have to see what he said.

He nodded. “That and how I was talking about her,” he explained, picking up his glass again. “It was her brothers who did this to me...” He paused to tap his knee for emphasis. “...and despite the fact that her family was wiped out, he’s convinced me being anywhere near her is gonna get me killed.”

Eris took that in, nodding. "Interesting." she noted. "Go on." she encouraged. Though she didn't give him a specific prompt this time, letting him go where he felt the most importance lay.

“We courted about six months back,” Jason told her. “Her brothers got wind of my reputation, paid me a visit and told me in no uncertain terms to stay clear of her or they’d put a bullet in my head to match the one they’d just put in my knee. Not being completely stupid I did as I was told, cut all ties.” The story was easy to tell these days but that didn’t stop the small sigh of regret that bubbled out of him. “Recently we ended up crossing paths, she told me her family were gone, I told her what had happened between me and her brothers. I thought that’d be the end of it, I certainly wasn’t expecting to wind up...being intimate again.” He choice of words may have been uncharacteristically prudish but he prided himself on being enough of a gentleman to not talk about a woman that way with someone he barely knew even if that someone happened to be Eris. “Any way I tell Dodge about it and he starts freaking out, saying she’s dangerous, that it’s bad news.” He sighed again and drank some more water, still not understanding just what Dodge’s problem had actually been.

"Why do you think he thought it was bad news, that she was dangerous?" Eris asked, since that seemed to be the obvious question. Jason made it clear the people who'd shot him were dead, so there had to be something else at work there. She could certainly venture a lot of guesses. And she'd be happy to share them, but she wanted to know just how much Jason was sussing out on his own. Unfortunately, the whole scenario so far sounded like a textbook example of what she'd been warning him about in the first place.

He shrugged again, confusion evident on his face. “Charlie reckons he’s jealous, of what though I haven’t got a clue,” he offered, rapping his fingers against the damp table top. “I thought it might be the idea that he thinks it’ll change things, that I’d change but given a couple of the things he said this morning I’m wondering what kind of person he thinks I am.”

"The two aren't mutually exclusive." Eris said first. "If he is jealous--and by the way you're an idiot if you can't think of reasons why--then it could be tied to the fear of change. Or, less that and more fear of the loss of control. If one tiny thing like you seeing an ex is enough to send the whole house of cards tumbling?" she shook her head. "What did he say?"

Normally Jason would have rankled at being called an idiot but there was a large amount of alcohol kicking around his system to contend with and, as usual, everything else Eris was saying seemed to make sense so he let it go. “He was talking about this job and how he was gonna put me at the front of it, make me this figure that’d be feared rather than pitied for being a cripple and seemed to think that’s something that I would want,” he explained. “That and he was saying how we’re supposedly better than other folks, how proud he seemed to be.” His face was a picture of disbelief as he drank some more water; he’d always known Dodge had been proud but the sheer arrogance with which he’d spoken earlier was just one more reason to get away from him.

"Fear and pity...what those are your only options?" Eris asked, drumming her fingernails on the table between them a moment. "Sounds like someone with a vast amount of vision." she concluded sarcastically. "And oh good! There's a mark of a true genius. It's all over once you start thinking you're better." she told him. "People who start thinking like that get taken down, and the worst part is they don't see it coming. Because they think they're above it and either no one would dare, or they'd be able to spot anything coming at them. But that arrogance, that mentality...well. It's toppled much bigger fish than that guy."

“Apparently so,” he replied, a uncharacteristically bitter note in his voice. For all that he was far too aware of the limitations placed on him by his injury, he’d made every effort to not let it restrict him than it had to and prided himself on the fact. To have Dodge come out with that, that he was someone to be pitied, struck him deeply. What Eris was saying about the risk Dodge was taking with his attitude made sense and he found himself nodding in agreement. “We almost got caught once a couple of years back, Charlie took the heat, did time. You wouldn’t think that had ever happened though the way he talks.”

"And now you're seeing the light." Eris pointed out. "People like him, they don't ever see it coming. And they'll be shocked and dismayed when it does, if they survive the encounter. But they tend to lose people. Loyalty only runs so far, and like with you, once the dawning happens? Once realizations come forth? You can't go back to pretending, and they usually aren't all that flexible. All or nothing. You might want to consider talking to any friends you have that are still under his spell...get them to see the light before he's taken out and squished like a bug. Especially since apparently you already have an example of someone left in your wake, that isn't acknowledged."

Looking pensive as she spoke, Jason wondered if he would be able to convince anyone else to leave the fold. After all, even after everything with Charlie nothing had changed, it had taken something else for him to wake-up and realise what was going on. “I could try but I don’t know if I’ll convince anyone. Most of the guys aren’t lucky enough to have other stuff to move on to, no safety net like I had.” But then neither had Charlie and he’d been brave enough to do it even if he’d had to struggle ever since.

"Even if you don't convince anyone, at least you could say you tried." Eris said, shrugging. "It's up to you. I'm not going to push in any direction there." She just knew how this shit worked. She knew what this city did to little boys who decided they were king of the hill. Or little girls who played queen for a while. It wasn't as if she didn't have the experience to draw from, now was it--though she'd understood that what happened to her would happen. It wasn't like she was surprised. Mostly any surprise factor came from the fact that she'd lived to tell about it. That had been a big shock.

“I’ve been through too much with them not to try,” he sad decisively. “I owe them that much.” Which was only going to cause more friction between him and Dodge when the older man got wind of it and he knew he was only going to burn bridges by doing it but perhaps that was a good thing, a way to stop him from going back to that life.

"Do you have an exit strategy, kid?" she asked. It was a simple question but she was guessing the answer was going to be a resounding 'no'. He was sitting here getting himself piss drunk and getting sniffly, that wasn't the behavior of a man with a plan. Though, speaking of, she poured him another bit of water.

Jason shook his head, pulling the newly filled glass towards him. “Not really,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. Until recently he’d figured he’d always be running with Dodge so what need did he have for a way out. “I got all the money that was mine out of the apartment and figured I’d stay with a friend of mine until I can sort something permanent. Past that I’ve got nothing planned.”

"Exactly how big of an organization are you ducking out of, and how do they generally do business? Is anyone going to come after you?" Eris asked. That was pretty important, really. And while she was glad he had a friend to stay with, she wasn't entirely convinced that was the safest option. For either him or his friend.

“Including the kids he sometimes uses, probably fifty people tops,” he replied after thinking for a moment. “Most of which he uses for gathering information but then that’s how Dodge likes to work, he’s never been one for using violence, it’s not his style.” Sitting up a little straighter in his seat, he took a sip of his drink. “If he did send someone looking for me, it’d only be to talk, he‘s never been interested in doing things like the mob.”

"Good that there's no violence headed your way.." she said first. It was. It took out one possible element of things, though she'd not be surprised if things turned in a different direction. "And right, using street kids. Really nice." she said, shaking her head. Not that she didn't know it happened--it did. It happened all the time. It was part of how the city worked. But she had trouble reconciling one thing, something she commented on with a roll of her eyes. "Yep. Totally someone who's 'better' than others. Definitely nothing like the mob." she added with a heavy dose of sarcasm. After a few moments, Eris sighed, looking at him again. "You don't see it, do you." she said, a rhetorical question. "What you're talking about is your own mini mob. And you better get the hell out of it and take who you can, because I can tell you from personal experience? The mobs who wear the daddy pants in this city do not like competition, or anyone working an organization of their own. And if he's as much of a dumb ass as you suggested, he is going to get himself and everyone with him fitted for cement shoes. Or worse."

The warning struck a genuine note of fear in Jason and his eyes dropped. Dodge had insured that the crew never stepped over the line into mob territory, they never tried to claim their own turf and kept under the radar but these days Dodge was making a lot more noise and if someone got it into their head to dig a little, things could go south very quickly. He might have been mad as hell at his old friend right now but he didn’t want him to end up dead either. “He won’t listen to reason either, hell this morning he said he’d never go legit, said it was his life doing what he does. Christ he’s an idiot.”

Eris watched Jason for a long moment, then she leaned closer, tilting her head to the side as she reached up to bring her hair up so the scar around her neck was bright and shiny, really clear in all it's angry red glory. "They don't like it when people won't fall in line." she said simply, letting her hair drop back as she sat back, picking up her wine glass again. "So, yeah, 'idiot' is a good word. 'Cooked goose' is another term that could possibly be applied."

Knowing vague details of her troubles with the mob cobbled together from rumours and idle gossip couldn’t compare with the stark reality of that scar; the inescapable truth of the grip held on the city by the crime families and it felt like a lead weight in his stomach. “I don’t want him to end up dead,” he said quietly, trying to quell the rising nausea in his stomach by drinking more water. “He might be an arrogant dick but he’s still the closest thing I’ve got to family.”

"It's probably not going to be up to you." Eris told him, not wanting to sugarcoat that. "And it does no one any good for you to be caught in the crossfire if he is stupid enough to keep going the way he is. And if he won't see reason, then..." she shook her head. "Just telling you what I see and what I know. I'm aware how shitty a picture I'm painting."

“The truth usually is,” Jason said with a humorless smile. “Maybe that’s why I’ve always preferred lying.” He finished his drink and poured another, aware that soon he was going to have to get up soon if he wanted to or not.

"Lying is one thing. Buying into the bullshit is something else." Eris said. She finished her glass of wine. "If you need someplace to be that's behind locked doors and has security on the building, you know where to find me." she said. "It would mean anyone coming to speak to you would have to go through security first, though I'd have a chat with people personally." She was just all kinds of hands on lately, why stop now.

His smile shifted into something genuine, small but grateful and he tapped his jacket pocket where the business card she’d given him was safely stowed away. “Thanks Eris,” he said warmly, notes of exhaustion were finally sneaking into his voice.

She eyed him critically. "You look ready to fall over. You could come upstairs, just for tonight." she told him. Because that's where she was headed, to the loft. And while she generally didn't even let anyone know where she lived--after all, it was a ridiculous place for her to reside when she had a business like she did, where she kept her girls in better apartments than she was living in--this seemed like a special case. After all, she couldn't help but think of her namesake then, the title she'd taken for herself when he said it. The goddess of discord and strife, and while she thought it was for the best and stood by her observations and advice for this boy, she couldn't actually miss the fact that she may well have derailed his entire life.

The offer caught him of-guard and for a moment all he could do was blink at her in surprise. Thankfully he managed to get a hold of himself fairly quickly and he shook his head. “I’ll be alright getting to my friend’s but thanks,” he told her, not feeling right to accept it and thanks to the half pitcher of water she’d effectively poured down his neck, he was feeling far more sober than when she’d arrived. Of course, he hadn’t actually tried to stand up yet which would be the real mark of how much alcohol was still coursing through him.

"Be careful." Eris told him, getting up. "I'll talk to you soon enough, I'm sure." she added. His life was falling apart, she was pretty sure he'd be looking for stability and she could provide that, that was for damn sure. Stability and security. It was a solid offer, especially for someone who was trying to start over. "Goodnight." she said, turning to head out, deciding he was her last lost soul for the night. It was well past time she retired.