Demons in the Details|Adrienne/Victor, INACTIVE

[JACK THE RIPPER]

The week had been rough at best.

Victor thought he'd pieced it all together; that he'd found the perfect plan. Nowhere else had he been seen, nowhere else had he been suspected...and yet, earlier this week, he had been confronted with an invisible man in his back storeroom. Not only was this unusual, but frightening as hell, as the man had evidently caught him in the act of Annie Chapman.

Everything will be fine, he had assured himself, over and over. You've covered every slight track, and he was invisible, it's not like you could do anything about him. Invisible was the only kind of man that threatened Victor in the slightest...because how the hell was he supposed to find and kill him? Not, that's how.

So he'd left the bar, after pacing for hours on end, to get some fresh air. He had left for the park about two hours ago and had spent the rest of the time roaming, going from the busy, crowded part of the park, to the dark corners. What he needed right now was solitude. To think. If he didn't get that, it was conceivable that his pretty shell would crack, and he might well do something that could not be passed off as just "having a bad day".

He was now roaming one of the park's darker corners, his head down and his hands in his pockets, in deep thought. And if he was caught? He'd thought about it many times, but it had never been close to his reality; getting caught was an abstract thought for him. Victor Griffiths didn't get caught...it just didn't happen. He'd been through cities from London to LA and had gotten this far. To be tripped up by some mad scientist wouldn't do.

He was shaken out of his reverie when he became aware of another person walking ahead of him; from behind he observed that it was a young woman, her hair an unnatural orange color. She was looking around as though she expected to get jumped, examining the place. And god damn, she would get jumped if she kept at this game for much longer.

Victor broke into a trot and eventually caught up enough that he was able to tap her on the shoulder.

Mistake.

[rocky]

Adrienne hated Frank. She hated him more than ever now that she was outside, in the cold and in the dark, on an assignment that was ridiculous. It had all started with an argument in his office, which had started with him calling her into his office, which she had told him expressly never to do. She'd arrived already furious, only to find that the purpose of the visit was completely frivolous -- how are you? he had asked, and tilted his head as though he missed her.

Prick! There was still an empty spot on the shelf where she had broken his goldfish bowl, during an earlier altercation. She hadn't meant to, she had sort of thrown a shoe.

The fish had survived, in her coffee cup. They were at her place now. She felt as though she'd won the custody battle in the divorce, somehow, on that score. The conversation had quickly turned from how are you to fuck you and he'd had to redirect it back on to professional matters, meaning he had to give her an assignment.

A copy of the New York Times was laying creased and folded in his 'out' tray.

"You've heard about these murders, right? Prostitutes? And this subway thing?"

"Of course I have, Frank," Adrienne bit back at him, her nostrils flaring. "I know you don't think it's remotely possible that I could be up to date on current events, considering the subject of my --"

"Adie, Adie!" Frank held his hands up in surrender. "That's not what I meant, sweetie, just listen."

She hated the way he spoke to her, too. As if she was an irrational teenager. She'd always felt that way, even when they had been together. Pervert.

"I'm thinking we need a new angle, for your next column. Something up to date. What are the women in this city thinking about?"

Being fat, being thin, being ugly, being pretty, and the top ten tricks he likes in bed, if Plush is any indication, Adrienne thought acidly, but pursed her lips and said nothing.


"Don't you think a fluff piece -- you know, rape safety, self defence, that sort of thing, could be a great little filler? You know, how to feel safe walking alone at night...."

He thinks rape is a filler fluff piece. It was almost sad that Adrienne had given up being shocked about information like this -- Frank was a misogynistic goldmine, and utterly lacking in self-awareness on the subject. He thought equality meant only violating the office sexual harassment policy with somebody who wouldn't complain.

The worst part about it was that somehow she had been completely in love with him, once. There was a tiny, bitter, shrivelled part of her that still admitted to it. The rest of her had put it down to hypnotism or worse.

"You know... just go out, walk around after dark. Take a can of pepper spray and tell us how it feels, what you see..."

"There's a murderer killing people, and you want me to go outside and walk around and see if he gets me?"

What the hell! Did he think she was stupid? Adrienne wasn't foolish enough to think there was only one murderer presently at large in New York City. She'd be impressed if there were only one hundred. What she didn't like was how cavalier Frank was about her safety. Go out and tempt fate, sweetie -- she'd like to see him tell it to his wife.

The argument had gone on for much longer, until Frank had managed goad, cajole and essentially order her to write the article. He had finished with a self-serving, ass-covering note that she didn't have to go out, if she felt she could write the piece without doing any research, that was fine. If she was scared, after all, there was no sense in doing it.

And he had her. He had known he had her, and she had known that he knew. She planned to end the article with one simple sentence: Never sleep with your boss.

So she was outside, after dark, in Central Park. Without her big, scary guard dog. At first she had been a little disdainful, and felt stupid as she tried to note the atmosphere, and how she felt when hideously overweight joggers passed her, wheezing and sweating in a way that ruined the scenery.

As night fell, however, things began to change. She started to over think things. She started to work herself up into her imagination, and she couldn't help but imagine the literary consequences of what she was doing. In a novel she'd be in the prime place to run smack into the killer, wouldn't she? This would be the beginning of chapter three. The first two chapters would have detailed her as the spunky heroine, a little misguided... perhaps a tiny bit flawed, and in chapter three everything would move up a notch.

Suddenly every sound set her nerves on edge. She had been watching too many stupid horror movies, that was all. Her hand stuffed into the pocket of her jeans to grip at the pepper spray just the same, though, and every twig that snapped made her ears flex in anticipation.

She had worked herself into such a lather that when she heard a gentle footfall behind her, and then a hand landed on her shoulder, she reacted as only the spunky heroine in chapter three of a thriller novel could.

She yelped in surprise, then, cursing openly, sprayed the bastard straight in the eyes with her pepper spray -- and then when the canister began to run out, she shook it impatiently, and tried to spray him again.

[JACK THE RIPPER]

Victor's everything began to burn as if it was being melted out of his face, and he knew what had happened. He'd had pepper spray pulled on him a few times, but he had always known when it was coming, when to slit the throat and avoid getting himself caught.

"Fuck!" he yelped, letting go of her shoulder immediately and raising a hand to his eyes, as if to wipe it off. He knew that wasn't going to happen. "Son of a whore!"

He stumbled back and continued to curse, horrified to hear that she was still spraying. If someone really was trying to kill her, you would think that she would run while he was blinded instead of spraying more! This really was, officially, one of his least favorite weeks ever. If he had not been blinded and stumbling around in that moment, he would have killed her--that fact would prove disturbing to him when he later evaluated the situation. He had never really killed out of impulse, only when he wanted to--when he felt the urge. It was an urge, not an impulse. A throbbing pain as opposed to a stabbing pain.

"Fuck," he hissed again, retreating backward and eventually hitting a stone wall. He couldn't even open his eyes. And the bitch was still spraying!

"I think you've done enough damage!" he managed to shout at her, though his tongue was going numb.

[rocky]

The reality was that she had realised long before she stopped spraying that he absolutely wasn't a threat, and even if he had been, he certainly wasn't one any more. It took her hands a moment to catch up with her brain, however, which was moving only marginally slower than her heart. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

"Oh God," she managed, her voice trembling. "Oh God, I'm sorry!"

She dropped the can, which had been emptied completely, and took two long strides to catch up with him, at a loss for what to do. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!

"Are you all right?" No. That wasn't an intelligent question. He was plainly not all right. In fact, he was backed against a wall, blinded, and screaming at her -- quite justifiably, for that matter. Oh, God!

She panicked for a moment longer, shifting from one foot to the other and looking around as if searching for some miraculous intervention to occur, and when it didn't happen she was forced to look back at him, simultaneously appalled with herself and irritated at him. Didn't he know any better? This was not just her fault!

She was still shaking as she found her voice.

"I'm so sorry," she breathed, and moved hesitantly towards him. "I didn't see you."

Aside from his ragged breath and his angry voice, her soft, desperate apologies were the only notable sound. It was never truly quiet in New York, but it was as quiet as it could be. Her English accent always made her feel like a tourist, whenever she met anybody, even though she'd lived there for the better part of ten years, now.

She supposed emptying a can of pepper-spray into a man's face wasn't much the behaviour of a savvy New Yorker, either. Tits.

"You scared the shit out of me," she told him, as though it made a difference, and as though it might make it at least partly his own fault (it was definitely, mostly, if not entirely his own fault, she tried to tell herself, though her guilt still clawed at her regardless). She pawed at her bag until she found a half-empty bottle of water, and advanced towards him as if she might have been approaching a skittish horse.

"Hold still," she advised him, and took the edge of his sleeve between her thumb and forefinger, turning him and trying to draw his hands away from his face. "I've got some water, it might help."

[JACK THE RIPPER]

Victor cooperated a little, moving his hands from his eyes to his mouth, coughing violently into them. The coughing only made it worse, but he managed to croak, "Scared you? Yeah. I tend to do that." The remark was bitter, sharp, and sarcastic; three things that were natural for him when he was pissed off. Especially by pepper-spray to the face.

He groaned, sliding to the ground, and thus forcing her to crouch. He tried to tell himself that it was his own fault for sneaking up and frightening a tourist--it was about the only thing that was keeping him from poking her eyes out. However, it was not quelling the urge to poke his own eyes out.

Finally, he allowed himself to be tended to with muffled sounds of protest. Help wasn't something he liked, any more than a can of pepper-spray to the face. "Why don't you just take my wallet as well?" he inquired bitterly, knowing deep down that he wasn't helping his case by expressing his high level of anger through such sarcasm. But she seemed soft. He knew he had to say sorry, but he could not bring himself to utter that lie.

A small part of his brain was currently laughing with sick glee at the thought of Jack the Ripper--as he'd dubbed himself--the man who had outwitted police wherever he killed, struck terror into the hearts of the public...being brought down by a little British girl with pepper-spray.

Well.

Shit.

[rocky]

"Scared you? Yeah. I tend to do that."

What was that supposed to mean? Adrienne unscrewed the cap from the water bottle and decided she didn't care if sixty percent of it (or whatever that statistic was) was backwash. She'd said she was sorry, what more did he want?

"Yeah, well. Hold still," she said curtly, and braced one hand awkwardly against his cheek to keep him steady. "And open your eyes," she added for good measure, her tone rather blunt and lacking in charm, "or it won't work."

She'd lived in New York for years, but she still hadn't gotten used to the people. In England, even if somebody accidentally sawed your legs off with a lawnmower, if you said sorry they said 'that's all right!' cheerily, and then complained bitterly when they got home to someone that didn't want to hear about it.

She tipped the bottle up and poured the water gently over his eyes, though there wasn't nearly enough to wash the pepper spray out completely; she should probably be taking him to the ER. His eyes looked angry and red, and she was sorry... and ashamed of herself, really.

It was just that once the initial shock passed, she had a hard time saying so. Later, when she wrote her article, she would be self-deprecating and funny about it. Now it was just excruciating.

"Can you see?" she asked. "I should probably, um. Get you a cab, so you can go to the hospital."

[JACK THE RIPPER]

He groaned again, but this time it really was out of pain rather than irritation. He decided he would focus on the pain as opposed to the anger. "No, no hospitals," he mumbled, blinking back his blurred vision. Now he could make out her watery outline, and her stupid hair. "Thanks though." That part had been hard to force out, even if it was a lie.

Victor had to remind himself not to rub his eyes, even though he wanted to more than anything right now. That, right there, would just make it 1,000 times worse. "Do you know--?" he was cut off by a fit of violent coughing. His hair was falling in his face now, messy from all the stumbling he'd been doing, and his hat had fallen off, probably somewhere in a puddle.

After a moment, he mumbled, "Do you know when I'll be able to see again? I don't have much experience with pepper-spray and I really need to get home." He didn't really need to get home. He really needed to get away before he changed his mind and slaughtered her.

[rocky]

"I sprayed it, I didn't invent it," Adrienne said, a little defensively. How was she supposed to know? You didn't need a license to carry pepper spray. God.

No, she didn't know. She didn't know what it did, really, she'd only bought the can because Frank had authorised the petty cash for it in the first place - if he'd wanted her to use her own money for it, she would have been slapping this poor bastard, not blinding him. Still, she couldn't very well leave him in the park, could she?

"Where do you live? I could -- get you there, instead, maybe?"

The offer was made as though it was a last resort. She definitely didn't want to go to his house with him, and she couldn't help but sound as though he was inconveniencing her by forcing her to offer in the first place.

She had absolutely no sense of the depth of his fury, nor the danger she was putting herself in by pushing him -- or offering to go anywhere with him. The article was already forgotten, banished to the back of her mind and deemed a futile exercise, and added to the file of evidence that proved Frank was an idiot.

She shifted her weight a bit, crouching was beginning to get uncomfortable. Her knees were complaining. She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes, and then used her thumb to lift one of his eyelids.

Ugh. As if she even knew what she was looking for. This was why you shouldn't sneak up on women in the park.

[JACK THE RIPPER]

Victor blinked again, opening his eyes almost fully, though it burned like the devil. He could tell that this little brat was getting irritated with all his complaining, when he was trying desperately to tell himself that it wasn't her fault. Maybe if he voiced it? "I know, I know; it wasn't your fault. Still hurts." He added a mumbled sorry and shifted, slowly bringing himself into a standing position.

With a wracking cough, he blinked hurriedly, welcoming the water that was welling up in his tear ducts. It would take days to completely flush out all the pepper spray, but as long as he could see for tonight, it would be fine. "Don't worry about it, kid. If I can see, I can get--" He coughed again, a sour look on his face. "Shit."

He took a moment to slick back his messy hair, taking a short breath to try and calm himself. If he was going to get anywhere, he would have to admit that it was his fault--which is partly was. But that didn't stop the burning!

"It's okay," he muttered, clearing his throat. He was talking mostly to himself, but it seemed like he was addressing her. "I'm not angry." That was a lie that he was trying to convince himself of now.

[rocky]

Adrienne rose with him, moving her hand from his face to his shoulder, to steady him as he straightened up. She had never been one to keep her hands to herself, she wasn't even conscious she was doing it any more.

Oh, he wasn't angry. Well good, he shouldn't be -- she had every right to be concerned for her safety. Nobody was going to pork him in the park, unless it was what he was in to.

She took a deep breath and straightened her hoodie, dusting herself off as though they had completed a transaction -- she had given him an apology, and he had... been surly and pouty, but moderately forgiving. That would have to do.

"Look... let me help you get home," she sighed. "It's probably the least I could do."

She wasn't going to live with the guilt of leaving him out there, either. Ade knew herself well enough to know that however annoyed she was and however much she was blaming him, she would think about it for weeks to come, and it would sit in the pit of her stomach like a lump of coal.

And she had enough buried down there to last a lifetime already.

"Or else somewhere else, until it wears off. I don't know about you, but I could use a drink."

[JACK THE RIPPER]

Victor snorted, which then caused him to cough. "A drink sounds good right about now, yeah," he muttered, blinking a little still. He couldn't see clearly, but he could make out colors and basic shapes. Sort of like needing glasses, but with searing pain. "Where did you have in mind?" He swore if she said Jack's, he would kill her. He had had about enough of that godforsaken place.

He looked around, trying to make out his hat somewhere around here. "You seen my hat?" he finally asked her, giving up his search. He cleared his throat once more. "Fallen off somewhere around here, probably."

Victor was not proud of himself; he had been hoping to have a charming conversation with the girl, maybe about how she shouldn't be out at this time of night. She might have appreciated it...and, as much as he hated to admit it, he hadn't gotten any action in awhile. No, he did not usually go up to strangers hoping for a one-night stand, but at least something better than an entire can of pepper-spray to the face!

[rocky]

Adrienne glanced around, frowning. Her mind was blank, she didn't know Jack's bar, but nor could she think of anywhere else appropriate -- the scope of her knowledge meant that she was most aware of either absolute dives or places far too ritzy and expensive to go with a man in obvious floods of tears, even she had her limits.

"We'll find somewhere," she said off-handedly, and moved to collect his hat for him. Somewhere with a bathroom he could try and rinse his eyes out in. At least she knew definitively that self defence training would go out the window the moment you were "attacked". Somewhere at the back of her mind she had known how to appropriately disable an opponent, but it had been the furthest thing from her thoughts in the moment.

She collected his hat from where it had landed on the ground and pressed it into his hand, an uneasy truce settling between them.

"What were you even doing, anyway?" she asked him, putting the empty water bottle back into her bag. She spent longer than she really needed to organising herself and getting comfortable again. She didn't really know what to think.

She was embarrassed, and annoyed, and suspicious, and she couldn't decide which of those three emotions were going to take the lead on her opinion of him... had they met under vaguely normal circumstances she would have flirted with him shamelessly.

She decided it would depend on how he answered that question.

[JACK THE RIPPER]

Victor replaced the hat on his head, attempting to regain at least some of his dignity. He told her, "I could probably think up some place once the burning subsides a little. I know most of them; have to keep competition in check. But it's taking a surprising amount of strength not to bash my head against that wall right now." He managed a dry chuckle.

He sniffled, as his nose had begun to run from all the pepper. "Shit," he muttered to himself, taking out a handkerchief. He prayed that it was a clean handkerchief and not one covered in blood; as he raised it to his nose, he found that it was, in fact, clean.

Victor then cleared his throat for a third time, turning toward where her outline was to answer her last question. "Well, some other lady was killed the other night, or at least that's what I read in the Times. I came out here because of my terrible insomnia, but didn't expect to find anyone else here. I was going to ask if you were lost or something...it's not exactly safe." He then coughed into his sleeve again.

[rocky]

"Oh."

Adrienne paused. She didn't know whether or not to believe him. It was her unwritten prejudices that made up her mind for her -- he was clean, well-spoken, and neatly dressed. He didn't look like a criminal, and that made it easier to dismiss her suspicions.

"No, I'm not lost. Believe it or not, I'm out here deliberately."

She was beginning to feel incredibly stupid. Adrienne ran her tongue over her upper lip, glancing around as if to seek confirmation that she was doing the right thing. She didn't live that far away, and she definitely had a bathroom and plenty of whiskey in the apartment.

You blinded the man! she told herself. What is he going to do, except trip over everything? Idiot.

"All right, come on. My apartment isn't that far away... and I definitely have running water and booze, so it qualifies."

She took his arm, a little awkwardly, because leading him merited closeness they certainly hadn't otherwise bonded enough to enact.

"I'm Adrienne," she told him.

[JACK THE RIPPER]

Her apartment? No, no, no, no, Victor did not want to go there! They'd be all alone and the temptation to hurt her would be too strong. Just focus on the pain; you can't do anything to her, right? No. You're in no condition. Just focus on that. He was painfully aware of the fact that he'd get caught if he killed her in her own home. There was that, and the fact that...he just didn't want to follow this brat to her house. As if it would do any good!

Still, he allowed her to lead him through the park. He realized that she had introduced herself...well, that was a start. Now this strange woman had a name: Adrienne. He figured she probably wanted a name too. "Victor," he said, turning his head to the side to cough.

A thought struck him: she had an apartment? So that must mean that she wasn't a tourist, like he'd thought. Well, Jesus. You would expect a New Yorker to be...well, more like a New Yorker.

"Why are you out here anyway?" he asked her, genuinely curious. He already knew he wasn't doing his "work" tonight, but he couldn't speak for the thousands of other murderers, thieves, and rapists in New York. Why would some jumpy English woman be out here on purpose?