you sold your baby to clear a debt? Who: Booker and Lina What: Booker decides to air his list of bad decisions, and Lina makes him watch the Human Centipede for science. When: During the comm malfunction plot, after these texts. Where: Lina and Rogue's. Rating/Warnings: Medium, language. Status: Complete
Lina couldn’t remember the last time some situation made her feel dread, anxiety and embarrassment all in one messy whirlwind. Part of her was tempted to throw her laptop across the bedroom to shatter in pieces, but she’d regret it in the morning. Instead she pulled a bottle of vodka from her night stand - half-finished - and unscrewed the top with trembling fingers.
Taking a large gulp of it was the only thing that calmed her down. Sort of.
She came down the stairs with heavy stomps, signaling her approach and warning anyone else that the living room was currently off limits until further notice.
“Got the vodka,” she growled.
Booker held up a darker bottle. "Whiskey." He scooted over so she could sit next to him. The TV was on mute to the Golden Girls of all things. Booker thought that Sophia would be the ultimate internet troll if that show had been made in the current decade.
He even put his arm around her once she sat. "So the internet is busted."
She sunk into the cushion once she sat, filling her cheeks with hot air before letting out an exaggerated sigh.
“It’s a good time to die again right now.” Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She undid the top again, this time ridding herself of the cap completely, and took another shot. “When I typed about Elizabeth reading this, I didn’t think it would escalate to that.”
"It's okay. I think she understands." Booker looked down at his bottle. "She's worred 'bout what I'm gonna tell you, but she don't need to. It reflects more on me than on her anyway."
“I read something about drowning before I shut the damn thing off,” she said and looked up at him, eyebrow raised. “What’s up?”
“It’s how some of my dreams end,” Booker replied. “What it means… Cause it’s all kinda fucked up.” He wasn’t sure how to even begin with it. “How much has Elizabeth told you? About Columbia?”
“Uhhhh…” Lina had to think about that for a second, and while she thought, she helped herself to another drink. At this rate there wasn’t much left in her bottle and she’d switch to his soon. “She’s told me some specific details. Others she left...vague. A few days ago she mentioned something about not wanting to tell me something, because I liked you guys too much?”
Booker thought he knew what that was, and he wasn't going to say it out loud because he liked to pretend that part hadn't happened. He figured the rest of it was enough to turn Lina against him as it was.
"It was created by a guy named Zachary Comstock. Racist fuck, take everything that's bad about jingoism in America and stick it in one floatin' city an' you got Columbia. He locked Elizabeth up in a tower and siphoned off her power to give him the ability to see into tears."
“You guys have such a cheery world,” Lina commented sarcastically. “But yeah, she told me about being locked up.”
Booker nodded. "...Ever do somethin' really bad, an' then later realize how bad and terrible it was, an' try to repent? An' ever wonder what woulda happened if you'd made a different decision at a key point in your life?"
At this point she decided to take Booker’s bottle of whiskey for herself. “Don’t get philosophical on me right now. Get on with the point.”
"Okay. I did some bad stuff. Real bad stuff. Was in the army, was an anti-union enforcer...In the army they called me the white injun on account of some distant ancestry. At the time I didn't take it so well, an' took it out on the enemy."
It wasn't something he was proud of, and the disgust was tainting his voice. "After that....tried to escape that past. Met a woman named Annabelle an' for a time things were good. She died given' birth to Elizabeth. An' I took that real hard."
How this played into Comstock, wasn’t yet clear.
Ah. Elizabeth’s mother. Must have been something hard to even bring up. She nestled against his side, following the chronology of his story. “Okay…”
"Before I met Annabelle, I tried to repent..an' then I couldn't go through the baptism. But I met Anna an' things were good, until she died....So I drank. A lot. More than you even seen me do here. An' gambled. Mostly the horses. An' gambled until I had nothin' left. Nothin' but the girl. An' then I did somethin' terrible but I didn't remember it for a long time."
He didn't know how to say this, he didn't want to see the look on Lina's face when he told her. "A man approached me. Offered to wipe away my debts if I gave my daughter up." Like an adoption but all it really was was a sale.
"Changed my mind almost as soon as I done it an' chased after them. They took her into one of those tears."
He looked down at his hand, the letters A.D. carved into them. "I spent twenty years in a haze, until someone asked me to bring them the girl an' I could wipe away the debt. Jus' didn't know which debt that was until later. That's how I ended up on Columbia, that's how I found Elizabeth, that's how...everything ended up the way it did. An' then there was Comstock."
Lina had to replay his words in her head a few times before she finally let it process, and forced herself upright on the couch to give him a strange look.
“You sold your baby to clear a debt?”
Did she hear that right?
Booker sighed, "It was a lot of debt. But when you put it that way.... Yes."
Booker knew he wasn't a good man, but he'd gotten used to people having at least a little bit of respect for him.
Regardless of the debt, it didn’t excuse the fact that he sold his baby. But Lina reminded herself this was dream!Booker, so she continued to listen, arms folded with a raised eyebrow. “Go on.”
“Anyway I tried to get her back an’ didn’t get there in time, so I was drunk for twenty years. But here’s the thing. The person I sold her to...he was me. The me if I’d gone through the baptism. I become that fucker that hurt all those people an’ hurt Elizabeth. Only I don’t, but one version of me does, an’ I keep dreamin’ from both sides.” Booker absently wiped some blood from his nose.
“So we figure this out. There’s always a city, always a man, always a lighthouse. Different events, similar events, shit that happens the same an’ different. Different mes. Different hers. Infinite. But then I figure, what if we got back to the start. To that lake where some mes become Comstock an’ other me’s don’t. An’ what if we smothered the bastard in the crib. Drown him before he ever existed. No religious epiphany. No twistin’ the good word an’ buildin’ a city on the backs of the poor an’ the helpess. No torturin’ Elizabeth. Then there’ll be the me that got to raise her, that didn’t fuck it up. An’ there’d be no Comstock.”
Whoa.
Shit just got real.
Confusing, but real, and she did a fairly decent job following that entire thing. “Does...Elizabeth know? You’re Comstock?”
Booker nodded. “Yeah...she figured it out in the dreams before I did. Was..easier here because I was doin’ the dreamin’ for both me an’ him.” He pressed his fingers against his temple. “an’ I think sometimes it would be best if I didn’t exist, still. But I dream she was there, in her crib, an’ everythin’ will be okay. Right up until I start dreamin’ of this underwater city. Same shit, different name. Different girl. 1950s instead of 1912. An’ then Elizabeth comes walkin’ up like this dame in an’ old movie. I don’t know her. I think this is a third me. She offers to help me find Sally, make up for somethin’ I did that I don’t remember.”
His face was grim, ashen and tired. He sounded miserable. “Same shit. Different place. I have...have to wonder if I didn’t sell her her too an’ just made myself believe she’d just been kidnapped.”
“You mentioned Sally. When we went to get you from Balloon Tits,” Lina pointed out, completely straight faced. “Who’s Sally?”
“This girl on Rapture,” Booker said. “I adopted her...but one day she vanished while I was in the casino.” Booker’s hands started to shake, and his vision blurred. “Security said they found her floatin’ beneath the docks. But Elizabeth. Dame Elizabeth..said she ain’t dead.”
She took immediate notice of the hand trembling and set the bottle down. “Okay, maybe you should stop talking about this. You don’t look so good,” she said cautiously with a bit of a wince.
“S’why I went after the bastards that beat up Neena. Figured...hell I guess I figured I might as well go out for a good reason. Do one good thing with my life.”
“You’ve got a lot of chances to do good in your life,” Lina told him, getting a little upset. “You don’t have to die for it. You’ve got this whole new chance with Elizabeth. And you have the rest of your life ahead of you, granted you stop thinking suicide missions are a good way to die.”
“Obviously ain’t a good way to die,” Booker joked. “Still here ain’t I?” He sobered up a bit. Lina was getting upset and he felt a little bad for that. He lifted a hand to her cheek. “I’m..mostly over that shit. Ain’t gonna do much stupid.”
Lina eyed him skeptically but eventually relaxed. Ain’t gonna do much stupid meant that there was still a chance for something stupid. “Well, like I told Elizabeth. You’re not who you are in those dreams. I’d say they’re a good example of what to do and what not to do.”
He was Booker DeWitt, there was always chance for stupid. “Yeah. Guess you’re right. So you don’t think I’m a terrible person?”
“Well, dream-you sure as hell isn’t sterling citizen.” Her expression was stern for a couple seconds before she smiled crookedly. “But, no, you’re not a terrible person. You’re fine, if that makes you feel better.”
Honestly, Lina didn’t see why he’d been too worried. Sure, some of that was hard to process, but she had some experience with good people who sometimes ended up making bad decisions.
That went easier than expected, and for the first time since being picked up at Claudine’s, he had a genuine smile. “Thanks for listenin’. An’ not blowin’ me up. There’s...some other stuff, but you’ll have to ask Elizabeth about that.”
“I figured if you guys want me to know something, you’ll tell me in due time.” Lina took a final drink from the bottle before handing it to him. She let out a burp and wiped her mouth. Because she was a lady. “It took a good set of balls to admit that stuff, so kudos there. Feel a little better now?”
"Yeah, I'm feelin' a little better." Booker took the bottle and knocked back a couple of mouthfulls. That made him feel even more better. Yes. Even more better. Booker can grammar. " ... Thanks. For listenin'"
Lina’s smile grew and she gave him a playful punch to the arm, before nestling next to him on the couch and grabbing the remote. “I’m pretty good at that. And providing booze therapy, too. We’re not fucking on the couch, though. However, we can bro out and watch a violent movie?”
"Damn. Here I was hopin' to scar people." Booker squeezed his arm around Lina. "Sure you don't wanna make Elizabeth need eye bleach?"
“No!” Lina’s face went red and she tried smacking him with the remote. Honestly, now that their conversation was out in the open, she didn’t know how to feel about the entire arrangement. She had always been a fairly private person when it came to that kind of stuff. A few people knew, sure, but not the entire network.
And if Xelloss saw…
She swallowed nervously and turned on the movie channel. “Violence. I need violence.”
Booker eyed her, but didn't press the issue. He did smirk, though. "You're cute when you're blushin'. An’ find somethin’ bloody.”
It only made her cheeks glow even more, and Lina visibly sunk into the couch as if she was deflating. “Am not.” But then after looking through what was available, she smirked. Almost sinisterly. “Ever watched the Human Centipede? Either way, you’re about to.”
“No. Do I need to be worried?” He patted her head, and let her sink into the couch. He’d started grinning, and it felt good to grin. “Good thing I got a strong stomach.”
“Yes, you should be,” she answered with a bit of a pouty huff, but the grin that replaced that evil little smirk completely contradicted that. “It’s about an evil doctor scientist who kidnaps these people and makes them into a human centipede. Meaning one person is the head, the middle person has their mouth connected to, you know, their butt, and the butt of the centipede is another human, who has their mouth connected to the middle person’s butt. Pretty much, it just sucks to be the middle person. Or the entire centipede. It’s pretty gross.”
“Unless you’re into that sorta thing,” Booker pointed out, completely deadpan.
Lina gave Booker a look of complete horror. Absolute and utter, horror.
“That’s disgusting,” she said and pointed at him accusingly. “You’re fired.”
“You’re not the boss of me!” Booker laughed and poked her in the stomach. “So there ain’t any way you’re gonna fire me.”
The poke at the stomach earned a jolt and something of a high-pitched yelp, like a squirrel was getting axe-murdered, and she scooted to the other end of the couch. Which wasn’t far. “I’ll fire your ass then. In the literal way. Fireball and everything!”
Lina emphasized her point by shaking her fist menacingly.
Booker snapped his fingers, creating a small flame. He grinned at her, then pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Mind if I smoke?”
Lina eyed the cigarettes and wrinkled her nose into an expression of disapproval. “Smoking kills, buddy.” Her dad smoked, and she used to throw away the boxes when she was younger to help him quit. Not like he listened. “You can have one. Stink up my couch permanently and you’re getting us a new and more expensive one.”
He looked at the cigarettes, then sighed and chucked them off to the side. “Not worth it.” Really, the only reason he wasn’t dead in a gutter somewhere was the women in his life, it seemed.
Satisfied, Lina occupied her original spot next to him and pulled a blanket over to curl under. “Good choice. Now, shut up and watch the movie.”