trigger points

who: brett and eris
where: their place
when: after the party
(briefly nsfw)

They'd made a final circuit around the room. That part, admittedly, was a blur for her. Just empty social niceties that she did just fine with, but she wasn't even trying to commit to memory. During that time she was just so very aware of Andrei's presence. And then, Brett had asked her just how long they had to stay, and she'd given the okay to go home.

Which they had. And neither one of them had said a single word in the ride there. She was slowly feeling everything she'd shoved down welling back up, and by the time they got up to their floor, the elevator doors sliding shut behind them, she felt like it was right there beneath the surface. She turned, though, looking at the call button, looking for a keyplate. "This needs to lock." she said, voice distant. "This--we need to lock this, why doesn't it have a lock?" she asked, feeling the button plate to see that it didn't have a secret door or anything. "Where are the stairs? Is that locked? We need to lock it."

Brett had been thinking much the same thing. All the way home, walking through the lobby, riding up in the elevator. He'd looked again at the staff in the building and seen them just as the ornamentation they were. Andrei Volkov. Fuck. He didn't need a guy like that anywhere near them. He didn't want a guy like that piecing it together that he'd saved Eris' life, even if there were no more O'Malleys to go running to. Maybe it didn't matter - maybe it would just be that the fucking assassin would know something about Brett that they weren't broadcasting, but until he knew that for sure, he was on edge, and preparing for a late night visit. Better over prepared than dead. This wasn't an angle he'd seen coming.

But there was another thing he hadn't seen coming - and that was her reaction to all of this. he could have understood it if she was concerned. Even angry. But what she was saying, the way she was saying it - it had an edge of panic to it, or so he thought. That caught him off guard and made him turn and look at her again. "Why so worried?" he asked her, frowning slightly. It seemed over the top, even if she'd worked out the connection to him Andrei had been hinting at not-so-subtly.

"Just where are the fucking stairs, and are they locked?" Eris snapped, looking around at all of the doors, thinking about ways to block a door. "Does it push in from there?" Could they take it off it's hinges and reverse it so it did? Barricades didn't work quite so well if they weren't on the side that was meant to swing inwards. She looked at the elevator call again. No key. And she couldn't go in and hit the emergency stop because there was an elevator person in there. Fuck.

Brett turned on his heel and headed for the emergency exit without a word. There was a deadlock bolt on the inside and he slid it home with a definite clunk. He walked over to the phone and picked it up, calling down to the front desk, telling the man down there in short order that under no circumstances were they to have any visitors tonight. Then he took Eris by the arm and walked her towards the door back to their apartment. There were locks on those doors, if she wanted locks.

She took a couple of steps before she tried to get her arm back, even if she was still walking where they were headed. "Let go." she said, voice still sounding off, though it was hard to tell in what fashion, exactly. She needed to get to the bedroom. Maybe the bathroom in there, because that was the end of the line, defense-wise. The place inside that had as many locked doors between the outside and in as possible. And it had sharp things in there, unlike the closet. She just needed to get there, then...she didn't know. She'd figure it out. She'd get undressed, and lie down, and close her eyes, and...probably get the play by play filled in fragments again, like she was right now just thinking about it.

He let go the moment that she asked him to, dropping back a few steps behind her and locking the door through from the lobby as they headed through down the corridor to their apartment, then locking the apartment door as well. He set the keys down on a side table and stopped. "Why so worried?" he asked, again, in a more demanding tone. He wanted to know what had her so freaked, because that was how she seemed.

She wasn't stopping. She'd walked straight through to the bedroom, and she shut the door there, even if she didn't lock it, and into the bathroom she went. Once there she shut the door in there as well, leaning back against it. She closed her eyes for a long moment, but it didn't help. Nope, that just left her alone with all the fun new mental imagery. The fun new fragments. It was distantly that she realized that she was breathing too much. That fast, hyperventilating sort of breathing that was making her lightheaded, and she pushed off of the door, stepping up to the counter to lean her hands on it. One step at a time. One step. She reached up to take her earrings out, and noticed her hand was shaking. God.

When she walked off, he followed her, in time enough to get first one then another door shut before he could get there. Normally a shut door would have given him pause, a question over respecting privacy. This time he didn't even slow as he went after her, walking into the bathroom in time to see her fumbling over her jewellery. "Julia," he said, walking up behind her and putting his hand over hers. He'd dropped the demanding tone. He was confused about her reaction, but more than that now, he was worried. "Princess, you need to tell me what's going on."

She shook her head. Immediately, she shook her head, that knee-jerk reaction in her saying no, no no, no telling. She didn't want to tell him. She didn't even want to think about it, let alone try and articulate something like that. Some distant part of her recognized that she was acting crazy right now. Erratic, not at all herself, she was shaking like a leaf all over, she felt like her legs were going to give out, and she just needed to take off her jewelry. That was all, that was the first step, and she could do that, and then get her shoes off. They hurt her feet. "I'm fine." she said, and even her voice was wavering at this point. Fuck. Plus, there was no confidence in the words, and it flew in the face of all evidence. She leaned her free hand heavily down on the counter, feeling like she was going to be sick for a moment.

"Bullshit," he told her, though his tone again was softer than it ever usually was. He encouraged her to turn towards him, settling his free hand on her waist. "I know that guy. Volkov," he added, certain that there hadn't been anything else that had happened tonight that could bring about a reaction, unless he'd entirely missed something.

She resisted the turn, but in the end went with it because it was easier to do that then not, and she leaned heavily back against the counter, staring first at his shirt buttons, then back up to his eyes. She tried to calm down. Calm. Really. Breathing was good, slow, deep breaths. She managed to do that, though it was an erratic process, not at all one that was smooth, and it was clear she was having to force herself to do it. She was freaking and she needed to not be doing that. "I didn't remember everything." she said when she spoke, and it came out oddly quiet, and there was an edge of true vulnerability to it that she'd never displayed previously. "There were things I blacked out, and I didn't remember, but it came back, and he was wearing that fucking belt, Brett, and the doors are locked, right? They're locked?" That last bit had a clear and present desperation in her tone, as it broke a little, and her entire posture and expression.

It took Brett a moment before he clued into exactly what she was saying, and put it together with Andrei, what he knew of him, and what he'd said before and as he did, his hands on her shoulder, on her waist tightened, the anger alighting in his eyes, his expression hardening. He'd never known who had been sent to kill her, only that whoever it had been hadn't done a very good job. She'd still been breathing - if only just - when he got there. Andrei's work he'd cleaned up before, she hadn't been like some of his other victims. "The doors are locked," he confirmed for her. "They're locked and if anyone comes through them, then they have to deal with me," he added. And right now, he was pissed, really pissed. Once upon a time, disposing of a body and cleaning up a crime scene was just part of his job. Now, now she was personal. Now things had changed. And he knew Andrei, knew his work. It wasn't just a job to that guy, that bastard enjoyed it.

She exhaled a slight bit, and squeezed her eyes shut, reaching up to cover her face with both hands for a long moment. Calm, calm, calm. She needed to be calm. Again, she'd been okay, but she'd been in a situation where she wasn't allowed to have a breakdown. Right now? Now there wasn't anything quite there holding her together, beyond Brett being witness to it. Which she didn't want either. She didn't want him to see her like this. He was meant to have confidence in her abilities, and this was definitely not her being her best, now was it. "...could you go put on some music for me?" she asked. "I don't care what."

Brett looked down at her for a moment, then nodded. "Of course," he said, taking a step back and leaving her. He'd set up her record player in the living room earlier, and he picked a disk at random, putting it on and setting it to play. It turned out to be some light jazz, which didn't seem to fit the mood properly right now, but Brett had no idea what would do that, so left it as he returned to her. Right now, he had no intention of leaving her alone.

When he left, she'd started to get her jewelry off. She'd managed her earrings, but the necklace clasp was giving her trouble. She'd got her shoes off. Though one of them she'd broke the strap on. Then she'd leaned against the wall and sank down, staring into the room blankly. When he came back, she was aware of him, and looked up at him, not saying anything.

He didn't say anything at first, instead setting the bath running, and adding salts from one of her bottles. Then he lit the candles she had set around the tub one by one. Hit switched off the overhead light when that was done, leaving the room with a soft, flickering glow. Turning off the water flow, he tested the water for temperature and only then turned back to her, squatting down in front of her, holding out a hand and giving her a slightly questioning look.

She watched him, and felt a nearly overwhelming rush of gratitude for him. She was glad he hadn't tried to get her talking, that he wasn't telling her pointless little things, just there was music playing in the background, and there was going to be a bath. Right. She reached out as well to take his hand, letting him help her do whatever.

Brett could still feel the anger racing through his veins, but it wasn't directed at her, not tonight. And so it was with gentle hands that he pulled her to her feet and turned her round, fingers going to the clasp of her necklace and releasing it. He laid the jewels down on the side of the sink, then returned to her, taking the pins out of her hair one at a time, setting them neatly down, all the while stood right behind her, not saying anything. Finally, he moved to her clothes, lowering the zipper at the back of her dress, undressing her. He was gentle, careful, considerate, and with every moment it fed the anger, his memory going over and over the encounter with Andrei, adding in little details that before had seemed like nothing. Like the way his fingers had tucked into his belt, the way he'd looked at her, the words he'd said.

Eris let him. She'd never been actually looked after. Not like this, anyways. Some when she'd first been recovering from her ordeal, but even then it wasn't like this. It was being looked after but not cared for, which was what the connotation here held. She was silent, and after a few long moments, she just let her eyes fall shut, and she kept them closed. She did that til she was more or less done with, and she realized she'd pulled her arms up, in towards her chest and down across her stomach, a defensive posture, even if she wasn't feeling defensive against the current company. But, well, Andrei had done things to her, and she imagined that was why she was covering herself. A reaction to recalling that detail, or series of details.

He didn't try to move her arms, but when he'd finally discarded her last piece of clothing, he turned her round and looked down at her. "There's a bath waiting," he told her, glancing over to the water, then back to her. "If you want it."

She looked up at him, and nodded a little. Yes, she'd like a bath. Sure. Maybe it would relax her a little. Or something. She didn't know. She'd like a drink, but she didn't know if he'd get one for her and she didn't want to argue about it tonight either. She did lean forward for a moment, resting her forehead against his chest, not fully leaning against him or anything, just being closer for a second. She shut her eyes, let herself breathe, and attempted to just be calm.

He put his arms around her as she leaned into him and simply held her. Normally, maybe he wouldn't have done that, but not, right now, wasn't normal. Not normal at all. "I am never going to let him get to you," Brett told her, his voice low, serious, meaning each word. Maybe once he would have been okay with cleaning up after Andrei, but those days were gone. Long gone. He was free of that, and he was free of that because of this woman. Things had changed, and she'd changed them. He would never forget that, even if he never let her know that was the case.

She kept her eyes closed, and stayed where she was for a long moment. Hearing that made her feel better. Maybe it was empty, because he couldn't really do a whole lot. But it still made her feel better, regardless. "I'd appreciate that." she told him, voice quiet. She stayed where she was for another long moment, then drew back, though it was just to get into the bath. She sat down, curling her knees up towards her chest, and she looked up at him. "I'll be okay." she told him. It was partially for him, partially for her. "I'll...I'll get better again. I didn't expect that. I didn't...remember a lot of it." Do you think maybe I could forget again? I was better off without those particular gems.

Brett took off his jacket, folding it up and laying it carefully over the toilet seat. He was a naturally neat person, always had been, and he thought nothing of it as he undid the bowtie and pulled it off, laying it over the jacket. "I didn't know," he told her, his fingers going to the buttons of his shirt, not entirely sure what he was intending as he undid them, revealing the vest he wore underneath. "When we were talking - I thought he was just reminding me he knew what I'd been." If he'd realised... Maybe it was a good job he hadn't realised. Things could have gone badly, if he'd realised.

She watched him, relaxing in the water, letting the heat sink into her muscles. Nodding, she didn't look upset or surprised. "I didn't imagine you knew. I wouldn't have been able to tell you til I saw him." she said. "You said you know him...what do you know?" she asked. "Other than what I got tonight, which is he's got nothing in the way of sublety, he's an attention whore, and can't shut the fuck up."

Brett got to the last button of his shirt and stepped back, out of her line of sight, casually, as he removed the shirt and laid it on the side. "They used to send me out," he told her, his hands going to the buckle of his belt. "Ex-cop, I knew what they'd be looking for on a crime scene, so I was that guy. The guy they'd get to go in when they had a mess to clean up. Way I understood it, Volkov was a hire-in. Not part of the Syndicate, when they had something special to do, they got him involved. I've cleaned up after him a few times. But they didn't tell me... The night I found you, they didn't even tell me who it was." He stepped out of his pants and laid them over his shirt.

Eris' eyes found the candle flames, since he'd walked outside her view, and she figured it was for a reason, so she didn't try to crane her neck to see him. She just listened to his voice in the close room. "That makes sense." she said, thinking that was a damn useful skill for the criminals to have on their payroll, most certainly. Hell, he could get so much just for consulting on shit like that. Or talking hypotheticals with people. Not that he'd do that anymore. Still, though. Her mind couldn't quite nix the idea that his use there could be so valueable to some. She was quiet for a moment. "It wasn't just him." she said. "There were a few O'Malley boys with him. He just did all the...work." Sure. That was the word for it. Not 'depraved, sick assault' or anything. Just 'work'. "I remember the others laughing as they watched. And he did a few times, though mostly there was just that grin there as he..." she didn't finish her sentence there, figuring that really? Brett didn't need to now. He probably didn't want to know in the first place, and she sure as hell didn't want him to know.

Brett stilled. He knew he didn't know the whole story. He'd been told a group - three guys, that's what he'd been told. No names, no faces, no details. And, at the time, he hadn't asked. Sometimes, he'd been interested - when he'd thought he could get details for his book of evidence without arousing too much suspicion. This hadn't been one of those times, so he hadn't asked for details. And now, now he was thinking that things could have gone more wrong than he'd ever realised. That there were worse things than death. His mind went to Doc Gray, to what his 'deal' had been. He paused for a long moment, wondering if he needed to rethink, and then carried on, hoping for the best, stripping off the rest of his clothes and stepping into the bath, slipping in behind her, pushing her forwards as he did so.

She blinked a little when he did that, though she did move for him, not questioning it, just appreciating it for what it was. Then she leaned back against him, getting comfortable. For his sake, she leaned a little more over the ruined side of him, thinking he'd feel better if she was covering him up as much as she could be. At the moment she wasn't in any way going to be stepping on issues. She also rested her cheek to the side a little, against his chest and she let her eyes slide shut once more. "Do you think I might forget again?" she asked, after what felt like a long time, but wasn't. "I don't really think I'm better off with these particular memories intact."

He considered that, shifting himself so she could lay comfortably against him. "I'm not sure that it would be useful," he told her, his arm around her. "Even if you did - if he's out there, best you remember. I'm sorry, Princess," he told her, sounding actually apologetic for once in his life. Brett, the guy who so very rarely apologised about anything. His mind was still working, wanting to know how far things went, afraid to ask.

She heard it, that note of true apology. Part of her was glad she heard it, and another part didn't want him to be sorry. Because he hadn't done anything, and it was all that monster Andrei's doing. Though...she supposed, actually, no. It was whoever had called him in for it. whoever'd actually set things in motion. Of course, that didn't actually make her less inclined to want to kill the bastard. "I already have nightmares. I don't want more of them." she said, voice light. "It would be useful to not have to remember what he did to me. There were whole segments of all that that I blocked out."

"No more nightmares," Brett told her, not moving at all from his position, his arm around her waist. "What he did to you - he won't get to do anything else. I swear to that." he might not be able to stop his own weird dreams, but he could stop her nightmares. That he would do.

She smiled, just a little. "You going to protect me?" she asked. And there was the very first hints that she was coming back to normal. She definitely wasn't there yet, not in the slightest, but that little thing there, that promise...she liked that. Maybe because she'd never heard it and believed it before, but with him? She did. Or, she believed that he'd try. There was an honorable streak in him a mile wide, and he'd not say 'I swear' without meaning it, she didn't think.

"With my life," Brett told her, not skipping a beat on that. Not even having to consider it. Not giving his usual thought the way he might have done, scared of giving away part of himself, sacred of making himself exposed. Or vulnerable. Right now, the way she was, he couldn't expose himself any more than she was. And he didn't like seeing her like this. Never. Her attraction for him had always been her strength, not her weakness. He knew it was there, somewhere, but he didn't want to see it. It held no call for him. It wasn't who she was, he knew that much.

She tilted her head up a little, face in towards his throat, and she didn't quite brush her lips against his skin, but she did keep herself there, breathing in his scent, letting her breath ghost against his throat. "I trust you." she told him. Which, only after she'd said it did she realize that they'd made something that resembled progress. Because they'd had a conversation before about that. About trust in general. And neither of them were all that keen with it. But at the moment, in this moment, she trusted him. It was odd, to recognize it. Odder, possibly, to share it, but she'd already done so. She couldn't take it back. Or wouldn't. One of the two.

He didn't return the phrase. He didn't see the need to - he'd just sworn himself to her, quite deliberately, if she actually needed three little words, then they were never going to be enough. "I'm going to ask you," he told her, instead. "About that night, What you remember. I'd like you to tell me..." He didn't end that, instead he left it hanging, for her to refuse, though he didn't quite give her permission to. For his own mental wellbeing, he wanted to know. For the anger coursing through him still, he wanted to know. For his possible future dealing with Andrei, he needed to know.

She hadn't actually been looking to hear it back, she'd just wanted him to know she accepted what he'd said to her, and hey. It was true. She did trust him. Maybe some other time when she was busy fucking things up for herself, she'd wonder if she did or not again, but til then, she knew. She stilled slightly when he spoke, and she had to remind herself to keep breathing. "I don't want you to know." she told him. "There are some things...I just wouldn't want you to know." Which was probably absolutely fucking ridiculous, considering he knew what she used to do for a living. Which was probably worse, because that was years of engaging in fucked up behavior, and what he was asking about was one single night. But that reaction was there. Though she didn't especially sound like she was going to refuse entirely to tell him. She just wanted him to know her stance on it.

His arm tightened slightly against her as she said that. "If you don't tell me... I'm just going to imagine it," he said, his voice tight. He wouldn't demand it of her, not this. Even he couldn't make himself force her to tell him this, yet still, he doubted it could be any worse than his imagination would supply. And that was enough, enough to wish himself back into that damn ballroom. Enough to make him realise exactly what he'd been over the years. Enough to know everything had changed, yet wonder at how it had stayed the same for so long. Was he really any better than that? Could he ever claim to be any better than that?

She opened her eyes, then exhaled, trying to make herself as relaxed as possible before she spoke again. It wasn't something that worked out extremely well, but she wasn't nearly as tense as she could be right now either. "He came in, with the other guys. They started smashing shit, of course, because that's what thugs do--they break things. I kept waiting for Clayton. I kept thinking that he'd be there, in just a second, but he never was." she said, recalling that. God, she'd been waiting for him pretty much the entire time. Right up until the lights went out. "I'm sure you can imagine he knocked me around as much as possible. Threw me around might be more accurate. Into the furniture, anything with corners. He definitely enjoyed that. He enjoyed all of it. Really a man who got into his work." she said, voice light, quiet, distant.

Falling silent for a few moments, she drew a breath and continued. "He held me down, and broke a few of my fingers. I remember them snapping, and hearing it? And there was the shock up my arm and all. He was grinning the whole time there, too. I'm pretty sure he broke ribs. I don't know, a lot of my healing up time afterwards sort of is a blur, and I know Gray told me about what was wrong with me but I don't remember all of it, and there are still jumps in my memory." She paused, for a longer moment. "And then there was him..." she stopped, then went another route. "People think you can't rape a whore but you can." she said. "And there was a reason he already had the fucking belt off to slip around my neck. He dragged that out, too. I think he kept doing it, then loosening it enough that I'd wake back up, then he'd do it again. Maybe that's why it cut in so bad, why I've got the scar. I don't know."

Maybe that's why you're still alive. Brett didn't say that. He couldn't say that, though he assumed they were both thinking it. "I didn't know," he told her, hating the sound of his own voice right then, slipping for a moment, sounding like he was giving her an excuse. Hell, fuck, she knew what he'd been. Like he knew what she'd been. They'd both been something in former lives that most people would regret. Or prefer not to have ever been associated with.

"I know. There wasn't any reason for you to, I guess. Especially if he's an independent contractor." Eris said. "Plus, I'd never been that interested in getting even over what happened to me. For my girls, maybe, and you. I still don't like what happened to you. But I'd never felt like I needed to avenge myself. Is that odd of me?" she asked, though it was partially rhetorical. She shifted slightly, resting her cheek against his chest as she mused. "I do now, though." she added. "I wondered tonight, when we were standing there, if you'd stop me if I tried to kill him. I know you aren't a murderer. But I think I could be, in the right circumstances. ...was, before." Which she was pretty sure was information that he didn't know about her previously. No one did, really. It wasn't like she talked about it.

He closed his eyes and resisted the urge to reach to add more hot water to the tub. It was only his imagination that had the water feeling colder, he was certain. "If I'd known..." he started. "If he'd been right there in front of me, when I found out... I wouldn't have needed to stop you. I - Maybe it would have been the other way round. Looking back at it, seeing him for how he was..." How could he comment on her past, when he was so much in mind of his own - past, present and future?

"Baby, if you haven't murdered anyone up til now, I don't think there's anything that'll push you over that edge." she told him, shifting again a touch, sliding her hand up over the smooth side of his chest. "I don't think you would have reacted well, but you would have stopped short." she told him, confident in that. She wasn't really thinking on his motivations for why he might have done that, beyond he didn't like the idea of her being hurt. Like when he'd opted to try and force her to stay at his place when the killer had been on the loose yet. ...even if that evening had gone a rather different direction than either of them had figured.

"Maybe then we would have found out." And probably destroyed everything. Somehow he figured that beating Andrei to a pulp for what he had done - for what Brett himself had been involved in - would have come under a different class to giving a man a bloody nose for looking twice at her, or making an unwelcome suggestion.

She was quiet, thoughtful as she considered that. "One of the things I like about you is that you're not like me. That there's something in you that never quite got corrupted." she told him, another moment of honesty that she didn't think through well before she shared it. "I know you don't see yourself in quite the same way I see you, but still." she told him. "You told me before, you've killed, but you're not a murderer. I appreciate that difference." She understood it, and yes. It was something she held as part of what made him him. Part of what made her want to do things for him in the first place, if she was getting deeper into her own psychology.

"This wouldn't be murder, Princess. It'd be vengeance," Brett told her, seriously, though he still didn't know if it would actually come to that. He didn't know whether he would be willing and able to end it, or whether he would break off before then, satisfied with simply breaking the guy entirely, beating him to within an inch of his life, but leaving him with that life, broken and destitute as it was.

She looked up at him, then reached up, and tilted his face down so she could see his eyes. She would have moved, but he wouldn't like it if she turned to face him, and she didn't want to step on his twitches right now, she didn't even want to start to. "Does that make it justified?" she asked. "Does that make a difference?" She still didn't know if she could picture him doing it. There were other things she wanted to ask, but she didn't. She kept it simple.

"I regret what I was," Brett told her, rather than directly answering her question. He phrased it almost as a question. It was a statement, yet at the same time he was almost looking for reassurance that she knew that. "Maybe anything would be too little, too late. But now... Things are different now. Do you think things are different now?" he asked her, this time clearly asking a question.

"I know you do." she said to the bit about him regretting things. To his question, she took a moment to answer. "That depends on what you're referring to. What things?" she asked, figuring knowing specifically would matter. "Would you be taking vengeance for what happened to you?" she asked. Because they were onto him now. What he'd done and gone through, or that was what she was thinking.

"No Princess," he said, looking down at her. "I'd be taking vengeance for what happened to you." Which was why it was important to him to ask whether things had changed, because he knew that that statement could be viewed as ridiculous. Andrei had, in his mind, clearly been hired by the O'Malleys to assist the guys in killing her. Just as Brett had been on the O'Malley payroll to clean up after that. Hell, he could just as easily have been ordered to be one of the other guys in that room doing the deed. And, at the time, he wouldn't have stopped it. He definitely wouldn't have been looking for vengeance. His stomach would have been turned at the rape, he wouldn't have joined in that, but he wouldn't have done much to put an end to it. Now though, now was something else. Now, to him, hearing that, what she'd been through. Now it was personal.

For her. For what happened to her. It was odd, hearing that from him. Some distant part of herself that was just observing all of this recognized that it was another sign that things between the two of them had evolved. Possibly far more than she'd ever actually imagined. She watched his eyes, considering what he just said for a long moment. There were a few things that came to mind to say, but she didn't know if articulating any of them was the way to go. In the end, she moved a little, so she could kiss him. It was something that lingered, something that could be more, but she didn't push it.

He returned the kiss, shifting to pull her up closer to him, but other than that, he let her take the lead. Right now, what she'd been through was at the forefront of his mind, pushing aside everything else, helped by the anger he was feeling, the one allowable emotion he had, but it was channelled differently, there and keeping him safe, yet not needing to be taken out on her. In a strange kind of way, he could process his anger at what Andrei had done to her by being gentle with her now, but yet he didn't think about things that deeply right now, instead, he just kissed her.

She turned towards him, putting her arms up more around his neck, though not fully. And she continued the kiss. With the fight they'd had the other night, her leaving, then tonight, she sort of randomly realized that she'd not actually really did something as simple as kiss him in what could be considered a while. They weren't the smoochy type of arrangement. She knew she'd have to address things again. This idea of vengence. If they were going to do anything, or right now it just seemed like the thing to do. Like she was going to have to bring up the fact that she was concerned about Ava, and she didn't want him taking his frustrations out on her. Though she still imagined that Andrei would be displeased with her having walked away from what he'd done to her. Walked away and apparently just gone on with her life, doing well enough to show up at a society party like nothing had happened. She was sure that irked. But for the moment, she took her time to just kiss Brett.

He didn't pull back, though they'd reached the point where on previous occasions he had done. Tonight, he didn't feel that same kind of pull, that rising discomfort, and he didn't look for it either. Everything else was shelved for the simple task of looking after her, and if this was how it could be done, then this was where he was, drawing out the kiss for as long as she wanted it.

Eris was very aware of the fact that Brett shied back at a certain point whenever something like this was going on. He needed different elements involved to take himself out of his own head long enough to continue, and said elements were not present at current. So, she was waiting for it, waiting for him to pull back from her and silently call a halt, but...then he didn't. Which kind of left her wondering why. And wondering if she should pull back, because they were past the point where he usually did... But she didn't. Instead, she kept kissing him, shifting closer, figuring she'd take it if he was going to give her a little extra time. It was nice. It felt good, and it distracted her from thoughts of Andrei. That was fairly key at the moment. Not thinking about him.

He moved with her, pulling her round and closer to him, the movement sending some of the bath water slopping over the sides and onto the floor. He ignored that, as he was currently ignoring everything but her. He was still letting her lead this, set the pace, the direction, but following there with her all of the way.

They were definitely past the point where he should have stopped her. Absolutely past. And part of her kept waiting for it, but another part was going to keep it up, too, any thoughts of her pulling away for him gone. Eris threw all of her concentration into him, letting other anxieties drop away as she did so. It was definitely a nice sort of oblivion, especially after the jarring, horrifying shock she'd gotten from seeing Andrei. Maybe it was just necessary, a part of coping. Finding something else to think about, finding something to counteract everything else. He was doing well in that capacity.

Brett couldn't forget Andrei, couldn't stop the thoughts of what had happened, of his memories of finding her, of leaving her with the Doc, of her telling him what Gray had done, it was all there, all there in the back of his mind, rolling round around each other, fuelling the anger at everything that she had been through, everything she didn't deserve. She was no saint, but she didn't deserve everything that had happened to her and the more he thought about it, the more it fuelled that fire inside him and what started out as gentle began to change. The gentleness remained, but his kiss became increasingly passionate, pushing, emotion truly seeping in as he wrapped his arms around her.

When the change kicked in, she almost thought for a split second that this was when he was going to be pushing her away, but that wasn't what happened. Kind of the opposite, even. He put her arms around her, and she moved closer, shifting her position entirely to press against him, moving onto his lap even as she kept facing him, and she decided to get as up close as possible. She let her fingers drift through the hair at the back of his neck, before resting her hand there, like he was going to pull away at any moment--even if now she was less inclined to think it was going to happen.

He ran a hand up into her hair, the movement spilling her dark curls over her shoulders and around her face, a curtain between them and everything else. He knew that it meant that she wouldn't be able to see him, and right now, that was enough for him as he entwined his fingers in the back of her hair, his other hand running down her spine and over her curves to rest on her hip, feeling the shape of her body beneath his fingertips.

Eris wasn't quite bothered with the idea of seeing him, that wasn't topping her list of things to do. She knew it bothered him, and she'd seen him before, and she was busy. Right now, right here, she was definitely busy. She made a soft little sound in the back of her throat, something that sounded amplified in the room. Like the sound of the water seemed a little louder than it should be, the little drips hitting the floor, and some of the bigger sloshes that got over the edge. She didn't mind, it was nice.

If anything, the little noises she made drove him on, encouraged him to put more into this. If he was angry at everything that had been done to her, at the man, the men who had done it, then his vengeance on them was this right now, those noises, these reactions and he gave his all into that, losing himself in it, with no intentions to stop unless she stopped him herself, something which was becoming increasingly apparent.

She went with it all, recognizing that yeah, this wasn't going to stop. And she didn't want it to. Those little noises of hers kept up, as she got as close to him as possible, kissing him, pulling away only to breathe, and even then she didn't pull away far. She kissed along his jawline, towards his throat on the side that wouldn't make him twitch. There was part of her that was always going to be very aware of his twitchpoints, and therefore she reacted accordingly.

He closed his eyes, laying his head back against the lip of the bath, stretching the column of his neck as he tipped his head to the side, giving her access at the same time as covering the scar on the other side of his body. He took a heavy breath in, unfisting his hand from her hair and running it down her side, lifting her up, repositioning her. He didn't say anything - he could have, but there was a beauty in silence, broken only by incomprehensible noises from one or the other of them intermittently, and the sound of water hitting the floor.

Talking was the farthest thing from her mind. She didn't want to talk to him she wanted to be with him. She didn't fight him at all when he moved her, even if other times she would have. Right now the mood was far different, where that struggle, the little fight that they usually enaged in wasn't present. It would have felt a little wrong to try that, to go that direction right now, so she didn't. She went where he wanted her to be, and kept up what she was doing, kissing down a little onto his chest past his collarbone, but then she moved back up. Towards his ear, where she made a shakey sort of sound in an unsteady exhale, a kind of articulation for him of what he was doing to her.

He met her in that, mirroring the sound almost with one of his own as he looked across at her, his eyes dark, not even attempting to hide the need that lurked within them as he flexed his hips against her. He held that for a moment, before pulling her in, kissing her deeply again.

She ticked her gaze between his eyes, taking a brief moment to appreciate that look. It was one she wouldn't mind seeing more often, though a good lot of the time whenever they started anything like this, it was in the dark. So, she hoped she remembered it, as she kissed him back, throwing her all into it, pushing back against him. One hand reached just beside his shoulder, grabbing onto the ledge of the tub, to steady herself.

He grasped her by the hips, pushing up off the bottom of the tub as they started to move, his eyes locked on her as he watched her. She was beautiful, she'd always been beautiful, but he couldn't ignore the scar encircling her neck. He didn't know whether it was the heat of the room, the steam in the air, or his imagination, but it seemed to stand out more right now than it had ever done before, taunting him, reminding him. But he used it, he used the reminder, channelled it through his anger, filtered it and twisted it back round to what they were sharing right now. Into making it better for her, if only temporarily. Into making amends.

She moved with him, never really the type to not put in any work of her own. So she did, part of her still very aware of the fact that usually there was a whole lot else involved in something like this, and this time he didn't need it. So, she figured she might as well enjoy it while she could, because she didn't imagine this was a new trend, but likely an isolated incident. Which meant she most certainly put everything into it, wanting the experience with him.

As they moved together, Brett finally relaxed enough to lose himself in it, to not be pre-obsessed with her seeing him. He knew that she'd seen it all before, but he'd had his issues for a long time, and they were hard to shift. Tonight, though, he managed to put them aside as he pushed her back, upright, changing the angle as the first clap of thunder broke from the storm that had been brewing all night, the heavens opening to a downpour torrential enough that the noise of the rain battled with the sound of the jazz filtering in from the living room for precedence.

Eris let her head drop back, bracing her hands on his chest to keep herself balanced, though she didn't imagine he'd let her fall at all. She also kept moving, hearing the storm and thunder outside, which made her smile, liking that as a backdrop to them. It was kind of nicely poetic, a storm breaking right this minute. She also let herself be noisy, the sounds echoing slightly in the room.

He enjoyed watching her. Right now, he really enjoyed watching her, and he could feel his release building as he moved, redoubling his efforts, giving himself over to the whole thing. The candlelit darkness of the room was split by a flash of lightning, followed swiftly by another rumbling roll of thunder, but that only seemed to add to everything. It seemed to fit, right here and now.

When he moved things along more, she let her dead drop back forward again, hair over her shoulders, and she caught his eye, keeping hold of his gaze, not letting hers waver at all. She matched him, keeping herself moving with him, keeping the time with everything. Her breathing was erratic, and coming in little gasps more than anything by now. When the lightning flashed, she imagined his eyes stood out to her, that bright, clear blue she remembered so well. She was heading towards the edge herself, and she strove towards it.

He didn't remember a time when he'd been so in the moment. Things had been intense before, but this was something else and for a second it scared him, as though that moment that usually came so far back, that usually arrived on the wave of a simple kiss, but which had been missing before, had turned up late for that party. but if that was the case, it was too late as everything overwhelmed him and he clutched at her, calling out as he did so, realising only belatedly that he'd actually called her name.

Somewhere in the middle of everything, the rush of sensations as the building tension broke, where she felt his did too, she recognized her name. And her name, not the title she'd given herself. Julia. He'd said it twice tonight, and neither had held the usual connotation it did. Generally he reserved use of her name to get her to stop something. Usually in the 'please let this drop' capacity. But not tonight. She'd cried out as well but hadn't missed it, and after she was left as the rush ebbed back, and she was to the shaking lightly stage, she fell forward towards him a little, catching herself only to kiss him. A proper, going with what felt right to do kiss, that she tried to put everything she was feeling into.

The screaming fear of what he'd just done warred with the aftermath of the sensations running through him, fighting for ascendancy, to control his reactions to the situation. he felt the roiling streaks of vulnerability rip through him, carving swift paths even as he returned her kiss. He didn't do vulnerability, he didn't allow himself to be in this situation, but he was here, lulled here by roundabout means, into a position he would never have allowed himself to be in at any other time. And yet still he returned the kiss, not for a moment pushing her away, even through his internal screaming fear. But he knew better than to push her away. Not right now, not yet.

She kissed him til she needed to draw breath, and only then did she pull back. She didn't go far, looking down at him for a moment as she did so, reaching up to put her palm against his cheek for a moment. She gave him another soft, little kiss, before she was finished. There was a definite moment of 'okay, what now?' in her mind, not really wanting to break the moment, but at the same time not knowing where it was meant to lead to next. It was new for them, here, so she wasn't sure where to take it.

He looked up at her, meeting her eyes and trying to hide everything he was feeling from them, brazening it out as he fought to get himself back under control. He didn't do this, but right now, there was no way out of it. Not without taking steps he wasn't willing to take. Not without hurting her. He lifted a hand to run it through her hair and at the same time, sat them up, taking her with him. It was getting cold now, which he didn't mind, given the circumstances. There wasn't a whole lot of water left in the tub, and he could feel the goosebumps appearing over his skin, see them on hers.

She moved with him, giving him another light kiss, and she defintiely noticed it was getting cold. She smiled at him, a light expression. "Think it's time to get out." she told him. "The water's getting cold." she said. With that, she started to get up and out of the tub, grabbing towels for the both of them, holding his out to his after she'd wrapped hers around herself. She was sure to keep her eyes on his face, not taking the opportunity to look past that towards the rest of them.

He appreciated that, that she did that. That she didn't say anything, even that she didn't look at him like she could have done as he stood and got out, careful on the sopping wet floor as he fastened the towel around his hips. He hesitated a moment - normally he would take another towel to hang around his shoulders, but it seemed a little late for that now. And what was normal now anyway. He'd gone off the reservation, out of his comfort zone, and he didn't know what that meant from here on out. He'd exposed himself, and he had no control over how she might react to that and he had a choice - he either left it to the wait and see, or he took the control back. But the only way he knew to take control of a situation like this would be to push her away. That made it no choice at all.

She took a few more towels and dropped them around the tub so they could soak up the water they'd slopped, then she pulled the drain stopper to let the water out. Walking to the counter, she took up a brush to run through her hair, not ignoring him, really, but not staring or requiring anything of him either. As she'd walked past him, she'd reached out to touch his arm, touch the dragon there, before she was fully past, and when she'd run the brush through her hair quickly, she looked back at him. He'd not said anything, she was aware of that, and to her, he looked just a little lost. Not a lot, but just a little. So she walked back over, took one of his hands, and turned to head back towards the bedroom, pulling him along with her. Even if he'd done a whole lot to ease her mind back to a non-panicking place, she didn't want to be alone. Moreso than she'd ever felt before. "Did I do alright tonight?" she asked, voice light. It was something they needed to discuss, but hadn't yet, and basically? She was giving him an out, of sorts. Or at least a stepping stone to something he was better off with.

Brett followed on behind her, not removing his hand from hers, but trailing a step behind, more comfortable out of sight, even if it left him feeling a little like a child. He frowned at the question when it was asked, his inner demons meaning that he read it wrong, defined 'tonight' in the wrong way. He wondered what she wanted him to say - she never usually asked for compliments, and he didn't feel that he could vocalise them, even if they were definitely, as always, deserved. He'd done enough he shouldn't do already. "Alright?" he asked instead, finding his voice as he let go of her hand and headed for the bed to pull on an undershirt, the body covering up his chest scars, whilst the shirt sleeves left the tattoos which covered his lower arms clearly visible.

She headed to her dresser to get out a nightgown and such. "At the party. Before he showed up." she clarified for him, letting her towel drop as she got her nightclothes on. "Did I do alright? I thought I did, but I trust your assessment better than mine." she told him honestly. Because she knew she'd forget things, or have missed things, and he'd been there, paying attention. He'd done very good with staying with her.

"Oh, right, yeah - yeah, you did fine," he told her, thrown by the fact that he'd thought that she was talking about their little encounter in the bathtub. Which, after the clarification, it seemed obvious that she wouldn't be referring to that at all, but to the much bigger, more important events of the night. He needed to pull himself together. What was done was done and losing his game because of it wasn't going to improve matters at all. "More than fine - you... Maybe once, there was a moment where I thought that you'd lost something, but you recovered. I think I was probably the only person who would have noticed - I was watching," he told her, his voice starting to sound more normal again.

She could hear it that he was drifting back towards himself, and she walked over to the bed, pulling the covers back as she crawled in, pulling them back up over herself because she didn't want to catch a chill. "I know you were." she said. "You were there, as you said you would be. I never felt like you weren't around." she told him, her appreciation for that matter clear in her voice. "It's kind of scary how easy it is for me to just...fall into character." she added.

He pulled on long pants and discarded the towel before climbing into the other side of the bed. "We should be grateful for that - it'll help things," he told her, turning to face her, though he knew that that took more effort on his part than it should have done. "You definitely turned enough heads. People were talking about you all night," he added.

"I know it's good for us that I can. It's just...odd for me." she told him. Not hard, clearly, but weird. Like a skin that didn't fit quite like it should. "And yes, we did create the buzz we were meant to. People were talking about you as well. And, I'm sure with the few who knew who you used to be, that'll have circulated too. So if they didn't remember your name...they will now."

There was really no going back. But then, Brett had never intended to go back. That wasn't how he lived his life. "I guess so," he commented, thoughtfully. "Does it surprise you how easily you could walk back into your old station? People accepted you there." It had been a little strange for him. He'd never seen her in what he considered to be her natural environment before. Prior to him finding her, he'd only ever seen her in Babylon, and there only at a distance. Tonight had been different, and a little strange for him. But it had made it easier for him to slip into a supporting role - she looked and acted like she deserved one.

"Yes." she answered, nodding slightly. "I'd thought it would be more difficult for me. But I can still see all the angles, I still know the game." She just wouldn't necessarily choose to be playing again, if it weren't for him. She was still doing it for him, tonight hadn't changed her mentality on that. Especially after being faced with Andrei. "But they did accept me. And some of them are now aware that I'm not in the same business as before. Which will be interesting to see how they deal with it." She watched him for a moment. "How was it all for you?"

He paused for a moment before answering, thinking that through. "Easier than I thought it would be," he admitted. He'd said nothing, but he'd been unsure about how well he would do with dealing with people in a formal social situation, but in the end, he'd been able to cope. It had been an eye opener - as long as he gave the 'right' responses, he didn't need to actually invest any of himself into it. That was a situation he could cope with - it was when he had to become emotionally involved that things went downhill for him.

"That's good." she said. She hadn't thought he'd been struggling, but it was good to have confirmation on that. "Then I guess we're in business." she said, shifting slightly, a little more towards him, a little more facing him, but she didn't actually get so close as to make contact. "You got Kess her card, right?" she asked. She'd been sure she remembered to tell him but now she was wondering.

"I got Kess her card - we employing your ex-bartender now?" he asked her. He'd recognised the girl from Babylon, much like he recognised most of them, though he didn't make a big thing of knowing all the names and faces. None of them expected him to know them, since he'd made a point of denying he knew their names, and he doubted that he'd ever actually discussed it with Eris, but he did, in fact, know who everyone was.

"Maybe." she said. "I thought perhaps she could help with the secretarial work. Making appointments, scheduling things..." she said, trailing off. "The boring paperwork stuff that we both know I can't do, and you probably don't want to do. But would be a legitimate job for her, and we could pay her well enough, even if it was a part time sort of deal." she added. "She was a bit shocked to see me." she added. But then everyone was. But her girls just generally fell into the category of people who were shocked to see her--but pleased. Nothing told her that she'd been doing the right things like her girls' reactions to her.

Brett certainly didn't want to do that kind of thing. He'd always hated the paperwork when he'd been a cop. "Sure - we could do that. As long as the business is coming in, the finances would probably stretch to it," he agreed. "I take it that the girl can cope with more than just pouring a few drinks?" he asked her. He didn't mind finding jobs for her ex-employees, but he did want to ensure they were capable of doing it.

"She had a better head on her shoulders than most of them." Eris said. "Technically when she first came to me, she was desperate enough to ask for a job in..other areas of Babylon. I just could see she didn't have it in her, and there isn't any use in allowing someone to break themselves when you could just as easily work something else out for them. So, I did that, instead." she told him. "And now, she's interested in working for us again, which means we wouldn't have to go with some unknown, which I'd really rather avoid if possible." Unknowns at this juncture weren't the way to go. They could be anyone working for anyone. She'd much rather go with people she'd been associated with previously.

"But right now she's working at the Drake," Brett pointed out, grasping immediately why Eris didn't want an unknown and agreeing with her on that. "And you know what they say about who actually runs the Drake."

"I know. And they're right." Eris said, having that on good authority. "Which means we'll need, when we can, to make her position here lucrative, and with enough hours that she won't need to be at the Drake." she said, already having considered all that, clearly. "Her main motivation in life is providing for a daughter she never even sees, and despite offers to help her in her troubles with that, she's still not done anything about it. But if we can make things worth her while, then I think it wouldn't be that difficult to get her just with us, with no tie there."

Brett considered that. "Why does she not see her daughter?" he asked. He'd need to know that. A daughter was an exploitable weakness, if some chose to go that route. And he'd taken it upon himself that he was going to learn the weaknesses of all their employees. After all, security fell to him.

"Her husband's a piece of shit ass who's taken her and likes to play the 'mommy hates me' game." Eris said, knowing enough about all of her girls to recall that off hand. "It's one of those situations where it could probably be resolved easily enough, but she just can't see how to do it. I offered help with finances, lawyers, whatever she needed but it's a little like talking to a brick wall when it comes to that with her."

"She ever say why?" he asked her. "She wouldn't take the help that was offered?" he pulled the covers further up over them, feeling slightly strange that it didn't feel strange to have this conversation here and now. Pillow talk - quite literally. He understood what that meant now.

"I'm pretty sure it's just that not seeing it thing. She's got a mental block, or that's what it seems like to me. Where she's in a situation she hates, but she can't see a way out of it, even if you present her with options. It's a sad case, really. Frustrating, considering. But there's little to do over it. I mean, you can't just go out and do things for people like that. For all I know, she hasn't done anything because deep down, she doesn't want to."

He looked at her at that, an odd look flashing across his face. "And you want to help her with that? Or, you did? Or was it just that you wanted her loyalty?" he asked, wanting to know her answer to that before he thought about that any more.

Eris didn't answer immediately, trying to think out what the truth was. It actually did require thought. "I wanted her loyalty." she said. "But it's possible there was some part of me that didn't like the idea of some little girl in the hands of a man like that. I know what happens in households like that, I was in one, and I ended that in a nicely permanent way, but it was after I had to deal with it for years first." she added. "Or maybe that's just part of my motivation now, I don't know." She reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. "As for helping her now...here's the thing. Yes, it's an exploitable weakness. People have a lot of those. But the reason my girls are so loyal to me isn't because I spent time exploiting their sore spots. They're loyal to me because I helped them. Because I did things like fix issues they couldn't fix on their own, I gave them a safe environment, I encouraged solidarity among them. It's also why when we spoke to the girls, there were a lot of them together. I taught them that they were stronger like that, and even if it wasn't perfect, they didn't all remain together, a few of them really learned the lesson well. And they know me as someone who looked out for them when no one else would. Keeping with that tradition makes us different than the other guy, who will look to just prod someone where it hurts. There are a lot of different, effective ways of doing business, but I've always been one who thought you could generate a lot better loyalty through a desire to be than cultivating it through fear."

Brett nodded a little, accepting that. "You do inspire loyalty," he agreed, knowing that whilst he wasn't going to come out and say it, right now he was thinking of himself. Of his own situation. Of what she'd tried to do for him - tried to get him out of a situation that he'd said he could see no way out of. Just as she'd tried to do for Kess. And she had it now, didn't she - she had his loyalty.

"How many people left from the stragglers of the O'Malleys were looking for ways to help whoever survived the cullings?" she asked. "I'll bet you not many. If any at all. They sure liked to do things the rough way." she added, looking away, a dark look on her features for a moment, before it cleared, and she looked back. "But even months after I supposedly died, my girls were ready to drop everything and do whatever I wanted." And they had, even. Whatever they'd been doing before she showed up had been set aside.

"That's an excuse," Brett told her, his tone edged with a slight sharpness for the first time since they'd arrived back. "Don't sell yourself short as the only option. You inspire loyalty, because you've earned that. Even if it was just business, you still did it. Most people would go about it a different way. Most people round here use fear and threats." And didn't they just both know it.

She looked a little surprised at his tone, arching a brow. "I wasn't giving an excuse, or selling myself short. I was just saying that even after they'd thought I was gone, I showed back up, and they were more than happy to go my way." she said. "I wasn't disagreeing with anything. I know what it did. What I did." Hell, it was why they had a business now. Why they could even have got off the ground.

Brett didn't reply to that. she might say she'd been agreeing with things, but the way she'd phrased it, she'd tempered her agreement by pointing out that there'd not been very many, if any, options on the table. but tonight he didn't want to pick a fight, refused to pick a fight, so he just kept his mouth shut instead.

With his silence, she didn't have much to go on. "What's bothering you?" she asked. Since something was, even if he wasn't bitching about it as he normally would have done. But then Brett was chock full of abnormal behavior tonight. She was very aware of it, even if she understood that it wasn't a presonality transplant. This wasn't going to suddenly be the norm. If it happened like that, she wasn't sure what she'd do.

"What do you want to do about Volkov?" he asked, ignoring her question. He wasn't sure if he could have answered it even if he'd wanted to. He didn't want to think about things too closely, not like that. So it was time for a subject change.

She knew a dodge when she saw it, but at the moment, was more inclined to let it go than persue it. "I don't know." she answered. "I think what I want and what we should do might not exactly line up properly." she admitted. "I want to bury him. But I don't know how much of a stir that would cause, and I don't know how well connected he is. The last thing we need while we're just finding our feet here is to pick a fight with some other faction."

"He has Syndicate links, but as far as I know, no actual ties to any part there. Not formally. He's a hire-in, but a very dangerous one," Brett told her, taking on board what she said and acknowledging the truth of it. "I know him more by reputation than actually know him. But I agree - as much as I don't like it - I don't think now is the time."

She nodded, keeping her eyes on him for a long moment. "...considering you probably know more about him than I do...what do you think his reaction is going to be to one of his 'hits' walking around alive and well?" she asked. Because that was a concern as well. And with the way he'd been looking at her...yeah. She could imagine that he had ideas of what he might like to do to her if he got the opportunity. He enjoyed his work, and she didn't imagine he'd just need someone else to put a hit on her. He might want to do it on his own.

"I don't know," Brett admitted - though lying to her had crossed his mind for a moment. "The O'Malleys aren't around anymore to insist he fulfils the contract they paid him for. But I don't know him well enough to say that he won't consider it a point of professional pride to do that anyway. The guy's rep is pretty damn good. Having a high profile one that got away would hurt that. I'm gonna start looking into improving the security on this place starting first thing."

Eris was quiet for a moment. "I saw the way he looked at me." she said, voice quiet, and her eyes remained on his even if she wanted to look away. She forced herself to keep up the eye contact. "I don't think it would have anything to do with professional pride, if he came after me. I know that look." And he probably did too. Both from his days as a cop, and from his 'coworkers' from the O'Malleys.

"Yeah, I saw that too - I just didn't know quite what it meant at the time," Brett admitted, darkly. Whilst they were there, he'd thought that it had simply been that Andrei had known that Brett had been meant to dispose of her and hadn't. And that Eris, at the end of the day, was the kind of woman who guys looked at in that way. She had a look about her that could entirely bypass a man's brain and go straight for his pants.

"What did you think it meant?" she asked, curious what it looked like from the outside. She'd known, immediately, but she was in the situation. She was directly involved, she'd had to deal with memories flooding through her that she didn't want. But knowing how it came off to someone who didn't know the score, that was good to know.

"I thought it was more about me," he told her. "The way he talked, the pretty obvious phrasing there. I'd thought that he was telling me that he knew what I'd not done that night. And the looks for you - you're a beautiful woman, Princess. And he's a shit-eating scum of the earth fucking bastard. Hands all over one woman, eyes all over another. Like a fucking show of testosterone, waiting to see what I'd do," he spat with venom - venom that was partly due to the fact that Brett was aware that what he'd done was exactly nothing. He'd stood there and let the bastard do it. And now, knowing what he now knew, that made it all the worse.

Watching him, she saw the tension in him, could see the anger spreading out. It was fascinating in a distant sort of manner. She propped herself up a little, shifting the pillow beneath her so she could look down towards him. "What would you have done?" she asked. "If you had known." She knew she'd had to play it cool. But he looked a little like he was about to blow a fuse even now, hours later.

"Something that you probably wouldn't have been very happy with me for." he paused, before adding, "From a professional point of view, anyhow. Not suitable for where we were." From a personal point of view, he doubted that she would have had a problem with him starting in on Andrei. But it would have been professional suicide, for their first steps out into public.

She nodded, taking that in. "What do you plan to do next time you see him?" Since she really wasn't stupid enough to think that they'd manage to avoid that from here on out. She was still somewhere in the back of her mind paranoid about the door locks. She was just making herself not over-focus. It rarely did anyone any good.

"Keep a tight hold on my temper?" Brett suggested. In truth, he didn't know. He knew what he wanted to do. but what he wanted, and what he did were two entirely different things, as they so often had been in his life over the years. "Unless he steps out of line and gives me a fucking excuse," he added. God, he'd like it if the guy did that.

"Be careful." she told him, after hesitating on the sentiment. But in the end, she wasn't going to try and tell him what to do one way or another, she just wanted him to be careful because a man like Andrei didn't get a reputation like he had if he could easily be taken down. It just didn't work like that. And she knew Brett could hold his own, but she wasn't sure how she would slant the odds on them one on one, and she'd much rather know that Brett would walk away from it. If she had to choose between Andrei being dead and Brett being so as well, or out of commission or having Brett still be with her and fine, she'd choose the latter.

"I've survived this world so far, Princess, I'm not going to let a little shit like that take me down," he said, knowing as he did so that that was pure anger talking. It wasn't rational, and it was what he needed to watch. Andrei was a dangerous man, a man who killed for a living and enjoyed it. Brett knew that, rationally, if he got into anything with Andrei, he'd better be damn sure that he could win it. Whether or not Andrei stepped out of line, Brett knew that he needed to keep a tight hold on his temper, otherwise the guy would just use it against him.

"I'm aware you've survived, and probably against the odds." Eris told him, shifting slightly closer to him, and she leaned forward, giving him a light brush of a kiss on his cheekbone, just below his eye. "That doesn't mean I don't want you to be careful. I've seen first hand what he's capable of, now haven't I?" she asked, tone quiet. "And I know there are certain things you won't do, or won't want to do. So just humor me, and be careful. Or at least tell me you're going to be."

She smelled of bath salts and the remnants of her perfume and he began to reach for her, before dropping his hand to his side. "I'll not get myself into anything I can't handle," he told her. They made a point of not lying to each other, after all.

"I suppose that'll have to be good enough." It was about as good as she was going to get, so she didn't push it further. He was going to do what he was going to do, and that was that. She noticed when he almost reached for her but then stopped himself, and her gaze ticked to his hand, remaining there for a long moment, before they went back to his face. "You have permission, you know." she told him, though she didn't pinpoint things. She also expected that he'd ignore her on it, but she felt the need to say it.

"It wasn't permission I was after," Brett told her and wished he hadn't the moment that the words were out of his mouth. He'd left himself wide open for her to ask him what it was he'd been after, and he didn't like his answer. He rolled away from her, sitting up and getting out of bed, padding across the room towards the door.

Eris frowned, watching him get out of bed and walk away, and of course he left her wondering what he was after. How could she not? Taking a moment, she tried to fill in the blank, but really didn't know what might go there. Sitting up, she faced him, eyes on his back. "What were you after?" she asked, because it was going to bother her. Everything had been a little all over the place tonight, since they got back, and while she'd let a lot of things slide here and there, this seemed important, it stood out. And she hoped he didn't actually exit the room, but if he did, she knew she'd follow.

"I'm going to go and check the locks," he told her, ignoring her question and walking out of the room. What had he been after? He didn't know - he was all over the fucking place tonight, all out of sorts. It was just the little touches and the smell of her and he'd just found himself reaching and... He went through the motions, checking all the locks, and then headed for the bottle of whiskey that had inevitably found its way back here and poured himself a hefty measure. He just needed a few minutes and then he'd go back in.

It was expected. So it wasn't with any surprise that she watched him ignore her question then walk out. She gave him a little bit of a head start, then she stood, padding silently towards the bedroom door, then out into the apartment proper. It took her a moment of looking around, but she saw movement in the kitchen, and she walked that way, seeing him there. Taking up drinking, apparently. She leaned her shoulder against the archway, eyes on him. And for a long moment, she said nothing, just remaining present, watching him.

He glanced over at her and set the glass with the remaining whiskey down on the counter. He should have known that she'd follow him, and he didn't like being caught in the act when he was always on her back about her own drinking.

Watching him set his glass down, she let her eyes follow the motion, then back up to his eyes. Pushing off of the arch, she walked over towards him, picking up the glass, and she held it out for him. Obviously, he felt like he needed it, for what reason she still wasn't quite solid on, but he didn't generally drink unless there was a lot wrong. Or, that was how things had gone in her experience. So, before she asked him for a second time, she thought she'd get that out of the way first. See how he reacted in general.

He took the glass after a few long moments, but only to turn and pour the rest of the whiskey down the sink. "Everything's secure, it's been a long night," he told her, rinsing the glass out and upturning it on the side.

"What were you after?" she asked, like she hadn't heard him. She had, but he was just blowing everything off, and trying to get around it entirely, which she wasn't happy to do just now. She wanted to know what the hell had just gone on with him, and why it was heavy enough that he'd left the room and gotten himself a drink over it. That seemed fairly important, all things considered. Or, it was to her.

He didn't turn back to her, wishing that he hadn't just poured a perfectly good drink down the sink. He hated it when she pushed. Just hated it. And he'd known she was going to, she always did. And he could feel an answer there, only even in his head it sounded fucking ridiculous. But she was pushing. "You, Princess," he said, eventually, reluctantly. "I was after you."

She kept her eyes on him, even if he wasn't looking at her. That hadn't really been what she was expecting him to say, even if she wouldn't have been able to pin down what she had expected. Either way, she kept her eyes on him, a light little frown flickering over her features. She'd been there. He could reach out and touch her all he wanted. And, he knew that, with his answer to her about permission. She moved a slight bit closer, reaching out to brush her fingertips over the dragon on his arm. It reminded her of when she'd done it before, when they'd not even remotely reached anything resembling intimacy. Before he'd ever kissed her, or otherwise. He'd pulled away then, but not immediately. Funny, how she couldn't really remember the context, what had been happening with them at the time, when it had occurred, but she remembered that fragment of a moment. "Why did you stop yourself?" she asked, voice very light.

He knew why he'd pulled away - because she'd smelled good, because she'd kissed him, because it had been a reflex reaction to want to pull her closer and hold her and they didn't fucking do that kind of thing. Only, apparently, he'd reacted for it tonight and it played into all the things that he couldn't deal with whilst his defences were down. But at least he'd stopped himself, things weren't going any further. He glanced over at her, taking in the positioning of her hand, then raising his eyes to meet hers. "We're hardly the couple that snuggles in bed, are we, sweetheart?" he said, his voice hard and dripping with sarcasm.

She didn't flinch from the tone, and she didn't avert her gaze. "And what's the worst thing that could happen?" she asked. "You get what you want?" Since that seemed to be an issue at the moment, and she could understand why, even. Because they generally weren't. But there were little things that occurred. That happened, like when she'd returned from spending the night at the loft, and she'd kissed him on the forehead when she got in. And tonight, right up until just now, he'd been being gentle with her. She'd kissed his cheek. No. They weren't anyone's idea of a pair that could be considered snuggly, or the like. Though she did note use of the word 'couple' even if she figured he used it as a barb. She could understand that they weren't generally like this, but she was also an adaptable woman. She had to, her entire life, and now she was learning to adapt a hell of a lot more efficiently, what with the changes that had steamrolled her entire life. Brett didn't seem to do as well with that.

"You're assuming I know what I want," Brett shot back, sharply, before taking a breath. He knew one thing - he didn't want to argue with her tonight. He didn't want to pick a fight. He picked up the glass again and walked away, heading back over to the bottle.

For just a moment, Eris was struck with the ridiculousness of the situation. One of them had had to face down their rapist and would be murderer tonight, and he was the one drinking because of something that boiled down to intimacy issues. She let him have a little distance, even if she kept her eyes on him. "You wanted something. You just stopped yourself from finding out." she said. "Unless you did just want me. How did you put it? Snuggles?" she added. "Was that what you were going for? Being close?"

He poured himself a large whiskey, some of the golden liquid spilling onto the countertop in his haste. "I don't do that kind of thing. And neither do you," he reminded her. He would never put himself in that situation, and his urge to do that tonight? Was all to do with a fucked up situation, that was all. She'd needed him to be gentle with her, and this was all just stemming from that. It wasn't him, it wasn't lasting, and if he went with it too far, it'd fuck things up. Things would go back to normal tomorrow and he needed them to be in a position still where that could happen.

She kept watching him, and bit her tongue on a few different things she could have said. "Not normally, no." She agreed. "That doesn't mean it can never happen ever, and warrants heavy drinking over the mere idea." she pointed out, arms crossing over her middle, beneath her chest as she eyed him. "What's going on with you?" she asked. "What about this is fucking with your head so badly?" Because it quite clearly was. It was usually her job to up and start drinking to quiet her head down.

"Where we are? Works. Let's not go fucking that up," Brett told her. "Everything else is just an illusion and I have no interest in waking up one morning and realising that it's all a big fucking mess. Let's keep things where they are, Princess."

"You think that would happen, with...what. A little closeness?" she asked him, walking closer, but keeping herself a good foot away from him, and she didn't do anything like reach for him. She just kept watching him, assessing the entire time. "What are you afraid of?" she asked. "That I'm going to turn into some little home maker? Or become some woman just like the rest of them out there? Is that it? Or is it what you're worried about on your end?" she asked, honestly wanting to know.

Brett didn't like being called 'afraid' and he especially didn't like it because it was probably true. "I'm comfortable with how things are, let's just leave it at that," he told her, making another effort to not give her an explanation of any of this which had any kind of depth.

"Maybe, but there was part of you that was going for something else." she said, walking around him, so she could see his face again, even if he hadn't moved. She still managed to keep the distance between them, and she knew he wanted her to back off, but this seemed fairly important, considering. "So there's at least some part of you that doesn't want to leave it at that, at least, not tonight." She leaned her hip against the counter, letting her gaze drift up and down him before they rested on his face again. "It wouldn't be the end of the world."

Brett gave her a look which seemed to ask whether she was actually sure about that. "Maybe not, but you know where it ends up. It ends up here, like this. Because I fucking... I don't know how to do that! I don't know, and if I try - this is what happens. This is where we end up and I don't want to... I don't want to pick a fight with you tonight, Princess. You deserve better than that!" he exclaimed, downing the rest of the whiskey as soon as he'd stopped speaking.

"Brett, stop." she said, now reaching out, to put a hand on his wrist, the one holding the glass. It was light, and he could most certainly pull away with no problem. "You overthink things." she told him, voice light, even if he'd just been shouting. "Maybe you'd know how to do things if you didn't look at it as something you have to do, and just let yourself go for a little while. Because it's not something you should have to know 'how' to do." She drew in a breath, and let it out. "And let's not get into what I do and don't deserve, I think our opinions on the matter might be a little different." She was quiet, watching his features, still turning everything over in her mind. There was more she almost said, but she didn't, holding it back for the moment.

He said nothing for a few moments as he looked at her. Maybe that was easy for her, but it wasn't for him. "I can't let go," he admitted, eventually.

Can't or won't? Went through her mind, but at the moment, she thought it would be unfair. She kept her eyes on his for a long, silent moment, before she nodded. She wasn't overjoyed with it, but could understand it. She stepped in closer, and pushed herself up onto her toes, not leaning in against him or anything, but she did kiss his neck, where his pulse beat. It was just a soft brush of a kiss, nothing more or less, and then she moved to walk away.

Brett was frozen, still, caught between knowing what he should do here and being unable to act on it. He had a choice, he knew - he could go with what felt like the 'right' thing to do, what she 'expected' him to do, to give letting go a go and venture down that terrifying path. Or he could do nothing at all, let her leave, let her go back to bed - and then probably sit up all night on the excuse of guard duty. He could still feel her lips against his neck as he watched her go, unmoving.

She didn't go back to their room. She went to her record player, which had stopped playing the album he'd put on earlier, and she flicked through them, picking out a new one and she put that one on instead. The storm outside was still raging, lightning lit up the living room through the huge, clear windows, and she put on something light if moody, something she'd sang at the club before. She wanted a glass of wine to go with, but didn't know if they had any, and she wasn't going into the kitchen to look. She considered going to the office to look, but in the end, she was still uninclined to go anywhere that wasn't behind at least two locked doors, so she didn't. Instead she stood by the window, watching the storm rage, listening to the music behind her.

He could still see her, through the archway, standing by the window, occasionally backlit by lightning from the storm outside. He couldn't take his eyes off her. She hadn't taken either of his predicted paths. It would have been easier, he thought, if she'd gone, but she hadn't. She'd just moved away. She never did what was easy.

Part of her was listening for him. She'd left him clear paths, he didn't have to go anywhere near her to go anywhere else, the windows were out of the way. But he hadn't gone anywhere. She found herself swaying a little to the music that played, letting herself get drawn into that, even if she could still feel him, back behind her somewhere. And, as the song kept on, she sang along with it, starting quietly, but eventually it was louder, more a normal volume, even if she didn't drown out the record player, she could be heard.

Brett wondered if she was doing that on purpose, like some kind of siren song. She had to know he could see her, had to know he was watching. Was this all a show for his benefit - or for hers? his defence mechanism, as always, kicked in, viewing it in the worst possible way, deciding that she was doing it to attract him, deciding that that was a bad thing, and it had him walking off, into the living room, then straight across to the bedroom. Crossing to the bed, he picked up his holster and gun from where it hung on the bedhead and fastened it on round his waist, incongruous against his sleep things. Only then did he head back out again, deciding that the rest of the night would be spent outside, he could do that watch thing elsewhere.

She only stopped when he had come back out, and was headed for the door. She watched him, and didn't say anything, but there was quite a lot of affect on her. He was leaving, then. Being somewhere else. And she didn't really care if it was just out in the hallway, it was still leaving, and the last time she'd been left alone, with someone supposedly nearby that she trusted to defend her...well that hadn't worked out so well, had it. It was jarring, to a degree that was physically detrimental, a leaden feeling in her chest, like she couldn't breathe. For as much as she'd pulled herself together, that didn't mean she hadn't faced Andrei tonight, and it didn't mean she was okay, apparently. She almost spoke, a stricken sort of expression on her face for a moment, but in the end she didn't. 'You swore you'd protect me' wouldn't find a voice. It sounded weak in her own head. Even if that was most certainly how she was feeling, she couldn't say that.

He'd been determined to not even look at her as he left, but in the end, he'd looked anyway, and what he saw in her face stopped him in his tracks. There was no suggestion of manipulation there - not even of the type that was purely in his imagination. Her expression was too honest, too raw, for that. "I'll be in the hallway - watching the elevator," he explained, his voice softer than he'd intended, gentler.

She leaned back against the window, telling herself she didn't need the support, but she did, a little. "Don't bother." she told him. And her voice sounded strange to her own ears, a little too hollow for her own liking. She turned to head back towards their room, her goal fairly simple. Leaving. She'd get dressed, and she'd leave, and she'd...probably do something like steal a car and drive around all night. No one could find her if they didn't know where she was. And you couldn't find someone if they didn't stop moving, either. Her instincts to protect herself had been given a hard kick, and so that was her immediate concern.

"Don't bother?" Brett sounded bewildered at first, confused. "Don't bother? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" he asked, recovering himself, but only able to do so by getting annoyed at her as he followed her into the bedroom.

Eris was fast when she wanted to be. She'd already tossed her nightgown, and was pulling a shirt over her head. She didn't actually answer him, either, going for a skirt from another drawer, still going over her own plan in her head. Granted, it didn't extend til 'what the fuck happens tomorrow' or anything, but she'd figure that out then. In the daylight. After she got through this night. After she did that, she'd reassess everything, and come up with something. But right now, this very second, she needed to not feel like she was just putting herself into the same place she'd been before. Where she'd thought she'd been okay, she'd thought she'd been protected, and she hadn't been. There was some part of her that was still reeling a little too because she'd told Brett she trusted him. Actually used the word and everything. Well, that was out the window now. She was firmly back on her own in her head, and that meant her situation was going to change. She wasn't going to do this a second time, relaxing, just trusting that someone was between her and people who wanted to hurt her. If he was right there, with her, it was different because he'd be there, automatically, and he'd need to defend himself in the process. There'd be more than just the motivation of protecting her, there'd be a survival instinct that would kick in. Much like hers was right now, as she was thinking she'd grab the gun in the nightstand, her long black coat from the hall, her boots and she'd be out of there. She'd take the stairs, they couldn't be that bloody hard to find. So she'd find them, and go down that way. Then she'd find and steal a car, and then she'd drive. It would get her through the next ten minutes. Twenty, depending on how rusty her car stealing skills might be.

He didn't break stride as he walked over to her and spun her round - something he hadn't actually done since she'd told him that part of her at least was always waiting for him to hit her. That she'd always expected that and wouldn't be surprised by it. He'd backed off the physical without even thinking about it after that. "Where the hell do you think you're going? And what the hell makes you think I'm gonna let you walk out that door?" he told her, all thoughts of being gentle, and not arguing with her, or hurting her tonight gone out the window the moment he caught on to the fact that she was leaving him.

"Let go!" She also pushed at him, though the idea of a woman her size making a man his size go anywhere he didn't want to go was a bit laughable. That just didn't occur to her, she was in the middle of a flight response, and that was an automatic reaction. She needed to get the fuck out of here. That was a singular, all consuming force in her mind. Out. Gone. She'd find the stairs. She just needed the gun. She could skip everything else.

He let her go, taking a step back as she pushed him, even if she hadn't actually been strong enough to force that. "Answer me!" he told her, forcefully. he wasn't just going to let her walk out on him. Anyway, the doors out were all locked - which had him wondering how long it would take for her to find the bunch of keys that he'd left on the side table. And then how long to work out which key went in which lock. That, alongside working out what the fuck he'd done to set her off.

"Just get out of my way." she said, tone incredibly unsteady, and her breathing was off. She finished pulling on the skirt she'd grabbed, then went for the nightstand, wanting to get the gun he'd given her. She'd never fired it, there were six rounds in it, that would be fine. That would be just fine. She grabbed for the drawer, pulling it too hard and it came out, dropping it's contents onto the floor, including the revolver, which she snatched up immediately, and then started for the door.

He got in her way again, this time stepping straight into her path and catching her with his chest, his hands going to her arms, though not with any strength. "I can't do that, Princess. Not tonight. Not after everything." he hadn't let her leave when there'd been a serial killer on the loose, he wasn't going to let her leave when there could be a hitman on her tail.

Immediately, she wrenched away, even going so far as to try crawling over the bed to get away from him and towards the door, scrambling for it. Logic that said this was a losing battle really wasn't filtering in right now, she just wanted out. Five minutes ago. She didn't say anything to what he said, she didn't think anything needed explaining, and she didn't need his permission, either.

He actually chased her round the bed, going the long way round as she clambered over the top, getting to her just before she got to the door and doing what he had last time. Picking her up, he hoisted her over his shoulder and carried her back to the bed, dumping her on her back on the blankets. "I'm not leaving!" he told her forcefully, racking his brains for what had strated this and only coming up with that. The look on her face when he'd headed for the door. That's where this came from. "I'm not going anywhere - and neither are you. I'm never going to let that bastard get anywhere near you and I'm gonna see what i can do tomorrow about increased security and if I have to throw every last dime we have at that, then that's what I'll do. But tomorrow. Tonight - tonight you're staying here and I'm not leaving you!"

"Yes you are!" she yelled back, reaching up to pull her hair out of her eyes, and she still had hold of the gun, and part of her was seriously considering pointing it at him. She hadn't yet, but it was a close thing. "You're going out there, and I'm going to be in here all by myself and the last time, the last time, I thought someone was there, the last time I depended on someone to be between me and the rest of the fucking world I. Died. I'm not doing it again, I'm not, I'm leaving and you can't stop me don't stop me, get out of my way, I'm going, just back off." Even if she'd kept herself from springing any sorts of tears even earlier when she was dealing with everything, her eyes were red now, even if it wasn't even a conscious thing.

Brett had done this before, though not like this and not for a while. He'd not seen her anything approaching this before, but there had been times, in the early days, when he'd be woken by one of his neighbours, a phonecall in the middle of the night, Gray demanding he got himself over lickety-split, because 'the whore' was having one of her 'fits' again. he approached this the way he'd always approached her then - firmly, and with a tendency to treat her like a puppy. She'd always loathed that, but it had worked. "You're not leaving. I can stop you, even if I have to follow through with handcuffing you to this bed," he told her, knowing that one of her conditions for them moving here had apparently been that he'd do that some day. he hadn't actually expecetd it to be like this though. "And I'm not him. I'm not Clayton. I'm not going to leave you, even if I'm not in sight. But, if you need me to be, I'm right here. Not going anywhere Princess. That's the deal - you don't leave. I don't leave. We both stay right. here."

"No." she snapped, and she tried again, tried for the door, tried to crawl off of the edge of the bed and get to it, some part of her thinking that maybe he'd give up, if she tried enough times. Or maybe he'd get it through his head. "I'm going. I'll talk to you some other time, but I'm leaving. I have to leave." she was saying, even as she was trying for the door again, which gave it the feel that she might not have been fully talking to him, per se.

She didn't even get off the bed before he stopped her, dumping her back onto her back and this time crawling over her to press her down. "I'm serious, Princess. I can't let you go. You don't have to talk to me, but I promised that I'd keep you safe and not even you are gonna get in the way of me doing that," he told her, seriously.

With what had happened earlier, what seeing Andrei had brought up--specifically the rape and him holding her down for that--and her being in the middle of an instinctual sort of flight response, his holding her down wasn't at all a good thing. She screamed. It was a terrified sound, something that mixed in with 'don't touch me' and 'don't hurt me', and she swung the pistol in her hand at the side of his head.

Brett had been holding her down, but he hadn't been forceful about it, or in the mode to move quickly enough as she got her arm free and slammed the pistol into the side of his head. She might not have been very big in relation to him, but the shock and force of it, added to the aim of where she got him on the side of the head, sent him reeling to the side, blood pouring from the new cut in his temple as the world spun. He didn't even appreciate what had happened as he fell first to the bed, then slid to the floor.

Eris ran. She happened to drop the gun when she did it, but she did run, going for the door. She made it to the door this time, and tried it, but it was locked. It took her a minute to figure that part out, though, as she frantically kept trying to twist the knob and pull at it, then she rammed her shoulder into it, which sent a jolt up her arm, and she wound up sliding down the door when she realized she couldn't open it. She was hyperventilating, crying, and trapped, apparently. Trapped, trapped, trapped.

Back in the bedroom, Brett shook his head a little, feeling dazed. The world was spinning. Slowly, carefully, he lifted a hand to his temple and then pulled his fingers away, seeing blood. He blinked a few times, trying to straighten himself out, and only then heard the banging from the other room. "What the..." he muttered as he used the bedding to pull himself to his feet, staggering into the living room, bouncing off the walls, definitely not able to walk in anywhere approaching a straight line, blood running down his face.

She didn't notice straight away, he was out into the room proper when she caught the movement, and her initial reaction was another short scream, as she just saw someone there. It took a few moments to really filter through everything else screaming in her mind to let reality--or at least shards of it--to make sense. Like that was Brett, and Brett was bleeding. Still, even then it took her a few seconds to push herself to her feet and head closer, not rushing, some part of her still wary of him, but he was looking like he was going to fall. She partially reached out a hand, but she was still shaking pretty bad, and she didn't know what she was reaching for anyways.

He put out a hand as she reached for him, steadying himself for a moment against her arm before he off balanced in the other direction and only kept himself on his feet by grabbing at the sofa arm. He managed to turn to her for a moment, looking at her with an unfocused gaze, trying to actually look at her, but failing. "I..." He swayed again, shaking his head to try and clear it, which did nothing more than send blood droplets flying. "Did... You hit me?" he asked, his voice sounding thick. It'd pass, in a moment, he was sure. But damn did that woman have a good left hook.

She followed, continually reaching out as if to steady him but she never managed to do it. When he shook his head like that, she got a little blood on her, and she looked down at her hand, where two drops had landed, and were running down. Yes, she'd hit him. She hadn't consciously decided to hit him, but she'd hit him. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. "Sit down--" she started, stepping up and she sort of tried to gently push him down onto the sofa. "Sit, I'll...I'll be right back." she said.

For once in her life, she actually got a result that he didn't intend. As she pushed him, his legs and balance gave way and he landed on his ass on the sofa, looking up at her, blinking blood out of his eye. "You hit me," he repeated, answering his own question, sounding perplexed and still rather dazed.

"I'm sorry." She blurted, reaching up to rub at her eyes that felt all too red and puffy and wet. "I'm sorry, just--sit." She reached out to push him back on the couch, so he wasn't leaning forward, and she rushed off towards the kitchen, pulling open drawers one by one to try and find a dish towel--why the fuck didn't they have any? How could they not have those?! Eventually she found a dish rag and she ran it under the cold water, wetting it down before she rushed back--forgetting to shut any of the drawers or turn the water off.

When she left him, he immediately started to try and get up, pushing himself up. He failed for the first few times, but she'd been going to leave - that's why she'd hit him, and he needed to stop her doing that. It wasn't safe for her to do that. He needed to stop her. Unfortunately, right now, his legs weren't of the same opinion, and they kept landing him back on his ass again.

She was back, and she pushed him back again, crawling onto the arm of the couch, closest to the wound, and she reached out to press the cold cloth to it, trying to get closer, to sort of cradle his head in closer to her chest, something she didn't think about but did anyhow. She whispered a few more apologies as she did it, still not running on all cylinders in her head, but on more than she had been. The hospital. The hospital wasn't that far, right? She should call? And there was a little part of her that was wondering about assault charges, and concussion damage and all sorts of things. No thought stayed long, bouncing back and forth and all over as she just tried to stop the bleeding, and she said she was sorry.

He lay back as she ministered to him, looking at her as best he could. "Jus' - don't go," he managed, his voice still sounding odd in his ears.

For a second, she wondered if he was crazy. Go? He was fucking bleeding from the head, where the fuck would she be going? But that's what she'd been doing. She'd been trying to leave, because there were bad things, and everything got messy and she thought he was going to hurt her, and the door was locked and she couldn't get out. Right. He didn't sound right. He didn't sound right at all, and her panicked adrenaline rush was pretty much being used elsewhere now. "I'm going to call the hospital." she told him. "Okay? You just...can you hold this?" she asked. Did they have a phone? They had to have a phone. Office...there was a phone in the office, was there a phone in here? If she called the elevator to get the person in there calling the ambulance, would that be okay? But the doors were locked, where were the keys? Could she find them? Could she find the right keys? She didn't know anything about them, Brett always did that. And if she called she needed to unlock the doors so they could come in. She needed the keys and a phone. "Brett? I need the keys, and a phone, do we have one here? I need to call the hospital, where are the keys?"

Brett took the cloth and managed to hold it to his temple like she'd told him to. "No - no hospital. No keys. No phone. Be fine - Fuck, god, you hit me!" he exclaimed again, feeling drunk. He hadn't been drinking that much, had he? At least the room had stopped spinning a bit, but his head hurt and she wouldn't stay still. "Stay still," he told her echoing his thoughts.

She'd been looking around the room, trying to see a phone, or figure out where the keys might be, but when he said 'stay still', she did stop moving, and she looked back at him. "I'm sorry." she said again, even if she'd already apologized a lot. "I didn't mean--you don't sound right, Brett, we should get you to the hospital, you're bleeding, and don't sound right, and aren't moving right, and just tell me where the keys are, and if we've got a phone in here? Please?" She put her hand over his to help him hold the cloth to his temple, since she didn't have an immediate course of action to take.

He shook his head, then wished he hadn't, it hurt like a bastard. "No hospitals - not tonight. I'll be fine. I promised. ...Just need to lay down for a bit," he told her, closing his eyes for a second, hand still holding the cloth against his head, aware of her hand over his.

She pulled him towards her again, to cradle his head against her once more, not looking convinced that was a great plan. She didn't think it was, so much. But then the extent of her own plans weren't all that stellar right now either. "I don't know if you're fine." she said, trying to see if the bleeding had stopped yet or not. She should get him ice. Did they have ice? "You're bleeding, and you're not sounding right, baby, can you please tell me where the keys are? I'll go with you, whatever, just--you're bleeding." From the head. And that was just never, ever good.

The bleeding had slowed and mostly stopped, enough to show that the cut wasn't actually very large. "Not telling you where the keys are Princess. Not going to the hospital. We can't go to the hospital. Not tonight - would ruin everything." He opened his eyes and just about managed to focus on her. "Sit down."

Why was it the smallest wounds bled the most? She still put the pressure back on, til it was officially stopped. "What are you talking about...ruining everything?" she asked, totally not at all understanding that part. When he told her to sit, she didn't look overjoyed there, either, but she slid down from where she'd been on the armrest, to the couch properly, staying close, where she could keep an eye on how bad his wounds were. She'd apparently hit him a lot harder than she'd thought--but then she had just been reacting, she hadn't been trying anything. There hadn't been any motivation beyond flight reactions.

"After shocking the socialite community with her miraculous return from the dead, Eris Stockard turned up with her man at Eidolon General in the dead of night. Seems he was hit around the head with something. So much for a sparkling return, and the woman looked... I'm not very good at making up headlines, but you get what I mean?" he asked her, his voice sounding less all over the place.

"I'm less worried about headlines, and much more worried about your head." Eris told him, giving him a bit of a Look. Still, she knew he was right, but that wasn't the point. "Besides, you can spin anything." she muttered, pulling the cloth away to look again, and it looked to her like the bleeding had stopped. There were some bruises blossoming, though, that was definitely clear. Shit. "I should get you ice." she said, getting up to go do that, assuming they had some.

"The icebox is to the left of the sink, there should be ice on the lefthand side, towards the back," brett told her, having to focus a little more than he thought he probably should to get that. Still, even if his head was fucked right now, he knew things better than she did. "There's a cloth in the... In the drawer to the right of the stove," he added, before giving up on the directions.

She followed them, noticing then that she'd left the water running, and she shut that off. Then she found the drawer with the cloths. Right. There they were. Getting one out, she got him ice, tying the cloth up and bringing it back for him. She stood there, holding it out for him, not sure what her next move ought to be. Painkillers, probably. So she turned to head back towards their room to get him some, figuring he'd want them. Vaguely, she wondered if she had any painkillers from after her ordeal, but figured they were probably all gone already. But aspirin, they had that, right? Sure.

He took the ice from her, reaching for it and then bringing the cold pack to rest against the side of his head, actually sighing at the relief that brought - it felt good against his pounding head. His vision was clearing now and he watched as she walked off. "Where're you going?" he called after her, though not overly-loudly. Shouting would hurt his head too much.

She heard him, but waited until she'd gotten the aspirin bottle and she headed back out to the living room to answer him. "Getting you aspirin." she answered. She got him a glass of water to go with it, then returned to him, tapping a few out onto her hand. She held both out, after setting the bottle on the coffee table, and belatedly she noticed that her album was still playing in the background.

Aspirin was good, even if he wished he had three hands right now. He considered it for a moment, then took the aspirin with his free hand, popped them in his mouth, then reached for the water to swallow them down with so he didn't have to put the ice down. "Thanks. Sit down," he told her again, closing his eyes. He wanted to close his eyes, and he wanted to make sure she wasn't going anywhere. If she was sitting with him, she wasn't going anywhere. Feeling like this, he knew he was in no shape to go after her if she tried to leave.

She moved first to turn her record player off, the music feeling out of place for her. She also said, under her breath 'I'm not a puppy'. A familiar phrase, even if she hadn't said it in a long time. Then she came back over, and sat down, on the other end of the couch from him, even if she wanted to sit closer than that. She looked at him, then she glanced around for pillows. There was one tucked behind her, and she took that out, setting it on her thigh. "Lie down." she told him.

He cracked open his eyes and rolled his head towards her, at her face, then down at the cushion. He paused for a moment, then shifted round to lie with his head in her lap - not something he would under normal circumstances feel comfortable doing, but these weren't normal circumstances, because she'd hit him. Hard. And made him bleed. And his head go funny for a while. Because she'd been leaving him. So, she could look after him now. That was fine - and comfortable. Very comfortable. As long as she wasn't leaving him.

She reached out to take hold of the ice, to hold it there for him, and she drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Her eyes were off in the darkened apartment, light coming mostly from the open door to their room, and the flashes of lightning that lit up everything as bright as day for a moment. The rain kept hitting the windows, filling the room with a sort of white noise. She recognized that she should probably say something, but every time she tried to come up with something, she wasn't sure what it should be.

Brett drifted in the semi-silence for a while, he didn't know how long. He could hear the rain, feel her warm against him. He didn't think it was any longer than a few minutes, but at the same time, it felt like an eternity before he spoke. "I didn't want to hurt you tonight. After everything. Didn't want to upset you. Fucked that up, didn't I?" He didn't open his eyes as he spoke, though he turned his face upwards to where he assumed hers would be.

She looked down at him, hair falling over her shoulder, and she reached up to draw it back, over her other one. "Giving you a bleeding head wound wasn't exactly on my list of things to do tonight either." she said. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I wasn't thinking, I just...thought you were going to hurt me." she told him, voice light the entire time. And she still felt bad about it. Like she was sure she was going to feel bad about it in the morning when his face was all black and blue.

"Would never hurt you like that, Princess," Brett told her, wondering if she would ever believe him on that point. "Just wanted to stop you from leaving me," he added, not thinking overly much on the wording of that. In his head, that was how it always was. She never just left, she left him. He always took that personally, no matter how it was meant.

She caught the wording. But there was something else to say along with everything else. She looked towards the windows for a moment, then back down to him. "Intellectually, I know you'd not...do what I thought you were doing." She still wasn't sold on the idea that he'd never crack her one, but there were some things she put past him. Like that. "But in the moment, all I knew was you were holding me down. Over me, like that. Like he'd been. And...going through remembering that tonight, it just--I wasn't thinking about you being you, and how I don't think you'd ever do that to me, I just knew someone was holding me down against my will." she explained, tone haulting, but she made herself get through it. She was quiet for a moment, then added the last piece. "I wasn't leaving you. I was leaving this place." There was a difference, in her mind. Like when she'd left his apartment in the first place, to head to the Round. She hadn't been leaving him.

"And if I'd tried to come with you?" Brett asked, fairly sure he knew the answer to that one, and there lay the difference in his head. It wasn't just the place she'd been trying to get away from. He noted what she said about her reaction, and he knew that lately he'd been trying to do that less, trying to physically stop her less, because there were buttons there he didn't want to push. But he'd lost control tonight, he'd forgotten - and this was where it had led them.

She looked away again, before looking back. "I just needed to get out, Brett. It wasn't really personal, it was just me. I don't know if you get that or not, and I don't know if I can explain it to you so you do." Or in a way he'd believe, because he still seemed to not buy that she'd not left him in the first place. That it wasn't to do with him, that it wasn't about him.

"You needed to get out because you don't trust me - that seems pretty personal to me," Brett said, though his tone wasn't pointed. He didn't have the energy for pointed right now. "You thought I'd let him get to you and you'd prefer to leave me than let that happen."

"With what happened to me, can you blame me for not wanting to be in that situation again?" she asked. "I thought I was safe. I thought I was covered. He was supposed to be there, and I still don't know where he was. If he was in on it. I've been told he wasn't, but I don't know that for certain. But whether he was or not, the main thing...he was supposed to be there and he wasn't." She was quiet for a moment, watching his features. "You don't let anyone get close to you, don't want to get yourself into situations that might hit on your own twitch points. Why is it unfair or not allowed if I do the same thing?" she asked. "And why does it have to be about you?" she added. "You keep doing that--trying to make it about you. Is your inability to engage in anything emotionally intimate hinged on me? I kind of doubt that. I don't think it has anything to do with me, it has everything to do with you, and the girls who came before me. I just have to deal with the fall out from it."

"That's different," he protested lightly, though he couldn't have said why right then and there. "It's different. My.... Thing's not going to get me killed," he landed upon eventually. "I promised that I'd be there, but I can't be if you run away."

"You don't know that it would get me killed. The goal is to not get killed." She said. "I made it a really long way all on my own. When I was younger...trust me when I say things got really sketchy sometimes, but I made it. I was when I let myself relax, and depended on someone else to have my back that everything crashed. And maybe it took a while, but the axe fell." she said, sort of working through that as she spoke, recognizing her own motivations even if she hadn't thought about it in so many words right up til now. She didn't say what else came to mind. Which was that she'd mistaken what he'd meant when he'd said he'd be there. She'd thought he meant he'd be here. With her. Which made a rather large difference to her.

"I'm not him, Princess. I'm never going to do that to you." He didn't add anything to that, he wasn't feeling up to too many words right now. And anyway, he didn't know how to get her to believe that. But it had never been who he was. He was loyal, he'd always been loyal. he'd turned down the Di Giovannis and their offers of giving him the world, he'd never taken dirty money as a cop, even when he'd finally gone under, when he'd had to sacrifice almost everything he was to save his own skin, he'd kept trying to do his job, getting together enough information to be able to take the O'Malleys down. And now his loyalties had changed, now he was getting that choice of what and who he wanted to be. Now his loyalty was with her.

Eris was quiet, a lot going through her mind, and she opened her mouth to say something, but then shut it again. Instead, she shifted the ice a little, checking beneath it to see how his face was, seeing the darker places on his skin even with the poor lighting. That was definitely going to leave a mark. Probably something resembling an impressive one, considering.

He attempted to open his eyes at that, given she hadn't said anything and that the cold of the ice had gone away. That was when he realised that he was having a little trouble opening one eye, as his face swelled. "You really hit me, huh?" he asked, still unclear about what had actually happened in there. And processing the fact that he wasn't directing the full force of his ire at her over it. He wasn't entirely sure why that was - right now, he felt like it would take too much effort. Coupled with the fact he got why she'd done it. He'd known her twitches already. And he didn't want her to leave. He knew when far was too far, and always backed away from it with her.

"Yeah, I really hit you." she agreed, sighing. She gently set the ice back in place. "I recommend you tell people that you saw someone about to get mugged, and heroically stepped in." she told him, absently reaching out to draw her nails lightly across his forehead, unsticking the hair that had got matted down due to the ice, and possibly some blood. "It'll make you look good, and sounds a lot better than 'the whore freaked out and pistol whipped me'." she said, eyes still down on him.

"You're not a whore," Brett corrected, automatically. He never thought of her as one, anyway. Not anymore, and it had been a long time since he had. He closed his eyes again as he spoke, relaxing back against her and letting her do whatever it was she was doing.

Sitting there, holding ice on someone's face didn't leave a lot to do in the way of fidgeting, so she continued what she was doing. It was done in a kind of absent manner, as she sighed a little. "Not the point, Brett." she said. "Though I've always heard once you are, you always are, like a lot of other things." Thieves. Cops. Though in her case, she really wasn't anymore. It was due to traumatic brain damage, though so maybe that was the ticket. Everyone needed to have their brains scrambled, then they could get out of whatever they were into. She was quiet again for a moment. "I'm sorry." she told him, tone light. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You're not a whore - there's gonna be plenty of people wanting to tell you otherwise, drag what we're doing down to that level. If you think you are, then that just makes it easier for them. And you meant to hurt me. You just didn't mean to hurt me." Brett didn't know if he'd got that right, or whether it was just his head still being screwed, but he knew that in the bedroom, when he'd been holding her down, when she'd hit him, in that moment, she'd had the intent to hurt. Her explanations told him that. She'd wanted to get away. He just got that this wasn't a regular circumstance. She wasn't going to be beating him around - or trying to.

She opened her mouth to protest things, but then he seemed to understand. So she relaxed again, recognizing that she'd stopped drifting her fingers through his hair and she started again. "When you came out of the bedroom it took me a second to really realize it was you." she told him. It took those few seconds to catch up with what had gone on. That he was bleeding, all that. At least he wasn't mad about it. Which, really, considering how often he flipped the anger switch for even the tiniest little things, was possibly a minor miracle. "I'm sorry I hurt you." she said eventually, thinking maybe that one would pass inspection.

"I know you are - just don't do it again," he told her, drifting slightly as she ran her fingers through his hair. That was a nice kind of sensation and he was vaguely aware that it made him feel looked after, cared for, things that, under normal circumstances, would have been enough for him to get her to stop. But here and now, he just left it. He hurt, he didn't know if he'd be able to stand if he tried, and he was comfortable.

"I'll try not to." Eris said, watching him drift. She had the sneaking suspicion that she'd be here for a while. And that if anyone was going to be up all night, on guard duty, it was going to be her. But, she wasn't by herself. She wasn't stuck here with nowhere to go all alone. There was a gun in relatively easy reach, she was alert enough to keep awake for a long time, the adrenaline having gone now, but her mind was still kicked into gear. So she'd stay up, keep watch, and let him drift while she listened to the storm outside.