Didn't I already kill you?

Who: Eris and Everett
Where: Right outside their respective homes
When: Late day

Psychological affirmations were wonderful things; Everett hadn't needed more than the sight of a bottle and the feel of the glass in his hand before he'd started bleeding off the anger that his talk with Hannah had brewed. He'd let the range and tension bleed off in the supermarket, and by the time he'd stepped out and lit his first cigar in months? It was forgotten.

It trailed farther behind him with every step of the walk home, unable to cling against the smoky flavor in his mouth and the anticipation of a slow burn coursing down his throat from a stiff drink or four. The day was nice, all things considered, and though it wasn't Atlanta, Everett felt like he could make do here. Better than bunkmates, he mused as he rounded the corner towards his home, keeping his eyes off the nearby police station in a bid to maintain his steadily-improving mood.

Eris was sitting on her porch. She had arrived that morning, and what she'd been told about everything hadn't been good. In fact, 'spectacularly fucking bad' might have been a better phrase to apply. She'd gone to being held in one form to being held in another, and hey! Now she was stuck back in a place with people who when they figured out she wasn't dead? Were probably going to want to remedy that situation. She wasn't looking forward to it, to say the least. It wasn't so much fear as some unidentifiable emotion she didn't do a whole lot of examining.

When she saw someone walking up the sidewalk, she turned to look. And froze for a second. Because oh look. There he was. The man who'd killed her. Given her the permenant necklace. Given her brain damage. And while she could have just slipped back inside and not said anything--that wasn't Eris' style. So, she stayed where she was, sitting on the top step of her porch, eyes tracking his progress. "Evening, Officer." she said, voice lazy, even if it dripped a saccharine sort of darkness.

To say those two words froze Everett would've been an understatement. They certainly stopped him, but their effect went beyond that. The voice was one he'd never forget, no matter how hard he tried or what he did. It raised the hackles on his neck in the blink of an eye, tensing every muscle with no apparent sign beyond the soft crinkle of the paper bag in his hand, wrapped tight around his liquor.

Silently praying that he hadn't heard that, that maybe he was just going insane instead, Everett turned to look across the street. Insanity would've been preferable. There she sat, the woman he'd killed months before, the gift-wrapped present from the overseers who had let out the ugly thing inside of him. She's dead. I saw it. I waited.

Indeed, the memory of that act had burned itself into Ev's mind as vividly as the things Eris had done years earlier and a world away, the very things that had pushed him to murder. She shouldn'tve been sitting there with that mix of languid and predatory that she'd always had, because he'd left her tied to a bed in the nude with a belt winched tight around her windpipe. The scene couldn't reconcile in Everett's mind, leaving him staring blankly and unaware of the loose tobacco littering his tongue from where he'd bitten into his cigar.

There was a stab of satisfaction that she'd stopped him in his tracks. That he looked, just for a moment, like a deer in the fucking headlights. Or, he did to her, at least. "What's the matter? You forget your manners, Captain?" she asked. "Don't you have a greeting for me?" she continued. She shifted her position, moving from having been leaned back, to leaning her arms on her knees, eyes never leaving him for an instant. Because now that she'd started, she couldn't stop. "No 'hello, Eris, long time no see'? No polite acknowledgment of any description? How about 'Eris, it's been a while'? Or 'You're looking good for a woman I murdered'. That one would probably be the most applicable, don't you think?"

Was there anything a person could be expected to say in this scenario? Everett didn't think so, which is why he remained wordless initially as he turned his back to her. There was a definite tremble in his hand as he twisted off the cap of his bottle prematurely, tilting it back for a long swallow right then and there on the sidewalk. The smooth heat didn't solve anything, but it did block it out for the briefest of moments. Ev took a few steps to his front door, setting the bottle down outside to bring in later. Shame if I smashed it over her head.

He wasn't sure what exactly he was planning, and the uncertainty wasn't gone from his expression as he turned around, but it had a partner now. A somber, grim look had settled in Everett's eyes as he started across the street, straight towards Eris' house, tossing his ruined cigar in the street as he moved. "How about 'time to tell me what the fuck is going on'," he growled as he drew closer.

Eris felt her every muscle in her frame tense as he started across the street towards her. She forced herself not to scramble back, but there was the instinct there to do so. She bit the inside of her cheek, and braced herself. "Is there some reason I would actually owe you an explanation about anything, Everett?" she asked, voice light, lighter than it probably should have been. It didn't come out quite like she meant it to. It should have been harsher than that.

Even with her forced composure, Ev knew he probably intimidated Eris. Size aside, he had killed the bitch once, and she'd been terrified throughout that private night they'd shared. But he had to walk carefully; she was sharp, and if he pushed too hard she might just spill all their personal details to whoever was in charge around here.

Ev stopped at the edge of her front walk, slowly crossing his arms across his chest to keep his hands from fisting tight. That just wouldn't look good. "Could've let Kales stab you to death," he offered in response, "That shit'd be a lot more permanent." But even if the words were even and menacing, his mind was still reeling from this. How had she survived? What had she been through since? And most importantly, how could the world make sense when they ended up being neighbors?

"He did stab me, remember?" she asked. "He at least didn't kill me. That was your honor." Eris reached up to hold her hair back, up off of her neck. "Want to admire your handiwork?" she asked. "It won't go away, no matter what I do." she told him. "And don't even try, sweetheart, you wanted what happened to me to be permanent. You wanted to kill me. Guess what? You did. I'm told I was dead." she hissed, letting her hair drop back down, and at least this time her tone was where she wanted it to be. "You don't get to say 'well at least I didn't really kill you'. That was your intent."

"Shame," Everett growled low in his throat, "I was hoping that shit'd stick." Did he almost feel.... pride? Was it pride that blossomed at the sight of the ligature marks on Eris' neck? If not, it was still close, and that bothered Everett a little. "But drop the indignant act, Stockard. Even before we all ended up sharing a roof, you had this coming. Even before Atlanta I know there were things you had to have done that'd make most people want to choke you bare-handed. You're damaged girl, psyche like a basket of broken glass. Don't nobody miss that when it's gone." Sure, he was still shaken by the very fact that this was happening, but he'd deal. He wouldn't let her worm under his skin and get to him.

"So here's how it's going to be," he went on, gradually unfolding his arms and fishing out a new cigar. "We're stuck here, obviously. You can lock your door if you want, try to feel safe from me. You don't need to, I'm not going to bother trying again... unless you give me a reason. And I'll be watching for them. I've got a hundred grand to drink away here and a window facing you, step fucking smart. Do that and maybe we'll never see each other again when we get out of here."

"Oh I'm damaged." Eris said. "You're the sad fuck who murdered a woman in cold blood, because you couldn't handle the stress anymore. And don't even pretend you know me. Don't even pretend. You don't know shit. You know what you were supposed to know, nothing more. And you know what? You still probably don't know the actual score, Officer." She paused, and just stared at him. "You're going to tell me how it's going to be, with a threat over my head that if I don't live up to your standards you'll try to kill me again? Fuck you. If you want to try, you try. But don't pussyfoot around, Captain. I'm not going to lie down and quake in my boots. Or do anything, like you have authority over me." She continued to look at him for a long span of moments. "You have no idea, do you."

"No, I think I do," Everett answered in a much more quiet voice. "What I got shown in the house? Yeah, a good hunk of it was probably bull. After all, they covered up so much, why not add a little false evidence?" His brow furrowed as he struggled to keep calm, to keep himself evened out through this. "I know what you did back in the States, I had you nearly locked down... but this isn't about that any more. I took my shot, put you through some hell, that's good enough for me." A bitter smile crossed Ev's face for a moment as he glanced down at his hands, remembering tying Eris up, tightening the belt around her throat... "Yeah, I am a sad fuck, I'm a goddamn monster, lady. We can smell our own. I have more of an idea than you can even begin to understand."

He took a few steps closer, stopping at the base of the stairs so the quiet tone he'd been using could work with the low growl that suddenly bled into Everett's voice. "All I'm doing is giving you a clear view of how it is on my end. You become a monster again, I will too. I will walk down to Hell just to make sure you're getting what you deserve, because I don't have a goddamn thing to lose any more, Stockard. Not. One. You? I think you want to survive... whereas I could give two shits if I do or not."

"Are you naive enough to think that you can turn that on and off, Everett?" she asked, voice light. "That for some reason you can pull it up when you want, but it goes back in it's box when you don't?" Her eyes remained on his. "And what gives you the right to pass judgment? You're not some high and mighty man who knows the difference between right and wrong. You believe in your own fucked view of justice, and it's just that. Fucked. You don't get to say what I do and don't deserve. Not you." Then she smiled. It wasn't a pleasant expression. "And see there? You just proved it again. You. Don't. Know. Me. What makes you think I have anything to lose?" she asked. "After all of this?" she made a vague gesture at the town.

"Do you know what happened to me? This isn't about a little fabricated 'evidence'. And the shit you think you know? You don't." she hissed. "I never joined the experiment." she said. And she let that statement ride, so it could sink in properly for him.

Everett smiled right back, a cold and dark smile with hints of white showing through. "Sure you didn't, Eris. What else didn't you do... let me think. You didn't know your boyfriend was going to burn that warehouse down, you didn't know who'd spraypaint 'nigger' on my door, or who'd stab Rosemary, I bet you didn't even know how fucking date-rape pills got in your bedroom." Everett took a step back, hands stretched to either side as if asking her to refute any of it. "And that is how I know you, girl. By the time you just might be telling the truth, you've spun so much bullshit and fucked over so many people that I don't care. Okay? I don't care if you got gassed and dragged here, because from the first day I knew you were in that house I could see you fucking with everyone else. And it wasn't just you, hell I know that, but even a 'fucked' guy like me can tell that shit's not right."

He stabbed a finger at her, anger rising in his eyes again. "Do not expect me to feel one shred more guilt than I did for the things I've done. I know I was used, I know they baited me and let me go after you. White boys in 'Nam had a saying, 'put a nigger on the trigger'. You want anything different from me? You want concern or compassion? Maybe even some remorse for how I fucked your life up? Give me a reason. Give me one reason I should regret what I did to you."

"I was hired to do it. I was put in the house, specifically to fuck with people's heads. That's exactly what I was there to do. In fact, I got files on people. I had targets. The drugs I did have I got from them. Just about everything I had was provided for me, because that was what the experiment was supposed to be about. I was hired to do a short stint in the house, mess around with people, and then I was supposed to be removed. Only they didn't remove me. They hit all the buttons, and made it easy for you. They fed me to you. You were given all the ideas you wanted so that it would make it okay for you to do, and you did it." Eris said, voice low, eyes not leaving his for a second. "They fed you a little white girl so you could take out aaaaall of your frustrations in one shot, one perfectly little giftwrapped present for you, and you gladly took it. Tell me Captain...when you dream about it, do you wake up hard?" she asked.

"Lady, you do about as much to turn me on as I do for you," Everett was quick to answer, his brow knotting together darkly. "And you honestly think that being hired for the shit you did is somehow better? Seriously? Did I give you some fucking brain damage when I saw you last, or were you born with it?" Ev's smile lost it's edge, somehow more amused than dangerous now. "You're going to sit there and tell me that it's better that you did everything you did because you were paid? That someone who's just broken and fucked and can't help themselves is worse than someone who'll do anything for a dollar? Christ almighty, Stockard, I thought you showing up here was the last surprise you had for me. You're a mercenary, girl. You use yours tits and ass for weapons, but you're still just a merc. Not a damn thing attractive about that."

Ev took a step back with a heavy sigh, resting hands on his hips. "But you got your cheap thrill, got to surprise the shit out of me. And I got mine, got to spit some hate your way... I don't want or need any more of this. Keep your issues girl, I've got my own. And step fucking light," he said in parting, turning to walk away and starting a silent countdown to the first drop of scotch hitting his lips.

"Now see, that's a stupid thing to say. Don't you know all that is about the violence, not sex?" Eris tsked. "You know that. So it would have nothing to do with me. I wanted to know if what you did gets you. And yes, actually. You did give me brain damage." she said. It was something that still made her twitch, and in more than just the ways it effected her. "But then that wouldn't be a first for you now would it? And I was hired. I wasn't paid. I was killed instead then dropped into a room and forgotten about." she watched him walking away. "I may be mercenary? But at least I own up to what I am. I'm not wandering around pretending to be in the right. To be a good person, or anything. And don't make threats. I'm not afraid of you. And if anyone should step light? It should probably be you, considering you're the one who could be getting hit up for attempted murder. That'll go nicely with your previous charges, now won't it, Captain?" she said, standing up, and turning back towards her house.

Ev didn't look back, he just kept moving across the street as he raised his fresh cigar to his lips, eventually turning his head a touch to call back at her. "There's not a thing out there for me to look forward to any more, you know. So charges don't mean shit to me. And if you think I'm lying to myself about who I am?" He paused at the curb to look back her way, bringing a lit match to his cigar and puffing it to life. "Do you see a fucking badge 'round my neck any more?" There was no wait for an answer, just a few more steps to his door and a lean to grab his scotch before Everett disappeared inside, hellbent on drinking down the doubts and questions Eris had shed light on inside of him.