(no subject)

[unhappy]

A. Text
Went to the Dream Docks. I'm not sure I really should have. It doesn't really matter here anyway. I'm back.

Johnny I left you a post-it on your office door so I'm not fired for not showing up for work.

B. Action, CW: Alcohol
[ Emerald doesn't really.. drink. She spent enough time on the streets to know that's one of the many ways you stay there and never escape. And then between Mercury and his father's story.. she has plenty of reason not to really touch the stuff, even if she's frequented bars before. It's more lucrative to stick around and steal wallets from people whose faculties aren't about them enough to even bother needing to use her semblance.

And yet, here she was, sitting at the bar nursing a glass of whiskey. She'd ordered it, but she hadn't exactly touched it yet. Part of her knew it wasn't a good idea, but part of her had no idea how to deal with problem after problem. And with more memories from home adding onto everything she'd spoken about with Cassian still feeling raw and fresh (she didn't process feelings, ever if she could help it, talking about them with someone who understood on some level wasn't something she knew how to deal with). Where things had gone with Cinder, what Mercury here thought about Cinder..

All it did was leave a pit in her stomach, and she wasn't sure what else to do. If it's just once, it shouldn't be too bad, right? And she won't get shit-faced, and if she smells weird at all she can just.. squat in a vacant hotel room or something so Mercury doesn't have to deal with this while he's trying to stay away from it. ]

Comments

action

[captain_by_the_book]

[ Cassian's not one to socialize, and less so to go for a drink and company, but gathering information comes with a lot of time spent in bars. People's tongues loosen after a couple of glasses.

Yet tonight it's a half-hearted attempt, he aims for a seat at the bar, next to a scantily-glad young woman who looks just as glum as he feels. No horns or tail or pointy ears about her, nor any other sign that she could provide him with useful information. But tonight he doesn't feel like going for exhausting company. ]

Excuse me? Is this seat taken?

Action

[unhappy]

[ Yes, it is, by her desire but to deal with stupid people. She refrains from saying that though. The last thing she wants to do is get herself a reputation that would get her noticed. Thieves are better off without attention. So she gets her eye roll out before she turns toward him, her eyes quickly going over him in entirety to size him up. He didn't look like he was there too try to engage her too much, so she gives him a shrug. ]

I don't own the chair, you can sit anywhere you want.

[captain_by_the_book]

[ Well. He feels a little bit of amusement stir in him at the blunt answer, his dour face turns slightly less so. ]

Whether you own it and whether you want me to occupy it are two completely unrelated things.

[ It's good enough to make him sit, anyway, and order a drink. And then look at the counter waiting for it to have all the answers. He hates first approaching strangers in a bar, it's hard to do so without looking like you're trying to hit on them, and fending off fingers without giving in to the urge to break them is a hassle. ]

But thank you, anyway.

[unhappy]

Whether I want you to and whether you can sit are two completely unrelated things.

[ at least it sounds like she's just giving him sass as she settles back down, facing the bar and her untouched drink. She brings it up to her lips and smells it. It doesn't smell bad to her, her she knows her taste buds have probably long since perished. She looks like she's almost going to take the drink, then puts it back down on the table. ]

You're​ winning brownie points already if you don't have any lines to feed me.

[captain_by_the_book]

[ Cassian eyes her from the corner of his eyes and gives an amused snort. If that were what he is here for, he would be charmed. But since he's not, he's just relieved. Sarcasm comes far easier to him. ]

I could feed you a fair number of lines, but I'd rather not if it's all the same to you.

[ He accepts his own glass from the bartender and sips half-heartedly on it. Right. He should make at least some token attempt to be social, or else he'd just be wasting his time. ]

And I'd not sit here if you truly didn't want me to, so whether you want it and whether I can are actually related, in this case.

[unhappy]

[ she taps her finger to get Cub for a moment, as she's considering whether he can stay out not. ]

If you aren't going to feed me lines you can sit there and block lines from other drunk idiots and I won't complain about you using the seat.

[ This could be advantageous for her. Emerald finally decided to give into the drink in her hand and downs it in one go, then flags the barkeep down for another. ]

Private

[burnwithawesome]

You doing okay?

Private

[unhappy]

Same as always. Nothing's changed.

You?

Private

[burnwithawesome]

Yeah, I'm good.

It's just you don't sound okay, at least not with what happened back in your world.

Re: Private

[unhappy]

You're my boss, not my brother. Why do you care?

Private

[burnwithawesome]

I'm not some heartless jerk, Emerald. Just because you work for me doesn't mean I don't care about your well being.

text;

[acrostic]

Bad time? But is knowing more not ideal?

text;

[unhappy]

Knowing more doesn't mean understanding more.

text;

[acrostic]

An interesting point. How long was your trip of uncertain memories?

Re: text;

[unhappy]

[ She has to think about that. There's not exactly a calendar in Salem's happy horror house. ]

Months. More than half a year. Why?

[Text]

[aurabble]

Are you alive? Back at Remnant.

[Text]

[unhappy]

You didn't kill me there either. I never knew you cared.
Good job on Tyrian by the way, I thought he was going to wet himself when he got back.
It was probably the highlight of my dream.

[Text]

[aurabble]

I'm tired of people dying. And I don't want you to. Not anymore. If I had killed you over there, I probably wouldn't be talking to you right now.
I wish I could take credit for that, but that was all Ruby. You know Tyrian? I'm sorry.
I just hope he never ends up here.

[Text]

[unhappy]

[ Yeah she's not going to hold Mercury back if any of those three show up. They're batshit dickfaces. Unless Cinder is there too and says no or Salem shows because Salem is legitimately terrifying, she'll probably help break their face. ]

I wouldn't get your hopes up that no one else is going to die.
That's not a threat before you get worked up. It's a fact, probably on both ends unless your team and Ruby is all you have going for you.
Tyrian's probably one of the easier to handle problems.

[Text]

[aurabble]

[Go for it Emerald.]

If you're talking about Salem, she has a lot of enemies. If we work together, we have a better chance of beating her. We will beat her. I'm not hopeful, but we have to.

[action as discussed]

[sarcaskick]

[ It's late, when he gets the call - almost late enough that he'd refuse to answer it, but he's not quite asleep just yet. He wakes right up when he hears the situation though, running his hand over his face to wipe the drowsiness away with a sharp shake of his head. Damnit. He'd seen Emerald's post earlier, but figured if she wanted to tell him something she would have messaged him directly.

Apparently, she picked up one of his problem-solving methods. Or more accurately, problem-avoiding.

It didn't take him long to get there, and it was probably much easier for him to move her than vice versa had been, but it still takes some doing to get her back to the apartment. She's not completely unconscious (though she seems to drift in and out, and from his own experience he's confident she won't remember much of this journey), and there are moments where she is less than cooperative, but eventually they're at the greatest impasse:

Stairs. ]

Em, if you don't start climbing I'm going to carry you. It's going to look romantic, and people will talk. You want that?

[ He's trying to keep his snark ever-flowing. Trying as best he can not to think about how this had been him, not long ago. Trying not to remember how comfortable he'd felt in the atmosphere of the bar, how familiar, how much he had considered grabbing just one little drink to make this go by easier.

Honestly, the difficulty of moving Emerald had been mostly non-physical. ]

[unhappy]

[ That was the problem. Emerald didn't want to tell him. She didn't want him to know, to have to deal with this. She just wanted to lose herself for a night, then she'd find a way to move on in the morning. The plan to get herself into a hotel room and squat for the night was a great overestimation of her abilities when she was drunk- particularly those of walking. She wasn't sure she would even be able to use her semblance if she tried at this point, which meant sneaking the maintenance master key and getting into a hotel room? Impossible.

Or just not passing out on the bar impossible, which is how Mercury got called in the first place, which was exactly the opposite of what she wanted. It was too late now.

Just as Mercury starts harping on her, she presses her face against his arm. It's not so much an affectionate gesture as an attempt to hide him talking to her, though. Her voice sounds absolutely miserable when she pipes up. ]

'M sorry. I told him don't...

[ She wasn't sure if she'd said that already or not, which is why it was worth saying again. Emerald tried to push off of Mercury as if she was going for the stairs railing, but made it about one step before sitting down, holding onto the railing still like it's going to help.

Even if the physical parts weren't the hardest, she apparently wasn't going to make them easy either. ]

[sarcaskick]

[ They've seen each other at some pretty low points - but Emerald, he's pretty sure, has seen more of him at his. She saw him when he was first free, broken from the knees down and bruised from head to toe. She watched him struggle to learn how to walk again (helped, some, though at the time that was more because Cinder said so than anything), had been on the receiving end of a pretty nasty personal spiral here in Genessia... yet he's only had peeks at hers. Glimpses of it, mentionings of her time on the streets, of how desperate she had been when Cinder came along, but he hadn't seen much of it in-person. Emerald was already under Cinder's wing by the time they met, her position established, and while she's had some falterings here in regard to their boss - ex-boss? - he didn't know how deep it went.

Now, watching her slump against the stairs, he's starting to get the idea that the two of them are still pretty broken, in spite of his attempts to fix himself. Sometimes, in the process of breaking, things are warped out of shape, twisted, malformed. Sometimes things can't be put back together.

Or, sometimes, things fit together that maybe never should have. ]

A for effort, but that's all you get.

[ But they've stuck together this long.

He approaches her again, but instead of forcibly picking her up or anything he sits down on the stair next to her, palms flat against the floor at his sides. ]

Don't say you're sorry. It doesn't suit you.

[unhappy]

Shut up.

[ Is that better? It's not why she said it of course, but she knows Mercury is just trying to get her to stop acting so pathetic. She's so tired of pretending to be okay, and with the alcohol swimming through her brain it's making it hard to remember that she needs to be. That Mercury barely manages his problems on his own, she can't burden him with hers because he needs her to believe in him because otherwise he'll end up back here, and then it'll circle right back to her and Emerald's self-worth isn't even high enough to care that it's going to circle back to her, which brings this cycle of problems right back to how she ended up sitting on a step with Mercury, of all people, trying to take care of her.

A bitter laugh passed through her lips and she slumped against the wall, letting one of her hands fall from the railing and resting her head against the forearm that's still staying up. ]

I don't know how to keep this up. I thought if I went to the Dream Docks, I'd know what to do. Because I'd know! [ This makes sense in her head. She's probably leaving some details out, but hopefully Mercury knows her well enough to interpret it. ] I'd feel like crap like you did and like I thought I shouldn't and I'd figure out where to go from there or I'd know that I wanted to follow Cinder through hell and back but I think we live in hell now and all I am is her voice and don't.. don't go dream, Merc. Even you don't look okay there. Stay here and be okay even if you have to leave me right here.

[ It's unclear if she means metaphorically or right there on the stairs, as she does let go of the railing finally and lay down over the stairs, their edges digging into her back but it doesn't bother her. ]

I thought getting drunk would make it stop. Why the hell do you idiots do it? I just want to throw up...

[ So much for her effort, apparently she's decided the stairs are her friend. ]

[sarcaskick]

[ It's not easy to make sense of her train of thought - suffice it to say that some bad things seem to be going on back in Remnant, and that none of Emerald's questions were answered there. She's struggling. He is too, in his own ways, but he's had too much practice in bottling up his issues to let them float so easily to the surface - especially now that booze is off the table.

Even though he can't stop the thought from running through his head, once again, that this would be much easier to deal with if he had a little bit of a buzz himself. ]

Nothing makes it stop, Em. It just gets lost for a while.

[ ... except for when you try to do it right after seeing some serious shit, apparently, because Emerald seems anything but distracted. ]

Besides, I'm not leaving you anywhere. Pretty sure that would make me way less okay than ever.