Who: Booker DeWitt, Lina Inverse What: A discussion of the Giga Slave, Booker's dreams, and advising him how to do the 'father' thing. When: Backdated January 3rd, after this exchange. Where: Lina's humble abode. Rating/Warnings: Mostly the generic bad language. Status: Complete!
Lina knew what it meant to come back home, among other things. It was coming back to the dreams; the ones that continued to give her an ominous feeling of something bad dawning in the horizon, like a sense of darkness and ruin she couldn’t shake off. It was a feeling increased tenfold when the dreams continued - Auntie Aqua had shown her the exact consequence of miscasting the Giga Slave. The vanishing bodies of all her friends, Gourry screaming and reaching for her and him disappearing into the chaos, like everything around them.
No second thoughts, Lina, were her words. She didn’t know if she had any of those, there or here, despite everything that had happened. It was the strangest thing to say. Like the damn woman was telling her a carefully coded secret.
Xelloss fighting Garv, knowing what he really was. Gourry telling her he’d protect her for the rest of his life. She wanted to relax in the solace of a goddamn nap, not wake up muddled and weirded out. And to certainly not be reminded that her ex-boyfriend was a goddamn monster.
As promised, she did save Booker a beer - there were plenty available. There was hardly ever a shortage of alcohol under this roof, and she sipped on her Blue Moon - cold and crisp with the flavor of citrus. Dressed in an old sports shirt and sweatpants, she sat on the kitchen counter, legs swinging, and she sighed.
Booker never liked to think about his dreams. About the kind of man he was there. About the kind of men he was there. He'd seen himself as Comstock, and he'd seen himself as Booker, and he'd seen himself killed by Elizabeth - twice. It all jumbled together until he wasn't sure who he actually was and what the actual order of events was.
He just didn't want Elizabeth to turn into that bitter woman, even if he had no problem with that version of himself dying. He had a problem with her dying.
But it all bled together. All of it. And he had absolutely no idea how to phrase it in any way that makes sense.
"Thanks, could use a drink too. You okay?"
“Just thinking, mostly.” Which was the truth. Lina tried fiercely to not let some things creep over, but sometimes it just...happened, no way to put a stop to it. She liked it better when they were doing stupid shit - like trying to hunt for a lake dragon to make the legendary Dragon Cuisine. Of course it’d all take like, a year to make, but fun times. Except for maybe Zelgadis, who didn’t appreciate being used a ship’s anchor.
She leaned forward a little, to get a peek into the living room, eye the stairs, before glancing back at Booker. “Thanks for, um, not bringing anyone home, by the way. Elizabeth finds it a little awkward while she’s around.”
Among other things.
He shrugged a shoulder. “I’m learnin’. It’s better to go to their place if anythin’ happens.” Laura had been...interesting. He hadn’t really set out to do anything but talk to her but he was glad it had gone further. He’d kind of needed someone who wasn’t a mindless lay but also wasn’t super easy to get attached to. “What’re you thinkin’ about?”
“Figuring out why a monster lord in a tacky trenchcoat wants me dead,” she quipped, offering a shrug of her own. Another sigh as she rubbed the back of her head, contributing to the messy look of nap-on-a-couch hair. It was late in the evening anyway, no need to brush her hair and go out - except for maybe a drive-thru baked potato from Wendy’s. “And how I should probably come up with a way to seal one of my spells, so it can’t be cast.”
By her or anyone. Make it unavailable, to avoid the opportunity of ever needing it. She cast it twice successfully, but who’s to say she could ever cast it successfully here.
“Well did you spit in his soup?” Booker opened his beer and turned a chair around to sit on it and lean on the back. “I ain’t a magician so I don’t think I can help you with that. I can barely make sense of the mumbo-jumbo from my own dreams, let alone anyone else. But there’s gotta be some other people like you out there.” Like her boss. Who would kill for such a spell
Lina snorted a giggle. “If only! Destroy a piece of a monster race’s dark lord, and they get a little angry, it looks like.” Oh well. Not that she’d been specifically looking for trouble - the Orihalcon statue was an accident, and all that led to meeting Rezo, and then from Rezo’s blinded eyes came Shabranigdo, ready to do his thing of destroying the world.
Thing is, Lina liked the world she lived in, was only fifteen, and didn’t have any real plan of rolling over and dying, either. Things worked itself out.
“I’m still thinking about it,” she continued, in reference to the Giga Slave. “A handy all-or-nothing option, but...the consequence of me fucking it up is too steep. And I’ve got no intention of giving it a ‘trial run’ for shits and giggles.” No, that spell would remain a secret to her and those of her inner circle - she didn’t need someone getting a gist of it and wanting to learn it.
Booker nodded. “Best to keep the nukes under wraps, we don’t need a magical arms race.” It was the closest analogy he could think of, and it made him shudder. Fuck, he could imagine what Comstock would do with those kinds of weapons. Rain fire on the mountains of men, indeed.
“Magicals arms race,” she repeated with a snicker, eyebrow quirked, and she finished off the rest of the beer in one long gulp. “Guess that’s a way of putting it.” Another beer was retrieved, the top twisted open by the use of her shirt. “But the spells mine - I made it. I know the secrets.” Or so she thought. “I can seal it if I want, end of story.” It was just a precaution more than anything else - seeing what it could do had disturbed her enough. It wasn’t the kind of death and ruin that was painful, it was…
Cold. Empty. Nothingness.
“But anyway, want to give me a rundown of anything I’ve missed? I don’t think we’ve hung around each other by ourselves since…” Lina thought for a second. “Since I got back, actually. We usually have a full house.”
"How do you seal somethin' like that though? I mean once you open the bottle how the hell do you stop others from pourin' a sip?" Booker shook his head. He didn't understand. "Ain't magic somethin' that anyone with talent can access? What's to stop someone from makin' a copy even if you seal it?"
He thunked his chin on the chair back with a grunt. "Missed bein' alone with you." There was barely any lecherousness in the comment, even! "Did I tell you 'bout the drownin' thing?"
Good points, and Lina was already armed with the answers. She knew the magic system like the back of her hand - the one from her world, at least. The girl she was there rattled on and on about being a ‘beautiful sorcery genius’ and she was one. A sorcery genius. Maybe others would believe her after the egoism went down some. “Every world has its magic laws - like, for example, the source of where the magic’s drawn upon is important, and in that lies the answers to everything. For someone to mimic that spell, they need to know the words, the hand gestures - know what channels to open, and they need to understand the kind of magic. Magic isn’t an ‘accidental’ thing when it comes to my world - it’s very precise, very scientific, in a way. Once the spell is cast, well - that’s when things get haywire. That’s when you find out if you cast it correctly.” A quick gulp of her beer, and she watched Booker to make sure he was awake. Gourry always fell asleep during her explanations, that bastard. “No one knows this spell, but me. No one knows my kind of magic, but me. The gestures, the chant - they’re all mine. And not to mention someone’s got to have a very high magic capacity to even attempt it.”
And even then, it was a bitch to cast, a bitch to control. But she’d done it - twice. So that was something. There were guilds in her world when it came to magic - you had to study it, do your reading, know the powers being called on. It wasn’t a magic ‘I wish!’ wave of a hand. It was an academic study, with certain skills not taught to many on purpose. Some spells were forbidden, but that didn’t stop her from doing her research either.
“Anyway, I missed you too, buddy.” Lina stuck her tongue out and reached over with her leg to kick him a bit, playfully. “I heard about the drowning thing already, yeah. With Elizabeth?”
“Okay, but what if someone knew about the spell an’ tried to make their own version?” Color him curious. Booker looked like he was trying to pay attention, and it was easier to understand than particle physics had been in his dreams. The Lutece twins were brilliant but didn’t seem to get that a layman in 1912 wouldn’t get that sort of thing. “Yeah. All of ‘em. Then I dreamed I woke up back in my office, an’... an’ Anna was there in her crib. I thought...maybe everythin’ would be all right. Comstock, that other me was gone. But then I dreamed again. A different Comstock fled to an’ underwater city. He forgot who he was. I did…he did somethin’ terrible.”
“The spell calls upon the power of the Lord of Nightmares,” Lina answered, eyebrow raised. “That’s the point of it - a spell that calls upon the highest power, to defeat everything else. If they’re going to make their own, they need to know who the Lord of Nightmares is, and understand the nature.”
Lucky for her, hardly anyone in her world knew of the Lord of Nightmares. Or, well, they knew, but that being was a myth amongst many. Unless you were the monster race and a select few that knew otherwise. Some traces of information were found in select few Claire Bible manuscripts - and that would explain why Xelloss was burning each and every last remaining one that was written on paper (that asshole). The Temple of Sand held a complete version, inscribed in code on a number of tablets. The original Claire Bible - a well of knowledge guarded by the golden dragons - was elsewhere, and she was on the way to finding it.
“I don’t think I remember that part…” She squinted at him. “What’d he do?”
“Same thing that happened before. The sellin’ the baby thing.. only.. only this time when we..they..not me, neither of them were me...when they fought over her an’ the portal closed it closed on...it wasn’t her pinky…” Booker blanched, and chugged his beer. “Comstock begged his version of the Luteces to send him somewhere, anywhere, to make him forget…he ended up on Rapture. Underwater city. Ayn Rand’s wet dream.”
It wasn’t her pinky? “Okay, so...what did the portal close on, again?” Lina felt the need to ask, thanks to the morbid curiosity. It was hard keeping track of him and Elizabeth’s dream sequeneces - too many versions of them, too many different outcomes. They were probably more confused than she was - they were the ones that had to dream it all.
Though Lina could follow the sequences, somewhat. Enough to get a gist of it all. But still, it was confusing.
Booker simple lifted his hand to his neck.
Thanks, Booker, for almost making her spit her drink. Lina lurched forward but put a hand over her mouth, keeping the beer in until she found the function of her throat to swallow fully. No point in wasting beer, that was just bad form. “Oh,” she said, eyes wide, and she coughed to clear her throat. Wiped her mouth some too, because, um…
Yeah.
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit. So he spends a few years in Rapture, miserable but at least blissfully ignorant. Ends up takin’ in this girl, Sarah. Just a kid.” Booker figured the guilt had eaten away, even without ignoring it. That’s what it felt like, anyway. “Because he’s an idiot, he leaves her alone while he gambles. An’ she...turns up face down beneath the docks. Least that’s what he’s told. Until this dame comes waltzin’ through his door an’ tells him she’s alive, an’ she can find her.”
“So she drowns but somehow...didn’t...drown?” That’s pretty much what he was telling her, anyway. “Whoever the dame is, she sounds pretty damn suspicious.” Another swig of her beer, and she was almost done with this one too. Before the idea of fishing for another one come up, Lina had to clear her chest and let out an abrupt burp. “Beer burps aren’t tasty,” she grumbled to herself, a little grossed out, and coughed. “Anyway, go on.”
“Someone kidnapped her. There are these…” He moves his hands, trying to figure out how to describe it. “Orphans. Creepy ass little girls. They do somethin’ to them, turn them into...somethin’ not quite human. They were doin’ that to Sarah. An’... the dame. It was Elizabeth. Older. Colder. Looked good in a crisp skirt an’ shirt an’ red red lipstick. Just the kinda thing you’d see in a movie from the 50s. She looked like she belonged down there, but she didn’t. Asked a lotta questions. Was disgusted by that city. I don’ think Comstock cared enough anymore at that point. He called himself Booker, like he did before his gettin’ all born again.”
Booker had to keep his mind on the thought that he wasn’t that man, he wasn’t those men. Sure, he’d take the sins of Booker DeWitt, but he refused Zachary Comstock. Even the one that tried to take his old name back.
“They had juice there, too. Called it Plasmids instead vigors but it did the same thing. But the scary ass thing is I think they used those girls to somehow..collect what they called adam, to make the plasmids.”
Oh, oh. The dame was Elizabeth. Yeah, she might have gotten a wind of that other version of her, the icy one. Booker’s comment on her appearance made her pause a little because, hey, that was some attention paid right there - but maybe that was her over-analyzing every single goddamn thing. Which she shouldn’t. It wasn’t her business. And she assumed that the entire thing was… one-sided. If it wasn’t, that’s none of her business either. Right?
Man. Life under this roof was complicated.”
But to avoid the potentially awkward look she might have gathered, Lina scooted off the counter and dig into the fridge for her third drink. “Because using little girls for your own bidding isn’t a creepy thing whatsoever. Did...Elizabeth know you were...you?”
In his defense, he was half in the other man’s mind at the moment. That probably didn’t make it much better. “Yeah. Pretty sure she knew exactly who he was. Let him on a wild chase, then...then…”
Those last few minutes replayed in his head. Elizabeth using Sarah as bait, making him turn up the heat to lure the girl out of the vents.
It was hurting Sarah, but he tugged at her and she fought with him and all the memories of what Comstock had done had flooded through him.
“I told her I was sorry. An’ she said I wasn’t, but I was about to be. Then somethin’ ran me through from behind.”
That was the other thing about the little girls. The big daddies. “These big guys in suits..got bonded to the girls. Protect them at any cost. An’ since Sarah was hurtin’...”
Booker shook his head, and then rested his forehead against the lip of his beer bottle. “I don’t want Elizabeth to ever turn into that woman, Lina. It was like everything good had been sucked away. Just leavin’ behind anger an’ emptiness.”
Yep. Definitely the version she heard of, and Lina didn’t want Elizabeth to turn into that dame, either. Slowly, she closed the fridge door and twisted the top of her beer open, tossing it into the trash can like a coin. “She won’t turn into that, Booker,” she reassured, and she sounded confident about that, too. “Elizabeth, she’s--” A pause, to find the right words, and then Lina sighed heavily. “She’s going through some things. Internal struggles, all that.”
Things she couldn’t - wouldn’t - tell Booker. Some things were easier to talk about with someone who wasn’t involved in your dreams, that was entirely detached from the situation. “But you know I’m here to take care of her too. Both of you, really.” It was an odd relationship that she had, with the both of them - but it was very natural, in a way. She might have had a quick fling with Booker in the beginning, and while she never developed strings, he was still someone important to her. Her first friend here. “I’ll be damned if I let her become that cold hearted bitch or if I let you become an asshole like Comstock.”
If she was dreaming that Booker couldn’t blame her. He felt suddenly deflated and sad, and sank further into his chair. “Thanks. Rather be my own kinda asshole.” He grinned at her, and there might even be a bit of genuine humor there. He still cared about her more than he really should, but Booker had already ruined one friendship because of that, so he’d been very determined not to do the same with Lina. “Don’t know what we’d do without you. We’d probably both be fucked.”
“That’s a hell of a compliment,” Lina laughed and mirrored the grin, and instead of making comfy back onto the kitchen counter, she stepped over and offered his shoulder a squeeze. “I don’t think you two would be fucked, I just think your lives would be quiet and much more gloomy without my sunny disposition. Or, something.” She snorted a big before taking the first sip of the new drink. “But if I’m helping in some way, then hell yeah, kudos to me.”
Lina’s connection with them were very easy - but Booker and Elizabeth’s relationship was...complicated. In more ways than one.
"My life hasn't been quiet in a long time." He pointed at Lina. "Actually it's quieter than it's been in a long time since that debt got paid off." Poor guy had no idea that that money had magically disappeared from Ganon's bank account. "But still. I'm glad you're around."
“A little hard to get rid of me,” she reassured and ran her fingers through his hair - just to be an annoying little twit and mess it up, grinning playfully. “Least we got that part taken care of, though? Try not not owe anymore debts, Booker. You’ll get Elizabeth grey hairs before she’s twenty five.”
“She’s growin’ up too fast as it is,” he muttered. He meant it jokingly, but really, she’d lost a lot of her naivety and he felt like that was largely his fault.
“You should spend more time with her. You know...do things you guys never got to do.” Might be a good idea, and if they spent more time as father and daughter...maybe that would help Elizabeth, too. “The Christmas tree thing was a really good idea. You can tell she loved it. But she’s your little girl, Booker - and she needs to be reminded of that, no matter how old she is now.”
“Yeah, she loved that.” Booker rubbed the back of his neck. “What do you suggest? Disneyland?” Disneyland was something families did together, right?
How to advise a father to bea father? Uh, weird position, but Lina thought back to random things she remembered doing as a family. “Disney’s a start,” she agreed, nodding, and then glanced around the kitchen as if the simplest appliance could trigger a memory, something for inspiration. “Mmm...you can talk to her more about her mom. What she was like, maybe--maybe take her to a restaurant with her mom’s favorite kind of foods? Maybe you’ve got pictures to show her? Stories--but funny ones!”
Lina was a daddy’s girl, through and through. And she remembered the fishing trips, the stories of youth he would tell her, how he had met her mom. Family things, that reminded them they were a family, even if they were a little dysfunctional and odd.
She wondered how he was doing. How they were all doing, now.
“Tell her about your side of the family. If she’s got--I don’t know, cousins. Grandparents. Uncles and aunts, even from her mother’s side of the family. If she doesn’t know any of that already.”
Fishing would be fun. Booker nodded his head. “Honestly, that part’ll hurt, but she should know more about her mom.” He snorted. “There aren’t much else in the rest of the family. I think I have a second cousin or somethin’”
“It’s a start, though!” Lina bumped her hip against him, grinning. “You got this, Booker. Now, I’m still really craving a baked potato, so you wanna take a ride with me?” All she’d need is shoes and a jacket - no need to dress up for a drive-thru window. “This girl’s gotta eat.”
“My treat,” he said, getting to his feet. Because of course it was!