You Did What?
Characters: Jeremy and Pippa Setting: The bar, late evening
Pippa had gone back to her room and taken a fair amount of time to clean herself up. She’d rolled her bloody clothing up into one of her sheets, tied it together into a big bundle, and decided the best way to get rid of it was to burn it later tonight. After stashing it in the back of her closet, she pulled on new clothes in the form of another dress and ankle-cut leggings, then left her room.
After that, Pippa felt she deserved a celebratory drink so she made her way to the bar, unassuming and hopefully going as unnoticed as possible. Once there, she went directly for the entrance to the place behind the actual bar, no need for protocol or rules in her mind.
The place was close to winding down and Jeremy had moved away from the bar itself to clean up a few of the tables, looking back to see her behind the bar. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” he asked moving towards her and giving her a solid Look.
“Improving on the shitty service here,” Pippa said, still venturing behind the bar to look for bottle with the most alcohol in it. She snagged a whiskey and started to pop the top of it open. “It’s done.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes, reaching across the bar to pluck the bottle from her hands and nodding for her to sit. “I’ll get you a glass.” He heard her second statement but didn’t do anything other than move around to behind the bar to find her a glass. “What’s done?”
“Your distraction,” She said, watching him with unamused eyes. “It’s completed. Now you follow through with your end of the bargain or the next distraction I work on will be you...”
“My distraction?” he asked, looking around. “I haven’t noticed anything. Unless that was you taking the cameras out.” That would have been useful, but only half of what he would need. And Jeremy had a feeling that was more Mazie’s handiwork than Pippa’s.
“You haven’t noticed anything yet.” She answered again, still waiting expectantly for her drink. “If you don’t hurry up and pour that shit, I will bash the bottle over your head and find it just as satisfying.”
He rolled his eyes at her again then found the glass, pouring her a hefty amount. “Yet? What is waiting on me then?” he asked.
“Nothing is waiting on you. Something is waiting on everyone else. At the very least, for someone else to go down to the clinic.” She took the drink and knocked a fair deal of it back before looking at him again. “I told you, I’d take care of it. Now you take care of your side.”
“How did you take care of it?” Jeremy asked instead. “Then we can talk about me taking care of my side of things.”
“I can’t say it out loud, Idiot...” Pippa said, glaring at him. “Do you think I’d just come in here to find you and tell you a lie?” It wouldn’t be out of the question normally but this time it was real.
“I don’t know what you would do. And why can’t you? The cameras are out. Who’s going to hear you beyond me?” And he was curious what she’d done.
Looking around, Pippa made sure she saw no one present but the two of them. She scanned the room and even the exit as best she could before she leaned in closer to him. “Your nurse has been taken care of.”
Jeremy froze. Taken care of didn’t sound good. It sounded like far more than he’d wanted. Distraction? Yes. Maiming maybe, destruction here and there, but ‘taken care of’. “She’s....” he started watching Pippa’s eyes.
“If you’re that concerned, she’s in the clinic. But I wouldn’t suggest going there in anything white...” She said, taking another sip of her drink before she sat down on the stool again.
Jeremy almost dropped the bottle. That was...alarming at best. Terrifying at the worst. “You...so smoothly...” He started not sure what to say. Had he just signed that woman up for her death?
“Use your words,” She said, looking back at him. She watched him for a moment and reached for the bottle, refilling her own glass.
What words? That hadn’t been his intent at all. Something to dissuade people away, not something to leave someone dead. Maimed maybe, but dead? That was a stronger hand than Jeremy ever dealt. Swallowing back the bile from the knowledge that he may or may not be responsible for someone’s death, no matter how little his interest in her was, he looked at Pippa. “What was our bargain again?” he asked because honestly he’d forgotten, but it was a good tactic, to see how she saw things.
“You’re going to make any of this court-ordered bullshit go away,” Pippa said, looking back at him. “I have better things to do than laundry duty.” She had revenge to enact, plans to make, clothes to burn...it was all a big process and she didn’t need it interrupted by trivial laundry duty.
“Right of course. I’ll get on that then” Jeremy said, not at all sure just how he was going to swing it, but he’d make it happen. Though if she’d done what he thought, no one was going to be thinking about court-ordered laundry duty.
Finishing off her drink, Pippa looked back at him. “You know where to find me if you want to strike up another deal.” Right now, she had other things to do, important things to take care of before it got too late.
Did he? Jeremy wasn’t entirely sure in that moment, but he found himself nodding nonetheless. “Of course.”
Pippa looked at him but didn’t say anything as she started towards the exit. She made a vague waving-goodbye gesture before she exited the bar and started toward her room again.