A/N: Just something short and sweet since I haven't posted anything for a long time. It was initially intended to be a one shot, but I might be compelled to continue if inspiration strikes! Hope you enjoy.

Rated: T for questionable situations.

Disclaimer: Conversation provided courtesy of Red Eye. Do not own.

SOCIOPATHY

He slammed her tired, sore body roughly against the airplane washroom wall. She felt as if she were suffocating. Staring up into his icy blue eyes, she realized she was suffocating, slowly drowning in his steel cold depths.

His charming smile flashed before her eyes, her memory reminding her of how kind, how sweet he could be. She lost what little breath remained in her lungs and her stomach began to ache. Tears welled up in her eyes. How could someone like that just... just change so drastically? How could she have let her guard down like that again?

How could she have allowed herself to be fooled like that?

But maybe he wasn't a complete sociopath, she thought. Yes, he had some major psychotic issues. She knew he did from the way he was glaring down at her. But... maybe she could appeal to some semblance of his morality. Everyone had some, didn't they? She had seen him care, even it if had been brief. He had told the impatient man off back at the check in line at the airport, hadn't he?

"You don't have to do this," she whispered to him in appeal, hoping it would do something, anything. She hoped it would make him stop this insanity. "Any of this."

His face was a mask of disbelief and disgust. What would she know about what he did and did not have to do? She didn't know the first thing about his life! Not the first thing! Who was she to make such grand assumptions about anything? She was just a lowly manager at an insignificant hotel. She didn't know the first fucking thing.

He was about to tell her so when his heart clenched at her expression. She looked desperate, almost desolate. As if what he said right here, right now, would change her life forever. And he realized it would. He had the power to crush this beautiful little flower right against the wall.

Such a pity. She had been his most appealing target yet. It would be such a waste to kill her after all this was over and done with. But then again... he could just keep her. No one would miss her. She had no friends anyways.

But then he was distracted from his thoughts. His eyes were drawn to her small little chest, moving as she breathed irregularly. Had he been the cause of that? His eyes followed the barely noticeable scar that marred her otherwise perfect pale skin.

At first, he was shocked. A second later disgust flowed through him. "Did someone do that to you?" he asked, almost hissing. His anger slowly spiralled out of control. "Is that what this is?"

She shook her head insistently, scared out of her mind. "No," she said on repeat, as if her life were dependant on him believing that little lie. It did, her life bloody depended on it! Suddenly, he was angry with her. How could she have hidden something like that from him? He deserved to know, goddamnit. After researching every single preference and habit of hers for months! After following her every waking moment, watching her sleep for eight weeks, she'd kept a secret like that?

He was supposed to know everything about her. This job depended on it. His life depended on it. How could he have missed something so crucial? He narrowed his eyes, glaring at her once more. Suddenly, without any warning, he slammed her up against the wall again, his fingers closing around her neck and choking her viciously.

"You know what I think? I think you're not such an honest person," he growled into her ear, lifting her up brutally by her neck and cutting off her air supply in the process. "Because I've followed you for eight weeks now, and I've never once seen you order anything but a fucking sea breeze!"

He panted into her ear, winded from her passion. He had been irritated when she hadn't let him have the satisfaction of ordering her drink for her. Didn't she know that it was meant to be part of his charming act? She had messed with his routine. It had pissed him the hell off. Combined with her keeping secrets... well, how much was a man supposed to take?

He didn't enjoy being lied to, and he certainly didn't like secrets. If they were going to go anywhere in this professional relationship of theirs, she was going to have to pick up some slack! He wouldn't have it any other way.

Why couldn't she have just cooperated with him like the rest had? It would have made things so much easier. Much less stressful for both him and her. Not that he cared if she was under stress. She deserved it after she had lied to him.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he realized she was trying to tell him something. "Can't breathe... can't... breathe-" So, he let go, not wanting to damage the goods too much, prematurely. She panted roughly, he could feel her sweet breath against his cheek as he leaned towards her.

He stared at the mirror where she had tried to write her stupid little message and his anger flared up again. She could have gotten everyone killed! Didn't she bloody understand what was at stake here? She had to understand that no one messed with his business without suffering the consequences.

He started to wipe away the soap message. "I've never lied to you, Leese," he said, addressing her as she turned away from him, really sobbing now. "You know why? Cause it doesn't serve me." He leaned towards her as he spoke, and the smell of her coffee and rose scented hair only drove him on to make the stupid girl understand his point. "We're both professionals. We have the will and the means to follow through. If we don't, our customers aren't happy, and if they're not, we suffer and our lives go to shit."

He wanted her to know that no one was ever going to make his life to go shit. Never again. Not now, not ever. She wasn't going to be the one to do it.

He leaned towards her and pulled her face towards his to stare into her eyes. He found that woman found this to be appealing at times, but mostly it just made his point clearer. Women enjoyed that kind of stuff, didn't they? Eye contact? But she just looked dejected. His heart softened.

"But that's not going to happen, is it?" he questioned, wanting to confirm her intentions. He didn't have to be cruel to her if she cooperated. He quite liked her, in fact, he would prefer if she would just let him be nice. He could do that if she let him.

She was panting, she looked exhausted. He realized he was panting as well, his breaths matching hers. Pleasure swept through him when she whispered what he had wanted from the beginning. "No..." From this distance, he could see her eyes were a pretty shade of gold-green.

"Good," he said, genially, happy now that he had gotten what he had wanted. "Because I'm going to tell you the phones are working again. Are you sure we have a deal this time?" His voice was sweet, she realized.

How could anyone refuse a voice that sweet, coming from a man who looked like Adonis himself? She nodded. There was no use refusing him now. She'd done everything she could to prevent the inevitable. "Yes," she whispered, again. She was so, so afraid.

"Peachy," he smiled, and Goosebumps prickled her skin. "Well, thanks for the quicky," he said. Shock seeped through her, especially because the idea of a quicky didn't sound so drastically bad after all. It was certainly better than what they had been doing in reality. She felt sick to her stomach. She felt... used. He reached back to grasp her face once more as if to ascertain his job was completed.

With a quick perusal of her features that were so withdrawn now, so...complacent that was quite uncharacteristic of what he had come to know of her as, he whispered, "Good." Good that she was broken in now, or good that he hadn't damaged her beyond repair?

She didn't want to know. She hurried shame-facedly and determined back to her seat before anyone could admonish her for what they no doubt thought had happened in the washroom.

How wrong they'd all be.

One thing was for sure. Jackson Rippner was not simply a sociopath. There was so much more wrong with him that that. She shuddered when he sat down again in his seat, leaned towards her, and flashed her a smile. It was his signature smile, she realized. A feral grin to anyone who knew him, something charmingly irresistible to everyone else.

She knew she was drowning, would drown before the night was out – captured in the depths of his silky blue eyes.

A/N: Would love to hear what you thought of this! Would you like to see more?