Principles

Who: Brett and Eris
Where: Their apartment
When: Night

When Eris got back it was before that eight o'clock marker that she'd set for herself. It was just barely before then, but she made it. She'd done a little wandering around, thinking after her run in with Clayton. She wanted to be sure she was calm and collected by the time she got back to Brett, and that sort of worked. Either way, she headed back inside, soaked to the bone and feeling chills racing up and down her spine. She walked into the apartment proper, vaguely recognizing that she'd done it enough times that she didn't get lost anymore. Repetition apparently helped. Or maybe it did. She wasn't sure.

Brett had been waiting for her whilst trying not to appear to be waiting for her. He did, however, have to wonder exactly who he thought he was fooling, sat as he was in the armchair in the living room, having turned it slightly more towards the door. He'd set some music playing in the background, something classical, apparently soothing, but all the same, he was watching the door, aware of the time, waiting for her to come back. he'd been there ever since the day started to darken, but he had a time in his head he'd give her to, and he heard the door go before then. He shifted slightly, moments before she entered the room, picking up the day's paper and turning to the middle, as if he'd just been sat there, reading it and listening to music. Again, he wasn't entirely sure who he thought he was fooling. Or why.

Eris didn't notice things like slight changes in the furniture anymore. She would have, once upon a time, but she completely missed it tonight. She did, however, smile faintly as she hung her coat and purse up, the purse hiding just beneath the coat. "Is the Echo interesting today?" she asked, since she didn't know that he'd ever been that avid a news follower. Or, he hadn't been in their time together. Usually he looked when he was looking for something specific. But then again, he could just be bored, since he was there by himself. She was happy to note that he was listening to music, though. That she appreciated, and she enjoyed that he had put it on himself.

"Not really - a whole lot about the weather," he told her, folding the paper up and standing. "And there've been more fires," he added, hopefully making it sound like an afterthought, as though he didn't care about it, as though he wasn't concerned. As though he didn't have a major twitch at the thought of burning buildings, a major twitch caused by the extensive scarring down the left side of his body.

Eris twitched a little herself at that news. And while hers was connected to his, it was from a different viewpoint. She didn't want him anywhere near a burning building ever ever again. Because she didn't know that he wouldn't go running the fuck inside to save people, and in turn she didn't know that she wouldn't follow him like the brain damaged idiot she was. Isn't that a sunny fucking note. she thought, walking over to him, even if a little shiver went up her spine--though that was entirely due to the fact that she was freezing and had been out wandering around in the rain for a long while. "Are you busy tomorrow night?" she asked.

She was more soaked to the bone than he'd been earlier on in the day and he turned, heading for the bedroom. "No, why?" he asked, just before he disappeared through the door, reappearing moments later with a towel. "Do you have plans for us?" he asked her, crossing to her and wrapping the towel around her shoulders.

She followed him, since her goal had been to get closer, and so if he was going to do silly things like wander off, she was going to have to go with him. Then he was back with a towel, and she smiled, reaching up to take the ends of it and pull it closer around herself. That had been sweet, in a totally non-Brett way. But if she mentioned it he'd probably get twitchy over it so she didn't. Instead she concentrated on his question. "Not for us, but for you." she said. "Call and make dinner reservations for sometime in the evening. Then let me know, so I can call Clayton Marshall and tell him when you'll be meeting."

Brett stilled at that, his face - which was never overly expressive in the first place - assuming a carefully empty expression. "And why am I meeting with Marshall?" he asked her, not putting any emphasis on any particular part of the sentence.

She started to walk past him, intending on making it to the bathroom so she could draw a bath. "Because he approached me today while I was out, and has offered to work for us for free." she told him. Which was the short-short version of what had actually happened, but she wasn't exactly sure what she even wanted to say on that score. Still, she wasn't going to keep him in the dark, either.

"Just like that?" Brett asked her, stepping slightly into her path to stop her walking past him, though he didn't touch her. Once upon a time he would have grabbed her arm, but not these days. He knew she didn't care for that and he no longer wanted to do things simply to piss her off. "Just like that he walks up to you and offers to work for you again. For free. What's in it for him?" Brett asked her. There was always an angle, and Brett had learned to be cynical.

She stopped and looked up at him. "Just like that. I was walking, and suddenly I hear 'hello, Eris' in a voice I'm never going to forget." she explained. She looked away, then, however, with everything else that flooded her mind over the encounter. "In theory, what's in it for him is making it up to me that he wasn't there when I needed him." she said, tone flat.

"Too fucking right he wasn't there when you needed him. And why the fuck should you trust him now? He finally decided to have a fit of conscience or some bullshit?" Brett asked, belatedly moving out of her way so she could pass him, though the look on his face had left blank and darkened now.

She'd expected him to not react overly well. Oh well, she hadn't either, so she guessed they were even. "I don't know." she said. "He just said he'd do it for free. I told him if he gets anything at all, it'll be to watch the girls, not me, and he has to gain your approval." she told him, which she thought he might appreciate. She was handing him veto power, after all. When she got to the bathroom, she sat on the ledge of the tub and started the water running. And he was 'sick of my shit', by the way. So the whole him leaving me to die thing was my fault.

Brett stopped in the doorway of the bathroom, watching her. "Can he afford to work for free?" he asked her. He knew very little about the specifics of Marshall's background. He knew about the forces, the discharge, that he'd worked for Eris. The latter had been obtained from the woman herself, the former from little more than O'Malley gossip. But every man needed a source of income, and if he wasn't getting it from his employment, Brett's first question had to be where the hell it was coming from instead.

"How should I know?" she asked. "I know when he was with me that I paid him stupidly well and he never really spent much of the money, but he could have spent the past few months gambling every night, too. So, I don't know. He just said he would, because he apparently wants the chance that badly." she explained. "I know he's good. He's got a military background, and beyond the night he wasn't even there to help me, he never let anyone get anywhere near me who wasn't meant to." She stood up and walked over to him, turning around and pulling her hair up so he could unzip her dress. "I wouldn't be able to trust him to watch me, I don't think, but the girls...they'd feel better. They know him, they were protected by him before."

Brett obliged, running the zipper down her back and peeling the sodden clothes away from her skin. "I asked because you'd know better than anyone else. And you might have known that he had some kind of, I don't know, trust fund or something. Stranger things have happened. If I'm meeting with him, then I want to make sure that I know more than he's expecting me to know up front. That way I stand a chance of knowing whether he's lying to me. And, for the record, I don't trust him to watch you either. He fucked up - at least, by the fact that you're even entertaining his suggestion I'm going to assume you know he just fucked up, rather than purposefully screwed you over - either way, far as I'm concerned, he doesn't get a second chance with you." Brett knew that he was possessive. He was okay with that fact.

She helped tug her dress off, then headed back towards the tub, where she sat down again and started to take her underclothes off. "I asked him." she said. "If he'd had anything to do with it--I flat out asked him." she explained. "And I don't think he did. I think what it really came down to was the fact that I was a manipulative bitch, and he'd had enough." That she said while not looking at Brett. She didn't know what she'd see there and wasn't in a hurry to find out.

"He'd had enough? So he fucked off and left you and now what? He's decided that he hadn't actually had enough? He's back for more?" Brett snapped, vaguely aware that she wasn't the person he should be taking this out on. Whatever 'this' was. That part, the definition part, he wasn't looking at too closely. Clayton Marshall had been the closest person to her, once upon a time. Or so Brett considered it, anyhow. He'd been the one she trusted, maybe the one she confided in, who knew what else. And now the guy was back on the scene - and that fact alone had Brett's hackles up. It was just easier to write it all off on not trusting the guy. Easier because it had the advantage of also happening to be true.

Eris was pretty much ignoring his tone and the fact that he was snapping. It wasn't like he'd never done that before, so it rolled off her back like it usually did. "Something like that." she said, looking at the water as it filled the tub. She didn't say what was on her mind. That she'd been feeling hurt over it all since she saw him. Maybe that it hurt before, and it had just dropped back into the nothing because it hadn't been in her face, but now it was again. Or that it was her fault, and therefore could she really be angry? She wasn't sure. But apparently, Brett could be angry, and really she'd expected that bit. "Talk to him and find out."

"Where was he? That night? Did he at least tell you that?" Brett pressed, taking a step into the bathroom. "And why... Are you not pissed about this? I've seen you talk about the guy before, he - he was meant to be there for you. Line of fire and all that fucking shit. And he fucked off and you're talking about just taking him back calmly. Somehow, Princess, I never had you down for the 'forgive and forget' type - so what the fuck is going on here?" he demanded. She was keeping her cool, and he'd never liked it when she did that.

"Why do you think I'm having you vet him?" she asked. "Because I don't trust my own judgment on the matter." she filled in the blank. "As for where he was, off getting himself a piece, that's where. And my being pissed?" She shook her head, sighing. "Part of me is. Part of me thinks if he was that upset about shit, he really probably should have been a man and quit or said something, not just took off in the middle of the night with no word so he could get his rocks off. And another part of me..." She shrugged. "I feel like I've talked to you about this before, but maybe I haven't. I can't remember. But either way, I never was all that surprised or upset about what happened to me. It was bound to happen at some point. And, after what he said, that certainly plays in to the theory that I got what I deserved, now doesn't it?"

"Don't you dare start in on that 'you deserved it' bullshit, Julia," Brett barked at her. He'd been very clear on his opinion of that. Nobody 'deserved it', not like that. "The O'Malleys took you down because they wanted what you had, and you wouldn't give it to them, so they took it. As for Marshall, yeah, we've talked about it - but that was before the guy resurfaced, when you didn't know whether he'd sold you out or not. Situations change," he told her.

"Well, he doesn't seem like he sold me out, and people reap what they sow. He was with me for ten years. And pretty much all of that time I made a special point to screw with his head. So it doesn't exactly seem far fetched to me that maybe it was my fault that he fucked off when I needed him. Hell, I probably put the chips in his armor that people used to get to him. Because they would have had to get to him." she said, sighing as she shut the water off, and she climbed into the tub, sinking into the hot water gratefully.

Brett moved round so that he was still where she could see him if she chose, not willing to let things go that easily. "Yeah, you deserved something for screwing with the man's head - you deserved him to fuck off," he agreed in a low tone. "But that's all. You didn't deserve the rest. What you deserved was him to stand there and tell you that he was sick of your shit and that he quit." The fact that Marshall hadn't done that - the fact that he'd just decided not to turn up one day didn't sit well with Brett. But she'd asked him to go along and vet the guy, so he'd do that. "There's a huge fucking gulf between deserving someone to throw a job in your face and deserving what you got. Don't try and put them together in your head, because that's bullshit."

She waited til he was done speaking before she ducked beneath the water, coming back up and tucking it back behind her ears. "Apparently he had no intention of quitting." she said. "Or that's what he says, anyway. And you're extrapolating too far." she told him, looking over at him and making sure she met his eyes. "He didn't hurt me. The only thing he was responsible for was allowing people acess to me. So I fail to see where that isn't what I deserved. I had a bodyguard who was my very favorite toy in the whole world, I played a little too rough, and he broke. Or, at least, he broke for a while, who knows how much lasting damage I actually caused. Either way, he broke, and therefore wasn't in working order for what I needed him for. That's what happened."

"And right now you're absolving him of all responsibility," Brett pointed out to her. "He could have walked away. Unless you had something over his head that was stopping him? He was a grown fucking man, Princess. And you're no Syndicate. You screwed with him - but would you have killed him for quitting if he couldn't take it any more? He had a fucking job to do and if he couldn't hack it, then he should have quit and you would have gotten someone else. What happened to you was not your fucking fault. No matter which way you try and spin it."

"I think you just like to absolve me of things." Eris pointed out, sighing as she reached for some soap. "I have the ability to look back and see the damage, and I know what happened to me happened for a reason. And it wasn't just that people wanted what I had, and I wouldn't play ball. I was on top for a very long time, at a very young age. And I stepped on a lot of toes to get there. Add into that that I'm a manipulative bitch of the highest degree, and we've got a pretty bad recipe for disaster, now don't we?" she asked rhetorically.

"No, I don't like to absolve you of things," Brett countered. "If I did, I would have said that he should have stayed with you no matter what. You fucked with him - I don't know the details and really, I don't want to know either. If that had been me to tried that shit on, I would have been out of there. But I would have told you to your face I was going. He had a job: to be your bodyguard. No matter what the working conditions, that's what you fucking paid him to be. So if he wanted the job, he should have done the fucking job. And if you want to give him another chance, that's going to be what I'm interested in. Because right now, I don't trust the guy to be able to do that. If he's going to just fuck off when he's had enough, not tell anyone and just go off on some kind of fucking jaunt of his own? Then we're better off without the guy."

"If you said he should have stayed with me no matter what then you wouldn't be absolving me, you'd be inflicting blind faith on him." she said. She almost said that he himself seemed to stay with her no matter what, but she didn't. Because tomorrow she was planning on killing a man, and she didn't really know if 'blatant, cold blooded vengence murder' was on his list of tolerated offenses. "Which he always used to have, honestly, it was the one night. And either way, he wouldn't be dealing with me, would he? He'd be dealing with the girls. And while some of them can be manipulative, they've got nothing on me or how I was. So even if he did have some tolerence level, they wouldn't be pushing buttons like that. Not like I was."

"I'd be absolving you of being a manipulative bitch. Which I don't - you shouldn't treat people that way, but I think you get that now." At least, he'd seen no evidence that she still acted in that way. She was a different person now, he was convinced of that. If she hadn't been, he couldn't think he would be here now. "You both did things that were wrong. You should have screwed with his head - but you screwing with his head didn't end up with him nearly dying. So, the way I see it, he fucked up far more than you did."

"No, my screwing with his head wound up with him taking a night off without mentioning it to me. The end result was my nearly dying, but that wasn't his fault." she said. She took time to rinse her skin off, and then looked at him again. "Look, I already told him and you that the only way he gets taken on is if you decide it's okay." she said. "So none of this actually matters, all that really comes into play here is whether or not you're okay with him after you talk to him."

Brett stayed stubbornly glaring at her, unmoved. "It matters - it matters because you think that you deserved what that fucking bastard Volkov did to you like it was some kind of karmic retribution and as long as you believe that bullshit I'm going to try and change your fucking mind. So it matters - it might not have shit to do with what happens with Marshall, but it fucking matters. As for it not being his fucking fault, his job was to protect you. He was on duty. He took himself off to get himself laid. He didn't fucking even tell you he was going. He failed in his job. His duty. That's the bottom line - I don't fucking care about 'reasons', when a guy has a job to do, he does it. And if I'm going to be okay with him then he's going to have to convince me that he can be trusted to do the job and always do the job, no matter what. Or to quit. Those are the options."

"So take it up with him." Eris said, though there was a light little almost smile on her lips. She leaned her arms across the ledge of the tub and rested her chin there, eyes on him. "Why is it so important to you that I don't believe I got what was coming to me?" she asked. Because quite clearly it was. He'd very much impressed upon her his point, which was he wasn't in any way okay with her standpoint on her own fate. He was a stubborn man, as usual, though this was different. Interesting, most certainly. Mostly, though, it was just one of the reasons she happened to like the man. He was just being himself.

"Because it's not your fault. Because nobody ever deserves to be raped and murdered - nobody. That's not the way the world should be, and people thinking that, believing that - it just adds power to all the bullshit out there. To the O'Malleys and the Syndicate and that DiGiovanni scum who think that they can walk all over people just because they're bigger and stronger and have more power. They make people believe that that's just how the world is - and people, victims, actually supporting that view just helps them get bigger and stronger and even more powerful than they were. I will never try and argue that you were some kind of saint, Princess. You weren't and you did shifty things yourself, but deserve? You probably deserved a whole lot of things - hefty jail time being among them. But not what you got," he told her, the idealistic cop he'd once been shining through for a few moments as he spoke, before he locked that away again, his face darkening slightly. "And trust me, I always intended to take it up with Marshall."

As he spoke, that little almost smile grew, to a very light one on her lips. There he was again, that inner hero shining through, that man who believed that there was a Right thing to do. It was ridiculous, in her opinion, but she still liked seeing it in him. But, hearing it also reaffirmed in her mind that he wasn't going to be any shade of okay with what she did to Hollis. That killed the smile. That killed all of her good feelings in that moment. And yet it didn't change her mind. "Maybe things really are that way, and you just don't want to believe it." she said. "There's a reason people buy into the idea in the first place." she told him. "And what do you mean 'always intended'?"

"Just because things are that way, doesn't mean they should be. And if people didn't make them that way - believe that bullshit, buy into the whole crap, then it wouldn't be that way. What you're doing - in believing that whole 'I deserved it' bullshit, is giving them power. Screw them. You were no saint, but you didn't deserve that. Two wrongs don't make a right so stop doing their fucking job for them," Brett told her, slightly annoyed as he caught the smile that suggested she was humouring him. He would have said something, but it disappeared and he figured she'd reined it in. "I mean always, throughout this conversation," he clarified.

"I'm not giving anyone anything--if you recall, I basically gave a big 'see what happens when I'm fucked with?' middle finger to everyone who ever thought it was a good idea to try. Which was your suggestion, by the way. What was our entire game if not using that belief? And you can't have it both ways. Either it is that way but shouldn't be, or believing in it gives them power. One suggests it's real, the other that it's bullshit, so make up your mind. I think you just don't like me being complacent over my own near death." she said. "And okay. It just sounded like you'd planned on having a talk with him if you ever crossed his path previously. I stand corrected."

"No - I don't like you being complacent. And it's the difference between what you do, and what you believe. Yeah, you publicly gave them the 'screw you', but if you actually believe, under all that, that you deserved it. That's something else," Brett told her, before looking away. "You don't get it - I'll go make reservations somewhere. Leave you to your bath," he said, starting out of the bathroom. He knew they'd reached the point where they were talking round in circles. She didn't understand his point of view and he knew her well enough by now that she'd just dig her heels in. Much like he would. He'd get no further on the topic today, but that didn't mean he'd let it go long term.

She watched him get up and start out. "Would it make you feel better if anyone we came across I behaved outraged about it towards?" she asked. "Would that satisfy your dilemma of giving power to others?" It was an honest question. She didn't agree with his point of view even if she understood what he was saying. But she wanted to know if it was just a principal he was defending or a practice.

"No," Brett said, stopping behind her, nearly at the door, but not there yet. "I don't give a damn about how you behave towards other people. That's not the point. The point is that right now, you blame yourself." That's what it came down to. The way she put it, had put it so many times amounted to the fact that she held the belief that she deserved what she'd got. That she'd asked for it somehow. That it was justified. Brett couldn't agree with her on that. He would never be able to agree with her on that.

She considered that answer. "So this isn't a principle. And doesn't really have anything to do with giving power over to the big bads. It has to do with me." she concluded. She was quiet for a second, then continued. "Do you want me to be upset about it all the time? To be driven by some vengeful idea, to blame others where I was clearly at fault? Actions have consequences, that was mine." She drew in a breath and let it out slowly, drumming her fingernails against the porcelain once. "What happened to you was a tragedy. That was un-fucking-fair. That I could buy as being one hell of an injustice in the world, an imbalance. That deserves retribution in some form. But I was a manipulative bitch that did whatever it took to gain power then keep it. The word 'innocent' couldn't even remotely be applied to me. What I got was just a small taste of what I probably should have." she said. "And I know. You don't agree." she said for him. "...have you decided yet?"

He turned back to her then. "Fuck it, Julia - this isn't about guilt. Or innocence and it's not fucking about revenge! It's about the fact that people should be able to live their lives without having to be concerned that their actions are going to get them killed by one or other of the fucking mob families that rules this fucking city! That the only thing they should have to have thought to is keeping on the right side of the fucking law. And they should be able to have confidence that if the cops come knocking, it's not because they've been paid off in the same fucking way. And I know, I know it's not like that, but if you and every other fucking victim decides that what happened to you happened because you fucking 'deserved it' then you're just encouraging a mindset. Replicating the same corrupt foul fucking system and nothing is ever going to change. So yes, in fact, this is a principle," he told her, hotly, not answering her question because, right now, he didn't want to.

As she listened to him, it all clicked home. What she was going to do, he'd never be okay with it. He'd never accept it, or her, after the fact. She was still going to go through with it, for a lot of reasons and not a single one of them would actually matter to him. It wouldn't matter that there'd really be nothing that could be done to get rid of the man that wasn't what she planned to do. That with his position of power he'd be in a place to squash any attempt at taking him down in a legal manner. She didn't have nearly enough evidence against him and she doubted any would surface, either. There was an ache in her chest as she came to that conclusion, as she understood it for what it was. She was going to take down the man who took down Brett, and she'd lose him in the process.

It was worse than the night they'd sort of decided it was over then took that back because neither of them was okay with it. This was different. It felt different. It felt worse. Because that was the bitch with being so involved with a man of principles. He had principles, and they applied to her too. And she wasn't going to live up to those shiny, gleaming standards. Hell, she didn't know why she'd ever entertained the notion that she could. Or maybe she'd just not thought it through properly. Whatever it was, it was clear to her now, in those moments, as her heart thudded inside her chest in a manner she considered sick. In the end, she looked away from him. "Alright." she said. "Go make your reservations." she said, which wasn't what she wanted to say. But if she went with what she wanted, she knew it would feel cheap to her. If she tried to call him over, to get closer. If he did, it would feel cheap and if he didn't, it would hurt. There wasn't a win there, regardless. So she didn't do it at all. "Please write down the time and location so I can get it to him."

Brett took a breath, feeling a stab of annoyance that she had, as he saw it, just blown off everything he'd said. Well fine, fuck her. "I'll let you know," he said, refusing to let his annoyance show, for all he'd been just fine with taking out his annoyance on her when it wasn't actually directed at her earlier. Looking away from her, he headed out of the room, leaving her to her bath.

She listened to him go, the footsteps retreating, and already in her mind she was composing a letter. Because she was definitely going to lose him in this. She didn't think she'd be able to lie about it long term, and in the end she didn't know if she wanted to lie to him. So she'd write him a letter, and he'd get it when he got home from dinner. And he'd hate her for it, just like he had the first time, but it was the only real solution she could see in front of her. Quite abruptly the lights seemed to be going out on her life again, only this time she was the one dictating it.