The way of the world

Who: Brett and Lila
When: Early evening
Where: The Kitten Club

Rumors of a murderer on the loose and threat of a storm had Lila scurrying to work with an eye on every shadow that moved. It wasn't just the rumors that had her uneasy; she'd had to leave her mother home alone, high, and hope she didn't get hurt while Lila was away. But despite everything, she made it to work on time. A gust of wind blew up as she entered, nearly ripping the door from her grip, and Lila squeaked slightly as she tried to juggle her bag, keep her hat and skirt in place, and close the door at the same time. She managed, barely, and slumped back against the door momentarily as she caught her breath.

Brett was tired - he really hadn't slept well at all last night, something he was blaming very firmly on the fact he wasn't up for having another night of weird dreams and not at all on the fact that he'd been tossing around worries about fucking medication for half the night that had had him up writing various versions of notes in the pre-dawn light. No, that had just been for something to do whilst he couldn't sleep. Right.

Either way, Brett was exhausted, and he was slouched, leaning against the wall in the corridor, arms crossed against his chest as he eyed the comings and goings of people. It was times like this that he really wished he smoked. He could do with one, but he'd never taken up the habit and he wasn't gonna start now. He didn't need anything that was addictive, or that left you stinking that much. He saw Lila near as damnit fall through the doorway and raised an eyebrow at her. "Wind out there strong enough to blow you away now, is it, sweetheart?" he asked, gruffly.

Lila jumped slightly at the unexpected address, but relaxed when she saw who'd addressed her. Blowing a few strands of hair out of her eyes with a sigh, she straightened and passed a hand over her mussed hair and clothes. "It caught the door," she explained with a smile and a tiny hint of apology. "But it's been gusty all day. I'd hate to be working out on the water in this." The waves had to be high. She studied him a moment as she gathered her things; he looked tired. She didn't know Brett very well; his gruff manner tended to keep people away more than it drew them in, but from what she'd seen of his work and her natural optimism, she thought he was a good person. Despite the attitude that pushed most away. "How are you today, Brett?" she asked. "Have you been here long?"

"Couple of hours," Brett said, not used to anyone actually asking him how he was. Most people gave him a wide berth, and definitely didn't ask him how he was anymore. It was enough to surprise an answer to her other question out of him, though he didn't address the first. Even if he'd been the type to, the answer to that would have been far too complicated and he wasn't even thinking about it, let alone talking about it. "Most of the girls are here already," he added, offering up that information.

"I was running a little behind," Lila said apologetically. She'd still have time to get changed and warm up, however. "But it sounds like it won't be too late of a night for you. That's nice, I'll bet." If there was one thing she didn't enjoy about her job, it was having to walk home in the wee hours of the morning all alone. This wasn't at all the type of city where people should do that, though she'd gotten lucky so far.

"What makes you say that, doll? I get to go home when they say I can go home," he pointed out, which he figured she hadn't worked out by herself. She was probably all looks and not a whole lot upstairs, after all. The girls might get a set time to come and go, but Brett wasn't on shift work. He had to be where they said, when they said it, anything less and it'd be his neck, after all. They owned him - or, at least, they thought they did and Brett gave them no reason to ever think otherwise.

"I just thought that since you've been here for a few hours already, you wouldn't have to stay until close," Lila said, eyes dropping slightly before looking at him again. Though she knew she was theirs to order around, she'd been kept late only a few times, when business was good, and she'd never minded because she needed every dollar she could get. "I hope you don't. Long shifts like that must be tiring."

"Nowhere better to be - don't encourage lives, you know," he said, pushing off the wall, as though he'd walk her to the dressing room. Which, really, was exactly his intention. That was what he was here for, after all - to keep an eye on the girls. Of all the jobs he had, it was the one he minded the least, though he was careful not to show it. He gave out a constant aura of hating everything - which, all things considered, wasn't overly hard, when most things in his life he did hate.

"All the same," Lila said as she gathered her bag. She left the statement open, knowing he likely wouldn't want her to make a big deal out of it. She didn't want to make the evening any worse for him. She headed in the direction of the dressing room, since that's where he appeared ready to go. "If you needed a break later tonight, if you have to stay," she ventured a little hesitantly, "I could always ask for an escort home. With the rumors and all. You wouldn't have to actually do it," she added, "but at least you'd have a little time away."

Brett eyed her for a moment, judging whether she was honest in that offer or not. It would give him a chance to get things done, though it would also give him time by himself, once he'd left her wherever she lived - he wasn't sure that that was a plus right now. He looked back the way they were walking, away from her. "Girl like you shouldn't be out by herself anyhow," he said, not giving her a proper answer one way or the other, his tone short, almost dismissive, despite his words.

Lila wasn't quite sure what to make of that statement paired with the tone, so she didn't take offense. There wouldn't be a point in getting into a fight, anyway, save to upset the both of them and ruin their respective evenings. "I do all right on my own," she said neutrally instead. "I don't live far."

"Streets aren't exactly safe - especially at the moment - you hear the news?" he asked her, knowing that not everyone got the paper, or listened to the radio. Aside from that it was a case of going to the movie theatre - something which Brett himself hadn't done for several years now. That kind of thing seemed to belong to his old life, he couldn't imagine doing it nowadays.

"I hear," Lila said, nodding slightly, "but what else can you do except your job?" And hope she didn't meet with a shady character in an alley one night. "I can't just sit at home and hide all the time." And she couldn't afford cabs, though she didn't add that. Money talk was surely depressing for everyone. "Do you think there really is a killer out there?" she asked him. "I heard the police won't say one way or the other." The dressing room was right there, but she lingered to hear his answer.

Brett looked across at her again, sideways. "Make sure you don't walk home on your own?" he suggested, knowing she'd already said that he could walk her home. But that had been an offer for his sake, not hers - he knew she'd just walk home alone if he wasn't game. He looked away again. "I think there's a lot of killers out there, flower. No matter what the police do or don't say about this one." He paused, before adding. "If there wasn't this time, they would have said already. There's something in this - they're not denying it loud enough."

"They can't escort all the girls home," Lila pointed out gently, smiling. "Why should I be any different?" If he accepted her offer, she really wasn't expecting him to walk her all the way home - just out of sight of the club to make it look genuine. "Maybe they're not saying anything because they're close to catching whoever did it," she said optimistically. "If that's the case, they probably wouldn't want the papers or the radio to say anything."

"Or maybe they don't have a clue and they don't want to admit incompetence," Brett grunted back at her, taking the much more negative slant, not having a single problem with denigrating his former force - not when they were the ones that had screwed him over, the fuckers. They could all burn in hell as far as he was concerned. "And no - but you could go home in twos and threes, organise yourselves. I'm sure one of you's capable of that," he said, unable to hold off a biting remark any longer.

"This is a hard city to police," Lila pointed out. "I'm sure there are good men there doing the best they can. It's got to be a tough, thankless job." She stopped there so it wouldn't seem like she was lecturing, nodding at his suggestion even though she felt the sting of the remark, and it showed on her face. "I think I will," she said. "Thank you for suggesting it."

Brett knew full well how hard this city was to police, but he didn't speak about his past with anyone. Sure, some people knew who he used to be, but he was willing to bet that most didn't. "Good men? Few and fucking far between - you look close and you'll see that most of them are in the pay of someone who's not the city payroll. They're just in it for what they can get out of it, just like the rest of it - you just keep that in mind, doll. Never forget it. They might not get thanked by the city, but they get their rewards where they can find them."

"If everyone was on someone else's payroll, no one would be arrested, no crimes solved," Lila said, shaking her head. "There are still good people out there, or the city would be a lot worse off than it is." She had to keep thinking that, because things were bad enough as it was. "Sometimes you just have to have a little faith in people."

"You'd think, wouldn't you?" Brett said with a snort. "Petal, all it means is that the 'right' people get arrested for the 'right' crimes. And that the police look the other way when they're asked to. As long as you don't get caught in the cross fire, or expect things to be at all fair, I guess is works," he said, with a trace of bitterness that he tried hard to cover. "I don't believe in having 'faith' in people - I have faith in myself, everyone's looking out for number one in this world, why the hell should I be any different?"

"It has to start somewhere," Lila told him quietly. "It's too lonely otherwise." She wasn't really one to talk - it was just her and her mother most days, but that didn't mean she didn't think people were basically good. But she didn't want to push - he was tired, and it was rude, and she didn't want to upset him when they both still had a long night of work ahead of them.

Brett stopped in the middle of the hallway and actually turned to her, looking her up and down for a moment or two. "You need to leave dreams like that back with your ragdolls, sweetheart," he told her, meeting her eyes. "Anything else is just naive. Be fucking careful who you choice to have faith in in this life, because most people will just take that faith and screw you the fuck over. Even people you think you can trust. I'd tell you to trust me on that, but don't. Don't trust me, or anyone else. Not without fucking good reason, and definitely not just because they come with a uniform and a badge," he said, holding her eyes, giving her what he thought was some good, honest advice, all bite and sarcasm for once absent from his tone.

That went against just about everything Lila held true. She couldn't get angry - he seemed about as sincere as she'd ever seen him, but neither could she really see herself living like that. "I can't just go around thinking everyone is out to do wrong," she told Brett, shaking her head. "I'm sorry. If you give people a chance, you might be surprised. Things are bad, but they're not all bad. You just have to be open to it." Though she wouldn't say so, she thought he was a good person. Mean and rough around the edges, but he did his job well and kept them all safe. Lila could appreciate that.

"Yeah - but being surprised isn't always a good thing, doll," Brett reminded her. He sure as hell had been really fucking surprised. He'd never thought he could ever be so damn surprised as he'd been. For months afterwards he'd woken up each morning and still been really surprised. That surprise just had taken a whole lot of time to fade away. It was gone now though, gone and just left a huge amount of cynicism in its wake.

"But going around constantly suspecting others isn't, either," Lila countered. "Eventually you really do start seeing it everywhere, even in places where it isn't." She managed a tiny smile as she thought of a clarification. "Sometimes you can be pleasantly surprised."

Brett raised a doubtful eyebrow over blue eyes. "I'll leave that one to you, sweetheart," he said. Very little in his life was 'pleasant' these days, but if she had that then, well - as long as it wasn't gonna turn round and bite her in the ass, then he wasn't going to take it away from her.

"If you must," Lila said, giving him a more genuine smile. "Thank you for the escort, Brett. I hope your evening ends up short and uneventful." And that he got a good nap or something.

"I'll take one out of two," Brett told her, not returning the smile. "Look - you want that walk home? Come find me, okay? I don't need the excuses, but if you want it, just say," he offered, actually meaning that, though he remained as stone-faced as ever. From what she was saying, she was either as wet behind the ears as a schoolgirl, or fucking dumb. Or, possibly, both - but he didn't want her to end up in some dumpster somewhere, no matter what he'd say to people's faces.

"Thank you," Lila said again. "I will take your suggestion about seeing if the girls can pair up, though," she said. It was good, one she hadn't really thought of. She mostly just kept to herself and tried to stay safe. "I suppose I'll see you later," she said, reaching for the dressing room's doorknob.

"I'll be around, sweetheart," Brett said, taking a step back and then turning on his heel, before heading back off down the corridor. He didn't know what to think abut that - other than he figured that she was just another silly girl. What was it with women - why couldn't they just fucking look after themselves, just like he had to? He didn't have anyone looking out for him. That was just the way of the world.