Participants:
| Scene Title | Aiding but not Abedding |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | It's a pun, people, I spelled it wrong on purpose. Tracy calls Mortimer back and offering him a helping hand - but not too much of one. |
| Date | June 28, 2009 |
Descing is overrated
Tracy Strauss left Mortimer Jack a phone message. Who would ever have thought that would happen? But it did. She left it. And she might have been slurring a bit at the time. But that was earlier in the evening - now it's painfully late at night, probably having crossed the threshold into being very early morning. Tracy is asleep in her bed, but not as most people might be. In her nightgown, sure, but she's asleep sitting up, with a laptop computer, which is also asleep, ironically, across her lap. All is dark, for now.
Wearing a buttoned up white short-sleeved shirt, some nicely fitted blue jeans, and a pair of black boots, Mortimer arrives just like last time, unlocking her door, then locking it behind him. He was rather surprised to get a call from Tracy Strauss, so figured, maybe it was urgent. He sneaks around the house, not seeing her in any of her usual spots, well not the ones when she's awake. So finally he just goes to the bedroom, closing the door behind him. "Tracy?" he softly asks, not wanting to startle her awake.
Tracy rolls over, murmering in her sleep as the laptop hits the bed. Thank goodness she didn't roll the other way. "Stop it, Nathan, I'm not getting up before the sun." Well that's certainly an interesting little development. Stop it Nathan. She seems still to be drifting in a half sleep, but slowly comes to, sitting up and musing her hair. "Is someone there?"
"Someone with a more original name than Nathan." Mortimer walks over, sitting on the bed next to her, though his feet stay firmly planted on the floor. "My mother, she has an ability like mine, but I heard a tape a long time ago where she said she takes medication for it, I mean, the chemical imbalance parts. I uh, didn't talk to her, but I found out what it was and got my hands on a bottle. I'm on a dose right now and well, aside from the memories of the shit I did, I feel pretty great. I still wanna get rid of my ability though, I don't wanna be on medication for the rest of my life."
Tracy grumbles. She cna't help but do just that as she sits up in bed. "Can't you return a phonecall like normal people?" Well in his defense, he's far from normal people. In Tracy's defense, that's no defense at all. "I know about your mother, Mr. Jack. And about your father, and the book, and your lovely sister, too. I mean, I don't know that she's lovely, but I'm sure she is." Tracy is now sitting up at least, rubbing sleep out of her eyes while her other hand tugs up her nightgown, making sure she's modest.
"Leave my sister alone." Mortimer says in a gravely serious tone, turning around to pull his knee up on the bed so he can watch her. "I may have this crazy stuff suppressed, but that doesn't mean I'll let anything happen to my sister. So, what is it? What do you want? I still have more being homeless to catch up on." Tracy grumbles, clearly not liking the fact that she's awake right now, and somewhere disgustingly between drunk and hung over.
"By the door, on the desk is a sticky note with a name on it." And, should he look, there is such a sticky note. "She's a doctor who specializes in criminal insanity. She's paid up for the month." Slowly, Tracy rubs her head, groaning. "Tomorrow…today…is monday, isn't it? I have to work…”
Mortimer goes to the door, getting the note. He looks it over, then walks back into the room with her, closing that door behind him again. "I'll go, thanks, Tracy. But why are you doing this? I thought you didn't wanna help me, I mean, you seemed pretty made up on the hate stuff." Tracy runs a hand over her face, still sitting up as he returns to the room. She'd half hoped he wouldn't be back.
"I'd say I don't hate you, but you're well up on my list. Not wanting to be involved with an insane fugative and murderer is different from hate. I can't think of anyone that I really hate, Mr. Jack. I'm helping you because helping you helps me - I know there's no one to save me if you go insane again, so it's in my best interest to see that you don't go insane." She says it all like she were reporting the weather. So cold.
"If you really wanna know what I was thinking, I can tell you. That's not who I am anymore, so I don't care if you know." Mortimer sounds rather relaxed, walking back over to the bed to take his seat again. "In my own twisted little way, I was attracted to you. I mean, the woman I was dating, she's incredible, it's just, I couldn't help being attracted to you being a sexy, cold, heartless, well, bitch. I know that kinda thing doesn't even phase you." He leans over slightly, arms resting just above his knees almost in exhaustion. "A part of me is still attracted, but I'm not insane enough to think that threatening to kill you is gonna somehow impress you. Do you have any idea how many books I've read? I wasn't leading a cult by accident, I can spot all those little vulnerabilities. The difference between the me before and the me now, is that old me was too blind to see the vulnerabilities, that happens when you're nuts, no matter how smart you are. And the me now? I can see you, I know you're human, and I like that."
Tracy grumbles. He's still here and he's still talking. "It should be a huge turn off to you that I'm doing what I am doing because it helps me, not you. We just happen to have mutual interest all of the sudden." Yes, she'll call it that. Tracy's not totally made of stone - or ice, as the case may be - but it has its advantages pretending that this is the case. "I'm really too drunk to be seduced right now. Or ever. Or…maybe I'm too hung over. I'm…not really sure."
"I'm not trying to seduce you, but since you made the assumption, I'll assume that the outcome would've been positive if you were in the mood for it." Mortimer turns around, seeming to talk pretty differently than he was, well, crazy. "And as much as I'm sure you're hoping, your ice bitch facade doesn't really turn me away, it just makes me wonder if there's anything more, something I'm sure not many men have tried to see after you twitched your vagina once and made them roll over."
Tracy falls back on her pillows, her arms fluttering above her head and smacking the headboard. She barely feels it. She's much too asleep for that as it is, or mabye too drunk. One and the same, if you ask her. "So you udnerstand me now, you see through me and you want to coddle the real me? I've heard that one as well, Mr. V…no, wrong horny boy. Mr. Jack. If this is you on medication, you still seem crazy to me." She opens an eye, peering down at him. "See the woman, will you? I don't want you trying to wear my skin or something just because I wouldn't let you into my pants. I'm not wearing pants…just because I wouldn't let you into my night dress."
"I'm not so much crazy as mentally exhausted and not in the best mood, so excuse any pessimistic sounding compliments." Mortimer turns around, looking over her night dress. "I don't think you need to worry about me wearing your skin. I was a spree killer, not a serial killer, there's a difference. One is a hell of a lot less creepy than the other. Fuck, I can't believe I'm even saying that, sorry."
Tracy can't believe she's saying this either, but she does. She sits up on her pillows a bit and tosses back her hair as she says it. "In my defense, you kidnapped me, made me think I was evolved and also made me think I was in an insane asylum. I really don't think you can get much creepier than that, even if you were wearing my skin. I'm sure the public would say otherwise, but they weren't wearing a straight jacket, were they." She watches him, feeling slightly unnerved by his looking over her, but expecting no less.
Mortimer's eyes linger on her legs for a moment, then he just closes them, takes a deep breath, and finally makes eye contact with her again. He had to remember his manners! "I really am sorry for everything, and even on medication, unless it was a hallucination, you still turned something to ice. Why do you keep saying you didn't when you were right there? But, alright, I'll give you the benefit of a doubt, maybe my guy did it and I didn't know he was Evolved."
"I know he did," she answers, the response coming rather easy from her lips. "Look it up if you want - I've taken the test, I was negative, there's nothing about me evolved. Although every time you phrase it like that, telling me that I did it when I know I didn't, it just makes me wonder if you're not crazy still, trying to wiggle your fingers into my head." She looks down at her legs, curling them up underneath her a bit. She feels so exposed like this in any man's company…men she's not sleeping with, anyway.
Mortimer reaches into his pocket, pulling out a large round bottle of pulls to sit on the bed for her to inspect. "I'm not crazy, I can let you watch me take a dose every day if you need more convincing. I just genuinely thought it was your ability." His eyes linger down for just a moment, mostly from her moving, then they shift back to her eyes. "That's one of the things that impressed me about you, it still does now. I manipulated all those guys, changed their fundamental world views, and you resisted everything I threw at you. The thing I hate right now though, is the fact that I know I'm that guy, I'm not some split personality, I know what I was doing and thinking. It's just, I don't wanna be that guy, I wanna be… I don't know, I don't wanna be the guy who hurt you and all those other people."
Tracy has no interest in the pills - he has no reason to lie, if he's going to these lengths to lie anyway, the pills will match his mother's prescription. Which, ironically enough, Tracy can get. "Why do you want to be sane? You seemed perfectly happy as a murderer and…whatever you were, and you hardly talk about your girlfriend. So I can't imagine she's the reason you're doing this. So why are you, what changed?"
"She's a big reason I'm doing this, I just don't want you to figure out who she is. You're a smart woman, something I took a while to realize, frighteningly smart. I'm afraid that any little hint I give might be enough for you to figure it out." Mortimer explains the girlfriend situation, possibly overestimating Tracy, but one never knows. "But you're right, she's not the only reason. This goes way back to how I lost this arm, I hit my head really hard and ended up reverting back to my memory of before this stuff happened. I never quite changed back to my old crazy self completely, and I started to lose any, well, 'passion' for the things I was doing. After that attack on the Company, I was just done, I wanted to be a normal person and let my men move on, no more hurt people."
Tracy cna feel another tirade coming on, about how his men will never really be normal, how he gave them a taste for blood. But she refrains, instead, and opts for information-digging. "I know about every person who is related by a drop of blood to you, what's the differance in knowing about the one that's related by proxy of different biological material?" She finally sits up, streaching her arms over her head. "I do need a drink…"
"That's for me to know. We might not be together anymore, but that doesn't mean I'll risk her life and career just to prove some point to you." Mortimer rubs his forehead, looking over at her when she mentions a drink. "Since I'm not hallucinating anymore, I guess I can drink now. I think I could use one too, if you wouldn't mind."
"But you're willing to risk my life and my career to see yourself fixed? Maybe I should tear up that note about the doctor." She slumps back in bed, blinking back the bleary sleepiness. "There's a bottle of scotch on the kitchen counter, don't bother looking for any glasses though." Indeed, if he does bother, he'll find that Tracy Strauss owns not glass nor mug. "Just get some dixie cups from the bathroom."
"Tracy, I'm not stupid. The only risk is if you opened your mouth, otherwise no one will even know I've ever been here, except my mine, and none of them are talking." Mortimer heads for the kitchen, grabbing the bottle of scotch, then the cups in the bathroom, and when he comes back he drops a random bomb, "I ever tell you one of my men works for you? He worked for you before I recruited him, but he still does right now. I won't tell you who he is, but he's harmless."
That makes her run colder than the ice that's already inside of her, and it's a struggle to keep it just there. Inside of her. "He'd better be out of my office by the time Monday morning…well…Monday workday rolls around, Mr. Jack, or you and I will have a serious disagreement that might be a threat to this lovely life of hearth and homelessness that you've arranged for yourself. And you are of great threat to me. I don't expect you to understand how you are, but I do expect you to understand that I know more about it than you do."
"I'm telling you this because, well, I just wanna get on your good side, I guess." Mortimer shrugs, handing over the bottle and pulling out a cup for each of them. "My ability will be gone when I figure out how to get rid of it, and I'm sitting right here, not even close to hurting you, so how am I a threat? I've never wanted money or power or anything, and do you seriously think I could handle the guilt of doing another bad thing to you?"
"I really don't know what's in your mind, but I know what's in mine and I don't want your man in my office anymore." She pours two dixie cups and then reaches for one. "Having him in my office is a bad thing. If he were found out, and this were discovered…I don't know why I bother." She throws the drink back quickly. "It's obvious you're here to milk me for what I'm worht to you. So get the therapy." "I'll get him out of your office, and I'll get the therapy."
Mortimer agrees when she plainly lays out the seriousness of the situation, then downs his cup before holding it out for another shot. "And if I just wanted the therapy, I'd have left by now. Right now, I just want your company, being out on the street alone isn't as fun as it sounds. And you're not a bad person to be around once you adapt to the bitchiness, hell, it's one of your charms, even though I still don't believe it's the real you."
She pours him another, and herself as well. "That's always been one of my favorite arguments. This isn't the real you, it's the facade you put on. You should see how depressed they all were to find out they were wrong and that this is exactly how I am. I can be a good person, Mr. Jack. I just realize that the rest of the world, like me, is out to save their own skins. The only difference between myself and them is that I'm comfortable with admitting it." She crosss her legs, keeping her thighs low to stay modest as she sips her drink.
"I guess I can respect that, and I wouldn't exactly call it a disappointment, just, I suppose I was expecting Secret Apron-Wearing Housewife Tracy to pop out." Mortimer laughs, before taking another sip, trying to match her drinking pace, so he doesn't chug it all at once. "I don't know, I guess you have this charm, but the bitchiness is sorta what hits you right in the face before a guy can notice anything else. Well, there's your ass too, but I don't think relationships are built on a foundation of ass."
Tracy can't help but raise her eyebrows somewhat, taking another slow, soft sip of her drink. "Relationships, is that what we're trying to build here? Save your relationships for your Ms. Capulet, Mr. Jack, what we have had, and will continue to have is a business arrangement. Granted, most business arrangements don't see me in my night gowns, but I can make an exception where it's due."
"Don't worry, I'm not interested in that kind of relationship with you." Mortimer is quick to lay that out, downing another shot, and holding his cup out. "At most, a business relationship with benefits couldn't hurt anything. But I'd guess you're too used to your 'take it slow' rich guys." he teases, grinning as he just lays back, one leg still placed on the floor, but his head finally resting on her bed.
"Quite the opposite, but that's all I'm going to say about my sex life unless you're willing ot get more explicit with yours." She fills his glass easily, but hers doesn't even need a top-off yet as she continues to sip it, lightly. She notes him trying to crawl his way into her bed, and narrows her eyes. But her gaze drops away, instead focusing on her glass for another sip. "There's a chair beside the bed, and I suggest you move onto it."
"That woman I won't tell you about, we've only slept together once, her job complicates things, my life complicates things, and we just broke it off so we could get ourselves together. Can't say she was disappointed with the few hours of sex we did manage to have." Alright, so Mortimer didn't exactly get explicit, but Tracy doesn't need to know everything. "And, that's the great thing about suggestions." he teases again, sitting up to sip his glass. "Don't worry, I won't pass out or anything."
Tracy sets her dixie cup aside, having had enough alcohol to reawaken her. "So good to know, but it wasn't really a suggestion. Get off my bed, Jack." That part comes with a more stern tone for the man. "So, what did she have to get together in her own life? Relationship baggage?" The more information, the safer she'll feel.
"It was more like personal issues, stuff I don't really know much about. I would've asked, but I wasn't in the best mind at the time." Mortimer finally stands up, taking his cup with him, then walks to the chair and takes a seat, frowning at his new resting place. "I really would tell you what was up with her, but I'm really not sure."
Tracy seems more or less pelased that he got up and moved after she told him to. She didn't like him on her bed - really, he wasn't her type. "It's probably for the best, if she wanted you to know, you would. Now what else is it I can do for you, Mr. Jack? I arranged your pyschiatrist."
"I'm gonna take that as a 'get out'." Mortimer smiles, shaking his head, only appearing a tad tipsy as he downs his last shot and stands up. "I could tell you what you could do for me, but I don't think you'd deliver, so I'm just gonna get out of here."
"It's a legitimate question, Mr. Jack, nothing more. Though if what you want from me requires my getting out of this night gown, you can put it out of your head quickly." While he doesn't ask for another drink, she pours herself another small one and takes a sip. "But really, what else do you need beside that, to maek sure you don't go insane like before?"
"Beside that? You've done everything I wanted, except letting me stay here, and you know that's not happening." Mortimer says with a shrug, heading for her room door. "Next time wear clothes, a night gown raises expectations."
Tracy chuckles easily, downing her dixie cup just as easily. "Next time call back instead of just walking in, it makes me think that you expect to get shot. Or deserve to, either way." She smirks easily, falling back in bed…with a chuckle? A giggle? Maybe there is a bit more liquor in her.
Mortimer, still standing at her door, just asks with half-lidded eyes with his hand on the knob. "There's no witty retort that'll lead to sex, right? I'm just making sure before I leave."
Tracy sits up on her elbows and shakes her head. "Not a single one. Good night, Mr. Jack."
"Cold shower." Is the last thing Mortimer says before exiting her room, then leaving her apartment entirely, making sure to lock her door so everything is how it was before he got there.
And now, god only knowing what time it is, Tracy rolls over, fluffing her pillow and curling up with it, setting her laptop aside. She stays awake a few minutes, though, just to make sure he's gone and not watching her, or something equally creepy. When she's convinced he really has left, she slowly lets her eyes close to help her prepare for the new upcomming day.