Who: Neena Thurman, Booker DeWitt What: Serious not-conversations about dream stuff. When: Yesterday. Where: Lucky Shop Pawn/Booker's Place. Rating/Warnings: R, Triggers for Drug Use, Implied Glossy Mentions of Dream!Torture and Dream!Rape, Cursing, Alcohol Abuse, etc. Status: Complete
Things had been pretty stressful lately and it was making Booker Cranky. Between his dreams and his slip into alcoholism the business was suffering. If they were lucky Neena was picking up the slack, except they weren’t really all that lucky.
Today though, he was making an effort to not drink, and marginally succeeding.
The whole sad mess with her newly outed clerk, Jennifer, hadn't helped them. Her parents had come and made a scene, and now there were all kinds of new security measures Neena had to put into place. She'd agreed to them readily when Ororo had handed her the paperwork, but she was worried about their effect on her business. Hopefully it would be mostly positive.
Neena had definitely let things slip for several days, camped out on her bathroom floor and drinking herself as close to alcohol poisoning as was safe without actually getting it. The dreams and the crap with Hanna... she almost knew where Hanna came from and that thought dragged up so much baggage that she'd heavily considered packing up her own bags and skipping town.
But she hadn't. Today, she'd put her game face on and decided to come down to the shop to get some work done. She walked into their shared office with a gigantic cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and immediately sat down at her desk without saying a word.
Security wasn't a bad thing really. They'd had a few robbery attempts and that would be helpful in the future. That it helped an employee was only a bonus in his mind. He wasn't expecting Neena, and grunted at her when she came into the back office. "Security kicked an asshole out, it was funny."
It probably would discourage theft. She'd told Ororo as much, and that was one upside to it. Neena was worried it'd also discourage certain regulars from doing business with them, too, however.
The mental picture of them kicking out assholes would have made Neena laugh on a normal day. Today, she just grunted in response and started straightening out her desk. There were piles of notes and paperwork on it, and she desperately needed some kind of control over something in her life right now, "Nice. I'm sure you got a kick out of that."
Her voice was a little hoarse from disuse. Other than one drunken night with Rose and the meeting with Ororo, she hadn't been speaking much.
“You look like shit,” he said, looking at her, before taking another swig of his coffee. It was his anti-drug today. “I think you got’a problem, Neena. Do we gotta do an intervention?”
"I don't have any problems that an intervention is gonna solve," Neena retorted, with a nasally snort. She took a long swig of her own coffee and decided to leave out the part where she'd filled the inch of space in the top of the paper cup with whiskey in the Baxter's parking lot.
"It's fine. I'm back at work and shit is taking care of itself." Hopefully her merry band of hackers would find information soon. Information that disproved what she felt, in her gut.
“Bullshit,” Booker said, but he didn’t argue the point yet. “Are you sure you even need to be in here today? I ain’t seen you this bad before.” Worry actually crept into his voice.
The worry in Booker's tone made some part of Neena's insides squish. It wasn't a very welcome feeling and it made something in her break a little. Which also wasn't a very welcome feeling.
She sat there, trying to master the set of emotions she was now forced to deal with, and took another long sip of her coffee.
The truth was she'd been worse, and she knew it. And she was worse even than he knew or could see, but she was torn between telling him so or just not reading him in on things.
"I've been away too long, I have to be here," was what she finally managed to choke out.
“Or we could shut down for the day and have a conversation like real human beings,” he said, frowning at her. He knew that wasn’t going to happen. Fuck, why did he even care?
"I have bruises on my thighs."
Neena's voice was so low that it was almost a whisper, her tone very serious. She didn't turn to face Booker while she said it, and she only paused momentarily before continuing, "Inside and out. On my arms, and stomach. And red, barely scabbed over whip marks. Places where I've been cut by knives. They fade a bit by the end of each day and are back again the day after. By all means, Booker, let's have a conversation about that."
“What.” It was the only thing Booker could process to say. He sat up straighter, anger in his voice. “How? Who?” It couldn’t be the dreams. Could it? That was simply impossible. He got up and walked over to her, but didn’t touch her.
It couldn't be the dreams, or it shouldn't be the dreams, but it was. Neena had lost track of how long she must have been held in captivity like someone's plaything, but each dream about it was new and she'd had at least ten since the dreams of that section of time in 'dream land' had started.
"I was working with a team, but our leader left us behind, and I was captured. Guy named Tolliver, and his midget assistant Pico."
Her words dripped with anger and bitterness, not only when she mentioned their names. These events were only a part of the many reasons she was certain if she ever met Nathan Christopher Summers in real life she'd shoot him immediately.
“Sometimes I dream about a time after that. I know I escape. But then the dreams go back there. I have no idea how long I was kept there.”
There was no one to shoot or hit, and Booker failed at rolling for comfort. He stood there awkwardly, folding his arms and looking down at the ground. “You ain’t got it easy.” What did you even say to that? He was having uncomfortable emotions towards Neena right now.
"Yeah." Neena's voice nearly cracked. That was a hell of a conversation killer, right there, and she didn't know what the fuck she'd been expecting. She especially didn't need him trying to comfort her and was glad that he didn't bother.
"I'm sure your dreams are bad. But maybe you can fucking appreciate the reason that I don't want to talk about mine."
“Thinking we need something stronger than fuckin’ vodka,” Booker said, rubbing his face. That way could be …dangerous.
Dangerous in a lot of ways. And wasn't Booker trying to stay on the wagon? Neena knew she was a horrible influence on him. Today she actually felt a little bad about it.
She shook her head, "I've already got Whiskey in my coffee and I think if I put much more alcohol than that in my body it might actually put me in the hospital. You shouldn't be drinking at all."
A pause, then she sighed and shook her head, "Drinking doesn't make it go away. It's still there when I'm sober and hung over. I think I need a new drug."
“That’s what I mean,” Booker said, half-seriously. “I can get some shit, might help.”
Neena actually turned in her chair so that she could look up at him. Her eyes were red with unshed tears, but she was smirking a bit and her eyebrows were raised, "What, really?"
"Yeah. Don't ask where I got 'em, shit I had from when I was really fucked up. But it'll numb everything." Booker thought they could both use something to numb them.
"Fuck."
Drugs weren't a thing Neena generally approved of. She'd gotten involved with some pretty nasty stuff when she was younger, and she didn't really want to revisit that. She hardly ever took them, even for pain.
But right now? Right now, they were definitely welcome, "I don't even fucking care what it is. Just give it to me."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a case. "Come over here." He didn't even feel a little guilty right now. Not after his last dreams. Fuck, he just wanted to forget.
Whatever Booker had must have been pretty fucking hardcore to be in a case like that. Neena squinted at it a bit as she got up from her chair and walked over to him, "This is serious business drugs, isn't it?"
“Morphine,” He replied, tiredly. “Lets shut the shop down and head up to my place. We’re going to be fucked up for hours.”
Both of Neena's eyebrows raised, but she silently held up a finger and disappeared into the front of the shop. It wasn't good to let the minions run the place without some kind of supervision, and it was a slow day, anyway.
She shut down and sent the kids home for the day, then headed back into the office, "Alright. But if we're doing this we should probably go up to your apartment or something. Hours of being fucked up means we're gonna end up needing a bed or some shit."
The idea of taking a drug that heavy actually made her nervous, but she wasn't about to back down now. And she was just as tired as he was.
This was definitely a mistake, but Booker just didn’t care. He led her upstairs, putting the case on the living room table. A few hours of letting everything go...well he was old hat at that, wasn’t he? Fuck the wagon, he was never really on it anyway.
The apartment was surprisingly clean, though not entirely up to Neena's standards. She didn't care. Everything in the dream world she was going through, everything in the real world that had come up... she just seriously needed to forget. Really forget.
She kicked her shoes off in his bedroom and pulled off her jacket, hung her holster on the bedpost, and sat down on his bed, "Alright. Let's do this."
He walked in after her, tossing his jacket on the floor and kicking his shoes off. “Close your eyes, I know how you are about needles.”
"Jesus, where the hell did our lives go wrong that we're actually doing the kind of drugs you inject," Neena mumbled. She didn't stop him, though, and closed her eyes.
She was really bad about needles. So bad that when she got physicals she told them to take the blood out of her while she laid down.
Since she was almost guaranteed to pass out. Neena kind of hoped that she didn't pass out this time because that would totally waste the drugs, "This better be the best damn trip I'm ever on."
He jabbed it into her arm, not too gently. It’s been a while! “Yeah, it’s going to be so fuckin’ awesome you ain’t gonna give any fucks.”
"Ow, Fuck!" Neena took a deep breath in, then let it out, and another. Then she flopped onto her back on his bed, and looked up at the ceiling, "So this is the shit you did before we met."
“Yeah. Among other things.” Her kicking his ass had helped drag him out of it and now here he was, pulling them both back down. It seemed fitting. He was a fuck up no matter what life he was leading.
"I think we should make some kind of rule about how we don't do this very often and only in dire emergencies, but I know us too well."
It was very quick, too, the Morphine was. She could already feel it kicking in, eating away at the edges of her consciousness in a very delightfully spinny sort of way.
“Fuck rules,” He muttered as he shot himself up. It was a long dark fall back down the rabbit hole and it felt so good.
"Yeah. Fuck rules."
She was going to regret this later, probably. Right at the moment, though, everything touching her skin felt so amazingly good. Even where the bruises and cuts were. She pulled her shirt up a bit so that her back could rub against his blankets, and giggled, "Oh man. This is great."
Booker grinned at her. Right now she looked...well she looked really beautiful. He reached over to stroke a hand through her hair. “Yeah. This is great.”
Even ten minutes ago she probably would have grabbed his hand and broken his wrist, just on instinct. That's how jumpy she'd been lately, but the promise of relief and then the actual drugs just made Neena bend her head a bit in the direction of his fingers. Hair stroking was alright. Hair stroking wasn't at all terrifying.
Really, it just felt good. Neena purred a bit.
Booker's hand moved down Neena's neck, then down to a breast. He grinned at her. "Hey..." She looked really good, and was squirming against the blanket in a way that was unbelievable tempting.
Neena's breath caught in her throat. The roughness of his hands felt wonderful and horrible all at the same time. This was a really bad idea. Okay, no, it was probably a great idea. Whatever happened could be blamed on the drugs anyway, right?
Tears were welling up in her eyes a bit and she didn't even bother to blink them back, "Hey... can you just... make me feel better. Just make me feel fucking fantastic, Booker..."
"Yeah..." He didn't have the capacity to talk much past that.