Booker DeWitt isn't father of the year (dewitt) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-09-01 14:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, booker dewitt, elizabeth comstock |
There's a sickening part of all of us that gets a rush off of it
Who: Booker and Elizabeth
What: Father daughter moments
When: End of August
Where: Lina's place
Status: complete
Rating: PG-13 for mentions of drug use.
Assume Bioshock Spoilers
Conversations with Lina had gone well, and Booker wasn’t looking forward to talking to Neena, but she was really the only other person in his life that he was compelled to tell everything to. Even if he wasn’t sure he should - she had her own life and her own thing going on and it wasn’t like he’d stayed around to stay in her life. And he didn’t think she wanted him around all that much.
Booker was counting some cash as he came into the house.
Recent dream events had taken an even darker turn for Elizabeth, and she'd been outside on the back patio trying to get her mind off of it. And smoking. It was a nasty dream habit she'd picked up, and one that had stuck with her.
Mainly because she felt more human when she had a cigarette dangling from her mouth.
She didn't really think Lina or Rogue would approve, so she snuck her lighter back into her pocket as she stepped through the patio door and into the house proper. She might even have looked a little guilty as she headed deeper into the house, where she nearly ran Booker over. "Sorry. I didn't see you there."
Lina definitely wouldn't approve. Booker had gotten the dirtiest look from her and had put his pack away right quick. He might be whipped when it came to the women in his life.
"Hey." Booker held out about a third of the cash in his hand. "Here. Decided to...sell a few things I shouldn't be relying on. You should have some of this."
At least he was trying, even if it meant selling off his harder drug stash.
There were people in Booker's life that would have regretted the loss of the heavy drugs, but Elizabeth at least would have been proud of him. If she'd known about their existence, which she didn't.
So instead, she eyed the money suspiciously, "Where did that come from? I mean... I appreciate that you're trying to give me money but you know I don't really need it. And I'm wondering what you had to sell to get that kind of money."
“Shit I shouldn’t have been relyin’ on,” Booker said, shrugging. “Just take it, Elizabeth. It’s better this way, trust me.”
Before her brain processed what Booker might mean, Elizabeth extended her hand out for the money. It stopped in midair however when her brain put a few things together, and a look of shock spread across her face.
"You didn't sell the alcohol, did you?!" Maybe alcohol wasn't something to be relying on. She'd told him as much before. But lately she'd needed to drink the stuff just as badly as anyone else living in that house.
“Fuck that, I’m an alcoholic remember?” At least he admitted it. “Had some… morphine an’ some other shit was gettin’ fucked up with. Figured it wasn’t worth it.”
"I think everyone living here is," Elizabeth retorted. Probably including herself. Alcoholism passed down through the family, didn't it? She was pretty sure she'd read that in a book somewhere.
Her fingers swiped at the money, and she tucked it into one of her pockets, "You definitely shouldn't be relying on things like that. Those kinds of drugs... they do horrible things to you. Worse than alcohol does. I'm glad you sold it."
The conversation felt a little hypocritical to her, what with the fact that she was hiding cigarettes in her pocket. When she realised that she darted her eyes to the side and headed for the kitchen, "Do you want some coffee?"
“Black,” he told her. “Maybe a little sugar. I’m tryin’ to cut back.” On everything but alcohol apparently. Hey, he was trying. Maybe it wasn’t so much a new lease on life, but he couldn’t really explain it. Maybe if he got himself killed doing something good that would be better than ODing in an alley somewhere. Or maybe he just really liked Lina. Not that he had any illusions of where that was going. Booker was too pessimistic.
Elizabeth was a little more optimistic about the two of them than they were, it seemed. But she was entirely aware that the relationship wouldn't float on just her own hopes. She rarely brought it up anymore.
Her hands went through the motions of preparing the coffee, and she let out a bit of a sigh as she pulled the mugs out, "You know I still feel her blood on my hands. Sometimes I wake up... I haven't remembered that I'm not that Elizabeth yet, and I almost think it's actually there."
These were the things that ran through her mind, ones she couldn't discuss with most anyone else.
"You ain't her. An' you kinda are, I can't lie about that. Maybe it's more..." Booker ran his hand through his hair. "Look, if I have a chance, then you sure as well do too. But… you did somethin' good, Elizabeth. You...saved that kid's life. Kids don't ever deserve the shit they go through an' it weren't his fault his daddy was an ass."
"We all have chances..." they had infinite chances, but there were constants, and they stayed consistent. Elizabeth didn't know what that meant for them. She didn't know if the variables were enough to give them a chance in another lifetime. That wasn't a discussion she could have with him. He was depressed enough, she didn't want to make it worse.
She pressed a mug of coffee into his hands and went to fish some creamer out of the fridge for herself, "But I'm not sure how it works, here. I see all the doors now, but there are too many doors. This place is broken. It doesn't operate within the normal rules. I could actually be her. You could actually be him. Like we're becoming them. But the nosebleeds tell us that that isn't true. Despite that, I still feel it. The scissors, how warm the blood was. My heart couldn't stop pounding. There's a sickening part of all of us that gets a rush off of it, and I remember thinking how horrible that was."
Booker set the coffee aside and put his arms around her. “Yeah. There is that, but again that ain’t your fault. You’re disgusted by what you did, Elizabeth. That makes you human.” It makes her so much like him that it hurt.
"But being disgusted by it doesn't stop me from doing it again," Elizabeth replied, darkly. It was a bit muffled, since she'd buried herself in against his chest. It felt good to be with him like this, and she let out a long sigh of relief.
He smiled grimly, and stroked her soft hair. “Sometimes you gotta. You just….gotta find that line between killin’ for the sake of killin’, an’ killin’ for a cause that means somethin’.”
"I feel like there's a large part of me that could become bloodthirsty if I let myself. I don't think that part comes from you. I don't know where it comes from, really. But it's terrifying. And I practically manipulated you into that, towards the end... the drowning. I knew what I would have to do all along, and I wasn't afraid of it."
She wasn't afraid of it at all, and that was possibly the most terrifying part of all of the dreams. That Elizabeth could stand there in the kitchen and make coffee, knowing that she'd had to drown her father. That she'd done that willingly. And he wasn't even a father to her so much as the only man she'd ever loved. But to save him from himself, she was prepared to end him.
Elizabeth looked up at him, looking sad and a little lost, but she wasn't even crying, "I don't know who I'm becoming, and I don't know who I'll be when you're gone. In that place."
"You can't manipulate a willin' victim." Booker wasn't about to let her take the whole blame for that. He didn't blame her, not even a little. "It was for the best. Jus' try to...separate that from here. Sometimes I still think it's for the best."
He looked into her eyes, knowing a little who she's going to become. "These new dreams, I...meet you. I dunno if it's you or another you, but you're...like a fuckin' dame. An' you're harder."
"It's not for the best, here." Elizabeth replied, firmly. No matter what she'd promised the other him, no matter who he was here or who he might become, it wasn't for the best for him to die. She couldn't believe that.
And she also couldn't believe that she'd meet him again, any kind of him. Or that she'd become a 'dame'. In the dreams at the moment, she just felt scattered and lost, and burdened with terrible purpose. She arched a brow at him, "Harder? That doesn't sound like a good thing, Booker."
“I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t think I’m me. I think I’m the other me. Another Comstock. But it’s all fragmented. All those lighthouses...all those cities. How many others are there? How many times did I fuck it all up?” Booker pulled her head in and kissed her forehead, then hugged her again. “...just want one chance to make it right.”
"Maybe this is our chance... though it feels like it isn't. Because we were still separated for all of that time. And it seems cruel that we would be forced to remember..." That other life. Where they were those other people. Elizabeth's head started to ache, a sure sign that a nosebleed wasn't too far away. She gave him a squeeze and then pulled away from him, towards the fridge. Where she could wipe at her nose in peace.
"But we could try, anyway. It's just that much harder. Because... It's very hard to think of you as my father, for one."
“Was...a little harder for me,” Booker admitted. “I had that...dream before I ever knew, even here. but… that ain’t somethin’ that...yeah…” He rubbed the back of his neck as his head started to hurt. “That ain’t either of our faults, Elizabeth. Even there. We didn’t know. We couldn’t know.”
"You think it's any easier for me, just because I came here knowing who you were?" Elizabeth shook her head and turned back towards him. The creamer was in her hand and she was holding it with such force that her knuckles were white, "Booker, you were... were the first... and you'll probably be the last, and then you were my father, and even in reversed order the feelings are still there. I can't... compartmentalize them. I don't know what to do about them."
She shook her head, "And I promised you. I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it in the dreams, and I think that's going to destroy me."
"Find a shrink," Booker admitted. God only knew they both needed one. "Otherwise these dreams are gonna destroy both us. Pretty sure they didn't help me with Neena an'..." He was pessimistic about...whatever it was he had with Lina. And he didn't remember any promise but now wasn't the time to nitpick on it.
"Or somethin' I dunno."
"Neena's behind you now. She's got Clarice and... I don't think you're good for each other. She can't let the past go and you can't apologize in a way that she wants to hear."
Talking about that was easier than giving any weight to the comment that she needed to talk to a shrink. She didn't give psychology any weight at all. Most of the books she'd read about it were mere speculation.
Elizabeth poured some cream into her coffee and shook her head at him while she stirred it all together, "You and Lina could be happy. Why don't you just concentrate on that? I mean it's not like we can have each other. I know I need to look past that. But you need to look past everything, too."
“Bein’ bad for each other don’ mean there aren’t feelin’s there,” Booker admitted. “But I ain’t gonna apologize for somethin’ when ain’t did no wrong.” He folded his arms, stubbornly. “Maybe if you don’t let this Aramis thing poison you, either.”
"I still have feelings for Aramis, too. They didn't just disappear because he... did all of those things. But I'm not letting him ruin anything. I just need to learn to be less naive." That was that, as far as Elizabeth was concerned. She'd been far too open and far too trusting, and had kept her eyes shut when things had started to look suspicious.
“Different between bein’ less naive an’ becomin’ cynical and jaded,” Booker pointed out. In that way, that was him. And who he was. That wasn’t something he wanted to pass on to his daughter. “That’s what I mean.”
"I can't make any promises." Life in their dreams and even here in the real world seemed hell bent on grinding them both down, anyway. Elizabeth wasn't sure how not to become cynical.
But for him, she wanted to make an effort. She sipped on her coffee thoughtfully, and then gave him a brave smile, "But if you're willing to try to be less cynical, then so will I."
“I just walked into it, didn’t I,” Booker said, smiling sheepishly. “When do I get to do the shotgun thing to your dates?”
"You did, and I'm going to hold you to it."
Elizabeth cradled her coffee cup in her hands, and shrugged a shoulder at his last comment, "No time soon, I think. I need to get my own head on straight first. But if someone showed interest, I... don't think I'd push them away."
“I still reserve the right to pull the ‘i’ll bury you in the back yard’ trick.” Booker promised. And he would, too.
That duty was one reserved for big brothers and fathers, and it made Elizabeth smile in a way that was warm and geniune. "I think it might be fun to watch you threaten someone like that."
After a pause she added, "... But don't actually do it, alright?"
He grinned at her. “Can’t promise you that.”