your personal ghost

who: everett and eris
when: afternoon
where: side streets

After leaving the House of Imminent Death--at least if your name happened to be Eris Stockard--Eris was trying to find herself a car. And a car that had a decent amount of gas in it, too. It didn't take her long to realize that the rest of the buildings in town were shut up tight, and there was nothing she could get from anywhere. Thus--no getting more gas for whatever p.o.s. she happened to steal. She was cold, exhausted and generally miserable. She was also trying not to think about Brett, and what had happened with him. She was on her own again. On her own, alone, and she'd just have to get used to that, and not feel like the world was crushing in on her because of it.

And right now she just wanted to be as far away as she could get. Coming to the next car on the side of the road, she opened it up, leaned in and looked for keys.

Everett had left the house behind before Eris' argument with Brett, appraising Brett and Hannah of the situation as he saw it, then tugging on a second sweatshirt and hitting the streets. He didn't trust the situation they were all in, Ev just had a gut feeling that there was another surprise lurking in the town somewhere. So he'd been combing the streets, turning corner after corner and checking every unboarded shop he found.

They'd all been the same; empty and abandoned or boarded over tightly, but Ev had expected that much. Really, he needed the space. He had some sense of his thoughts, but he didn't want to confront them yet. Not again. Still, walking the sidewalks wasn't helping him avoid them much; he kept coming back to Eris, to those men who'd held him captive, to the difference in what he'd done to her and them. Ev was so lost in his musings that he might've missed Eris on the streets if not for the sound of a car door opening. His gaze snapped towards the sound, eyes narrowing. "Stockard!" he called, staying where he was, across the street.

Everett's voice pretty much had the same effect on Eris as it did earlier. It sent chills up her spine, and dumped ice water all over her insides. She was up and leaning back against the car in an instant--after knocking her head on the roof of the car because she tried to stand up too fast. She trained her eyes on him and was far too aware of the fact that she'd given Brett her shotgun. Right around now it would be helpful to have, but...she was unarmed. "What?!" she called in return. "I'm leaving, alright? Just keep walking, and forget you ever saw me!" And if he didn't, she was getting into this car and locking the doors.

He couldn't help flinching as she smacked her head, but when Eris started talking? Ev flinched harder. There was something inescapably sickening about seeing how much damage he'd done, and it wasn't just in the scar around her neck. He raised both hands in an unthreatening gesture, slowly lowering to sit on the curb. "I've tried forgetting," he muttered initially, not caring if she heard, "Where are you gonna go? Out there... well, it can get bad."

She rubbed at the back of her head lightly, eyes remaining on his and she didn't even want to blink, she was so tense. His sitting down helped somewhat, though. He couldn't spring up and sprint for her faster than she could get into the car. "I'll take my chances." she said. "Better than being here, in that house. I woke up to you, and that other bitch staying there's already taken it upon herself to threaten my life, so y'know? I'll just cut my losses and leave before she decides I'm 'fucking with her'. Or they plant something to make her think that. Or you decide to go back on what you said and take me out before I can do anything worse. Or she just tells people she's in the same house as me, and your best buddy the machete wielding murderer pays me a visit to finish what you started."

"I woke you up because you were the first person I found," Ev explained as evenly as he could manage, gripping his knees firmly to keep from shaking. From anger or anxiety, he wasn't quite sure. "I... I meant what I said, Eris," he forced himself to say, one of the rare occasions when he actually used her name, "You're always going to be spooked of me, I get that. But you don't have to be." Which wouldn't fix anything, but it was better than giving into the urge to bellow at her, to bring up the things he knew she'd done, the reasons he'd seemed so justified in going after her. "Hell, Hannah? She's got more reason to worry than you do."

"You did it before, and you felt justified in the action, Captain." Eris said, though that last bit, it wasn't said with the same sort of venom she generally had to it. In fact it came out tired sounding, like the rest of her statement. "I'm sure you could come up with brand new reasons somewhere along the line, and if you couldn't come up with them, they'd do exactly what they did before--they'd give them to you." she said. "You think it's coincidence we wound up in the same place? They want to see what we'll do. I'm sure they wanted to see if I'd blow your goddamn brains out the back of your head." Which she hadn't. And she was still aware that she didn't have the shotgun anymore. "And it's not just you, is it. It's that girl. Because I guess she was in the same experiment as you, and she knows people who would gladly take me out in a heartbeat and she started out telling me she'd do it. And oh yeah, that her dog could too. And this was after she'd asked me if I was here to mess with anyone and I told her no."

The news about Hannah was worrying, and Ev? Well, he believed it. She'd been prone to outbursts before, though he didn't know if she'd ever followed through on threats. But he'd have to pay attention now. Everything else, though, it all settled heavily on him. She was right; he'd felt so justified in doing what he'd done, had told himself that giving up his integrity was worth it to remove her damage to others. All he'd accomplished was damaging her. And himself. He'd been shown the edge of a cliff and he'd jumped off it gladly. Everett didn't say any of that, though; he just looked Eris' way and gave a weary shake of his head. "Will you just... come here and talk to me? I won't move, you can run the moment you decide you want to."

The request was such an odd one that she stared at him for a few moments, wondering if her shiny brain damage had just spit something out at her that wasn't in any way reality. She frowned, a wary expression as she stared, and she answered--hoping it hadn't been a hallucination of some description. Had she taken her meds yet today? She couldn't remember. She did remember she had her bottle though, and paused to dig that out of her bag, to take a pull off of it. "What can you possibly have to say to me?" she asked, not actually going anywhere near him. They were far enough away, thanks. She wanted her distance.

He sighed heavily, shoulders bunching as Everett raised a hand and dropped his forehead into it. Ev didn't even know what he could bring himself to say, or if she'd listen. "I don't..." he rumbled, head shaking a little, "I can make every damn thing here as stable as possible for everyone else. They listen, they let me make a call or two, no one else is doing it. But I can't get a god damn shred of consistency in my own head any more. I have next to nothing I understand, girl. I threw away everything because I thought I was doing the right thing, and it wasn't even close."

"Everyone else, fine. Make shit stable for them. You won't be able to for me--you're not the only one who wants me dead. Or wanted me dead. And now I have to deal with total strangers who'll drop me in a heartbeat, just because of what they've heard. So, whatever. Play organizer. You seem to be doing a fine job so far, no one cares if your head's consistent or not." Eris said, taking another drink. He'd killed the bit of a buzz she'd had, so she needed it back. Vaguely, she thought about her medication again. Had she taken it? Brett would know. He always remembered. But Brett wasn't there anymore. "And there isn't much to understand. And how do you know?" she asked. "That it wasn't the right thing?"

Because you'd be dead, not here reminding me. "There's no peace," Everett said instead, "No nothing." He looked back her way, a touch of a haunted look in his eyes. "I loved my job... yeah, it was an ugly filter for the whole world, but I helped. I cared because it mattered, because I could take it. And when I finally gave into every cop's fantasy? Kill the bad guy, save the paperwork? All I did was open a floodgate." Everett's head tilted back to stare impassively at the sky. "You asked me... the night you died you asked if it'd make me feel better. If I'd stop seeing those kids' bodies. I'm never going to, Eris. All that's changed is that I see yours now too. And no matter what I do for everyone else, I'm always going to."

"Did I?" she asked, before thinking better of it. There was a flicker of confusion over her features, a blank sort of look that dictated she didn't remember saying that to him. She didn't remember at all. She remembered him there, she remembered the beating, she remembered the belt around her neck, but details? Those slipped away. Like details of the week beforehand. Other ones probably as well, things from her past that she just flat out didn't have in her head anymore. Lost data. She tried moving forward, and hoped he hadn't seen whatever she'd just displayed there. "So I'm your personal ghost?"

"One of them," Ev rumbled in reply, her confusion missed entirely as he watched the sky. She was the most prominent, to be sure, but she wasn't alone. There were the men he'd killed, the children she'd burned, his sergeant from Vietnam forever screaming at him in the moment before he died, his father looming over him with a belt raised in one hand. "There's something... ugly. It's inside of me, part of me. Red, primal, screaming... it wasn't what made me come for you, though. Whatever that was, I need to understand it, or to try. And now that I know you're here, I can't let a goddamn thing happen to you until I do. I can't raise a hand, Eris. If I even think about it? I remember the last time I did."

Until you do. So does that mean when you figure it out, I'm forfeit? Eris asked internally, but didn't say out loud. Instead, she just watched him for a long moment. Then set her mind to what was said. "What's there to understand?" she asked. "You thought yourself to be a good man, somewhere deep down. Thought yourself to be the one to take the fall, so no one else would have to, and the big bad wolf in the house would be gone. Heroic, I'm sure. You could save all those people, work for the greater good. It didn't have to be the ugly inside of you that set you after me. It was just what wound up doing the job. So, what's to understand?" she asked.

He looked back her way finally, shaking his head. "It wasn't my choice to make. It never should've been. And if I can't fix what I already did, maybe I could at least..." Try to stop it. But he couldn't, he couldn't even keep the thought out of his expression. "Eris... I'm a killer. You caused a few deaths, fucked people over. I killed, and not just you. So what if it doesn't stop? What if there's reasons to do it again? If we get out of this, if I find the people causing it all... would you stop me?"

"You can't fix what you already did." Eris said first, because that part was pure truth. Not what he did to her, not what else he did any other time. There wasn't a fix. She knew that from her own experience as well. Hell, there wasn't even much reprieve. Brett had held the firm stance that she wasn't who she used to be anymore. Maybe she'd started buying into it. But the very first opportunity he had? He latched onto the idea that it was all bullshit. And she'd even tried to tell him that wasn't the case, and he didn't want to listen. So...really, there was nothing. No fix, no reprieve, no new start. "And what if it doesn't stop?" she asked. "There will be reasons to do it again. Everyone has their reasons for everything, and I'm positive that you could find some for someone else. Just matters how much it takes to be a proper justification in your eyes. And here? Especially here? Society's rules no longer apply. Not really. You know that. I know that. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves." She was quiet for a moment, before she answered his question. "I wouldn't stop you." she told him. Then she gave a bitter half twist of a smile. "But then I don't expect I'll live to see the day, either." She took another long pull on her bottle.

"You will," Ev promised grimly, nodding slightly. "Don't ask me to make total sense, okay? Because I know there's no fix, no real atonement for the things I've done. If I took a bullet for you, it wouldn't change what I'd already done. But if I have my say? You're getting out of this, even if you go right back to how things were. Which I don't think you would, for the record." He managed a strange smile, running both hands over his scalp. "This... this is what I need to understand. How things turned around, what it means that I'm going to fight to keep you alive. You, Hannah, that Brett fella, even the people I haven't met yet. The dark edge that says there's always a reason to kill for. The idea that it won't stop even when I'm dead."

"How things were? What, like, go back to my life?" Eris asked, laughing, and it wasn't a pleasant sound. "What life?" she asked. "I have been a shadow in this town, and there's reasons for that. Not only the ones where if I wasn't, I'd be dead already, and I've been trying to keep myself from even crossing paths with people I know would kill me in a heartbeat. I can't--" she started, then stopped abruptly, not sure how to say things or if she was even going to. "It's not there. The angles, or, I still see them, but I don't--" She didn't use them. She didn't really have it in her to start up even her manipulation games, even ones that would have been easy. In fact, the only time she'd actually used it was with Brett, and that was because he was freaking, and he needed her to be able to play things in a certain way, to get the result of him calming down, evening out. "I couldn't even if I wanted to." And she didn't blatantly say she didn't want to, that was none of his business. She didn't have to justify herself to him. "And don't do me any fucking favors." she said. "I'll take care of myself." If Everett wanted to take care of other people like they were pets, fine. But not her. He didn't get to.

"It's not a favor," he argued, musing over what she'd said. He understood it, there was no returning to their old lives, but it was still somewhat surprising to hear Eris say. Dying changes a person. "I'm not looking to save you, Stockard. I know there's no righting what I did, never will be. But you changed... I did too. And all I can do is adapt, keep the lot of us from killing each other. Why did you think I ended up arming you?" Ev looked up at her intently. "Why would I want to see the scar? You have your reasons... and mine? I wanted to see what I'd done. I needed a reminder that I can't do it again."

"Well it felt to me like you stood me up in front of you like a little doll so you could admire your handiwork." Eris snapped, because it had. And she'd gone home, and she'd cried, and she'd moved. She'd stayed as hidden as possible, in an abandoned house, just so he could never do that to her again. And now they'd gotten thrown into the same damn house. Right. It was so terribly funny. "Find someone else to be the poster child for virtue for you, Captain. Leave me alone. Find a cause. Go back to the house of doom and take care of the resident handicapped." Not that Brett needed that much taking care of. He was pretty capable himself, and now he had a handgun and a shotgun. "But don't make me into anything for you. You wanted rid of me, you got rid of me. Go back to pretending you finished the job instead of just shorting the system."

Ev sat there, his gaze narrowing as Eris went on and on, trampling over the first attempts at verbalizing the mess in his head he'd made to date. It didn't matter, he shouldn't have hoped she'd understand. The fact that they were both broken didn't mean they shared anything. Maybe he'd just broken her too much for there to even be recognition between them. "I haven't pretended towards anything for a long time now," he said flatly, rising from his seat on the curb and biting back more. It wouldn't matter, she wouldn't listen even if he could explain. "Don't leave town," Everett said instead, abruptly turning to head back in the direction he'd been moving. "They'll find you. You'll wish it was me." He didn't linger, but he was slower as he moved; weary and resigned, not even looking for trouble any more. He'd found plenty.

"I would rather that than staying here." Eris shot back at him, and she dropped down into the driver's seat of the car. She looked for the keys again, and actually found them above the visor. She shoved them into the ignition, and even though the car wasn't actually full up on gas...she took it anyhow, pulling a U-turn that sent her up over the curb and into someone's yard before she got it back onto the road so she could roar past Everett and head the hell out of town. She didn't care where she ended up, so long as it wasn't here.