originallutece | (no subject)

[Her eyes go wide, the color draining from her cheeks. She can't help either reaction, though she'd been half-expecting something like this. It's one thing to idly imagine it; it's quite another to hear it said point-blank.

But she doesn't scream. She doesn't scramble away. She watches him for a long few seconds, her heart pounding hard and her fingers wrapped tight around her glass, and then slowly jerks her head into a nod.]

. . . yes.

[All right. Slowly, slowly, the immediate shock fades. Rosalind drains her glass in one shot, then sets it down on the table and nods again.]

Does Tony know?

[ It's the reaction he expected, even if he didn't want it - Jack turns back and starts on the bottle itself, letting himself thump softly against the back of the couch. Ardyn's reaction had been low-key, but Ardyn wasn't exactly normal people, either.

He keeps his eyes set in front of him, staring a hole into the opposite wall. ]

He knew the night I did it. [ And in what may be the only real kindness he's ever shown Tony, he refrains from adding and he said "Good." ] About ten years ago, I was gonna - I came back to town, and Tony and I got in a bar fight. I tried strangling him then too.

I never liked it like he liked it until this last time.

. . . well. That's something, at least.

[It's a very good sign, actually. She'd much prefer that than the alternative. Rosalind's fingers curl around her knee, her eyes trained on him as she thinks.

Out of all of it, it's her own absence of horror that bothers her the most. She really ought to be reacting in some way: disgust or terror or loathing, surely she ought to have some kind of emotional reaction. But now that the initial shock is fading, she finds herself . . . not quite calm. But steady.]

He's the only one, then? Your wife's murderer, that was the only time--?

[ tmw you confess to murder and all your friends are like "eh". BUT he seems to relax a little, letting out a breath. ]

Yeah. Didn't do it for fun. [ At least he's sipping now? It's better than his earlier chugging, at any rate. ] Didn't make me feel any better, either. When you're a kid, you think, I'll kill him, I'll do it like an action movie. And you think it'll make everything alright. Then you actually do it, and you realize that it doesn't fucking work that way, because she's still dead.

[ A beat. ]

I did try to kill my grandma when I was ten, but that was the night she drowned my cat in the sink, soooo. Yeah. Not really ashamed of that one.

[Get more morally righteous friends, Jack.

Funnily enough, that attempt on his grandmother earns more of a reaction than his confessed murder. Rosalind's eyes widen again, but it's not at what one might think. It's just-- good god, no wonder he and Tony had been drawn to one another, they're birds of a feather, aren't they? She'd been horrified when he'd confessed just what some of his childhood had consisted of, and here's Jack, admitting the same thing.

God.

But no matter. They're both grown and clearly well out of it. Rosalind leans forward, offering her empty glass in unspoken order.]

No, I should imagine not.

[He seems to be settling back, but just in case:]

. . . I'm not running for the hills, you know. For the record.

Forgot to make my bed, by the way. For the cat thing. Good ol' grams. [ He almost sounds kind of... nostalgic? Which is probably extremely unhealthy and indicative of some kind of horrible mental disorder, but he doesn't mind, pouring Rosalind a fresh drink. ] She sends me cookies sometimes. You like oatmeal raisin? Because that's the only kind she makes and she knows I hate them, the sour old bitch. Hope she dies slow.

[ Seriously, there's this bizarre swing from nice to bitter to apathetic to whatever when it comes to her. Save yourself while you can, Rosalind. ]

And I'm glad to hear it - that you're not running and screaming your head off about it. Knew you wouldn't. [ He sets the bottle against the cushions between them, letting his eyes shut. ] I don't give a shit what happens to me, but Angel... I don't want her to know. Think I've ruined her life enough already.

[Good lord. It's as fascinating as it is horrifying, and Rosalind listens, her gaze going a little guarded as she tries to figure out how to respond to all that. Empathy is probably the correct emotion, but he's being so blasé about it that it seems stupid to say something like I'm sorry.

Fortunately, soon enough he moves on, and this she does know how to respond to.]

She won't learn about it from me.

[. . . although. Rosalind hesitates, then adds carefully:]

How did you ensure you weren't caught?

You sure you wanna know?

[ He says it seriously, looking over. No coming back from this - once she hears the details, he can't take them back. ]

[Just like his question over the phone, Rosalind gives it a few moments of honest thought. Is she sure? She knows the broad details; there's no real need for her to get into the details. She could demur, and no one would think less of her for it. Surely whatever he's about to say will be awful, and while she's not precisely the delicate kind, nor is she one for gore.

But she does want to know. There's curiosity, yes, a horrified fascination, but it's more than that. She wants to know because she's his friend. Because she likes and trusts so few people, but he's one of them, and part of that trust is hearing about things like this and understanding it.

Besides: she's never been one to shy away from ugly truths.

So she sips at her drink and nods, her gaze level.]

Tell me.

I found him one night - waited for one where he'd just come out of a bar, so he'd be easier to handle. [ Jack leans back, not looking at her anymore. ] This was in Nevada, right, dead of summer, so it was a hot night and he wasn't wearing his colors. Nobody did. You might wear an armband or something, coordinate your outfit, but seriously, try wearing leather in hundred degree weather.

[ Whoops, let him get another drink. ]

So, right - you used to be able to buy these fake police lights pretty easy. So I followed him until we hit a pretty shit neighborhood and pulled him over. You know nobody living around there is gonna do jack shit if they think cops are around. Pulled him over, dragged him out of the car, and bounced his head off the car door until he got more manageable. Stuck him in the trunk. You know, car trunks get so goddamn hot. Must have been miserable.

[ Now he glances over again, fingers lacing and unlacing. ]

More?

[She's so wildly out of her depth. He wasn't wearing his colors, Jack says, and it honestly takes her half a second to realize that he means gang colors. He was in a gang, and Jack likely was too-- of course he was. My leather jacket days, he'd once called his younger years, but she hadn't realized quite how literal he'd meant it.

Not to mention the story itself is fairly awful. But it's also nothing she wasn't prepared for, and though she's got a tight grip on her glass, there's no hesitation in her nod.]

I'll tell you to stop if I need you to. Keep going.

Aight. Not much left to tell anyway. [ A breath. ] Well, I take him to this construction site - bad part of town, dead of night, yadda yadda, you get the picture. Nobody's there. I pull him out and... hell, I dunno how long I beat him, but it was a while. Just with my hands, nothing too fancy. Good thing I wore gloves back then, because my knuckles were bruised all to hell later.

[ He even shakes out his hand, as if shrugging off phantom pain. ]

And I strangled him. Took a while. You ever kill somebody, don't strangle 'em - you'll be there all goddamn day, and that's if you can even manage squeezing that tight in the first place. [ Another sip, another shrug. ] Threw his body in a cement mixer, kicked it on, and left. I'll let you imagine what a cement mixer does to a human body.

Like I said, it didn't make me feel any better. Kind of a huge waste of time, actually.

[ If he's sounding less and less remorseful as he goes on, he doesn't seem to notice. ]

[It's not as if she thinks the man in question didn't deserve his fate. He was a murderer himself, and quite likely had wracked up any number of crimes besides. It wasn't as if Jack had killed a preacher or saint.

But there's something just a little chilling about the fact that his voice has gone from understandable dullness to something far more casual. Huge waste of time, like he'd gone halfway across town to pick up a prescription instead of snuffed out a life and shoved the body into a cement mixer.

Absently, her fingers slide against her own neck.]

Well.

[Good lord.]

Is the murder itself the ammo, or the fact that it didn't help?

Either-or. It's something I don't talk about much, obviously, so I guess it's just something I don't have any walls against?

[ Shrug!! ]

Also, I told Ardyn. Figured you should know if we're all in on this little experiment thingadoo. Wouldn't want that little factoid popping up out of nowhere.

[She's not surprised, not if she thinks about it. He's an easy person to talk to, and as far as she knows, he and Jack are fairly close anyway.]

Mm, to say the least.

. . . I was going to evoke all that. I'm going to, I suppose.

[She drains her glass again, blinking hard as the alcohol hits her. She's not a particularly large woman and that's not a low alcohol percentage, Christ.]

In, in our experiment.

Ooh, experiment. That makes it sound so fancy!

[ But he sees her hard blinking, so he stands, a little tipsy himself. ]

Got a guest bedroom if you wanna spend the night. No offense intended here, but buttercup, you can't knock 'em back like me and Tony do.

[She likely wouldn't have found much offense with that, except he slides in that diminutive and suddenly she's scowling. She's also not getting up, not least of which because she isn't sure she won't stumble.]

I'm not six bloody feet tall, of course you two can drink more than I can. And don't call me that. Rosie is one thing, that is quite another.

Babe. Baby. Darling. Honey. Sweetheart. Pussycat. Sugar cookie--

[ He has a million of them. And he's totally going to keep going if she doesn't interrupt him. ]

[He's standing, which means he's at the perfect height for her to just sort of kick him, right in the thigh, light enough to be teasing but hard enough to be felt.]

[ And he's in just the right mood to act wounded, clutching at his knee like she's stuck a~~n arrow~~ knife in it. He even pretends to lose his balance, dramatically collapsing to the floor.

Yeah. ]

[Delightful. Honestly, Rosalind looks entirely too smug at that, but you take your victories where you can get them. Besides: she's just tipsy enough that this is pretty funny, and she's laughing as she peers over the couch's edge.]

I hope you're not waiting for an apology, because you shan't get one. Poor thing, did I kick you too hard?

I can't talk to you, I'm dead.

[ Also the floor actually feels really nice and cool against his cheek right now? God. And no he's seriously carrying this joke a little longer, not getting up just yet. ]

Yep. Still dead.

[Oh, well, that suits her just fine; it means she gets to stretch out on the couch, and does, lying parallel to him. What a pair they make, but on the other hand, there's a bit more dignity to a couch compared to a floor.

Idly, she pats his shoulder.]

Does that mean I can say whatever I want without you arguing?