Down On Skid Row [Closed-ish]

[sulahnan]

WHO: Athessa, Byerly
WHAT: Repairing friendship maybe??
WHEN: a few days after By's backfired apology (pre-Ghislain)
WHERE: Lowtown
NOTES: Drinking and drug use and probably violence, threadjacking negotiable

Lowtown taverns haven't been Athessa's regular haunts for a long while, probably because she tacitly conceded them to Derrica in favor of drifting along the battlements in clouds of smoke and visiting Hightown apartments where the food is arguably much better. But she's here now, leaning against the bar and trying valiantly to get the barkeep's attention. This isn't the one who passes her information for Riftwatch, just an unaffiliated one who has something against elves, or women, or short-arses, or all of the above.

So while she waits, she produces a blunt and lights it on someone else's match just after they light their own cigarette. It's surprising enough for the man that he stares, confused, until the flame burns down to his fingers and he drops the match and stomps it out when it hits the floor.

"Cheers," Athessa says, though he's already ignoring her again, just like the barkeep. She turns and leans her elbows on the bar, scanning the crowd for anyone pretty, handsome, pretty handsome, or pretty interesting.

Comments

[bouchonne]

One of the more handsome, interesting parties in the bar is, as it turns out, one she knows. At some point, the crowd clears, and there, in the corner, is Byerly Rutyer.

In typical Byerly fashion, whatever he's doing seems surpassingly shady: he's sharing his table with a figure who looks to be a dwarf, though it's impossible to tell, given the fellow's full-length cloak and the hood pulled up over his head. Truly, who wears a cloak like that in this weather? No one good, no doubt - which is why it seems particularly shady that By drops a little bag of coin into the fellow's outstretched hand. The coin disappears; the dwarf(?) goes.

Then By sits back in his chair, and scans the room, and makes direct eye contact with Athessa. Purely by accident, apparently; a look of faint dismay ripples across his face, and then he looks away as quickly as he can.

[sulahnan]

Somehow, Athessa manages to keep her expression neutral when she locks eyes with Byerly. But she sees his dismay and it tugs at her attention. They are still friends, aren't they? Or has her failed attempt at sparing him her tears ruined everything?

One way to find out. She reaches back behind the bar and grabs a bottle and two glasses, dropping coin in their place in case the bartender decides that that is worth noticing more than Athessa herself.

"If I have to throw things at you to find out why you're mad at me this time," she announces, setting the bottle and glasses on the table and sitting down heavily in the chair beside his. Her sigh expels a column of smoke into the atmosphere and she holds the joint out to him. "It's gonna have to wait until my ammunition is a bit softer."

Nothing to throw in a bar but bottles, knives, and punches.

[bouchonne]

He is quite nearly visibly tense when she sits, the hand on the table in front of him flat instead of comfortably curled. He does not look at her, but instead looks off to where the bartender is counting the coin and stabbing glances around the room.

"I am not angry with you," he replies. "I do believe I've made that quite clear."

[sulahnan]

She's not too worried about the bartender. Either he'll find the amount sufficient and go back to his business, or he'll decide that the price he charges most people is too low for elves and cause problems, which just means Athessa will get to fight some idiot who underestimates her.

"This is the part where I say you seemed angry and then you say something like dear girl, am I really so hard to read?" Since he doesn't take the joint from her, she returns it to her lips and lets it hang there while she opens the bottle on the table and pours them each a drink.

"I told you it wasn't your fault."

[bouchonne]

The two-glass pour catches his attention. He looks over, frowning at her motion, and then hooks his hands around both glasses to pull them towards him.

"You don't drink," he points out, and positions each glass within his reach and out of hers.

[sulahnan]

A light scoff. The bottle stays in her hand, held for a beat in position after the second glass is taken away, as if she might resume pouring into nothing. But the beat passes and she sets the bottle down without relinquishing her hold on it, tapping her fingers against the dark green glass.

"Maybe I thought I'd give it another chance," she says, flip.

[bouchonne]

"A sudden thirst?" he asks, voice as dry as that swill is, doubtless, not. "Or just a desire to live the glamorous life of the drunkard? Let me tell you, everyone does love a drunk."

[sulahnan]

Athessa looks at him askance and starts to reach for one of the hoarded drinks in his clutches.

[bouchonne]

Too slow. He lifts first one glass to his mouth, and drinks the whole thing without pause, and then takes the second, and gulps it down as well.

Then a look at Athessa which clearly asks the question, What now?

[sulahnan]

What now? Now she'll simply drink from the bottle, leaning in her chair and scooting it back in an attempt to put herself out of his reach in case he tries to snatch at it, too.

[bouchonne]

Uh huh. He crosses his arms, seeing just how long she can keep that up before choking on her own hubris. Meaning, of course, choking on the wine.

[sulahnan]

One big swig is all she needs to prove her point, really. So as soon as it's swigged, Athessa sets the bottle back down on the table, scoots her chair back into place, and mirrors his crossed-arm posture.

"Better than that chasind rotgut," she decrees, and once again offers him the joint in her other hand.

[bouchonne]

"The point," he says, primly, "is not to be good; it is to be intoxicating. Do you think the Chasind sit around, debating the finer tasting notes of their mead? They want to forget how cold it is where they live."

Finally, he takes the joint, flicks a bit of ash off the end, and then inhales.

[sulahnan]

"Well I'm sure I don't know what the Chasind do all day," she counters, just as primly, and refills both glasses. "But I can think of better ways to ward off the cold."

Now, may I have my glass, please? says the flat look she gives him.

[bouchonne]

He sighs, and slides the glass across to her.

"If you're looking for me to be impressed by you drinking a glass of wine," he says, "I won't be impressed. Babies are able to do that."

[sulahnan]

"Good for them," she rolls her eyes, half-fondly, and takes a sip from the glass. As if she'd try to impress him by drinking anything. If she's going to try to impress him, it'll be by fighting one of the burly chaps in the tavern, or by slaying a dragon and bringing him its teeth.

"Do you believe me when I say it wasn't your fault I was upset?"

[bouchonne]

A sip from his glass.

"One cannot help but observe a very strong temporal relationship between my presence and your misery."

[sulahnan]

Sounds like a no, then. Athessa sighs and slumps back in her seat, turning her glass with her fingertips. There are more instances of her being around him and not being miserable than the opposite, aren't there?

She sits with her thoughts for a moment before starting to explain, matter-of-factly:

"Deimos left without saying fucking anything, no goodbye, nothing. And then in Churneau...I was about ready to send the whole mission to hell just to rush in and rescue Derrica from the dungeon," If she'd tried to tell Byerly any of this in the moment, when she was sobbing and trying to make him understand that it wasn't about him, she'd have broken down even more. Probably made things worse. But now she's calm, detached. "I couldn't stop thinking about her getting tortured, and how much I would've rather been in her place.

"I'm probably more fucked up over her than ever, and I hate feeling like I'm being a bad friend because of it. Then the whole mess with the Abomination happened, and Matthias got badly burned. Jenny Lou, too. And I went back to Devigny's place and trashed it. Smashed up most of the wine in the cellar and drank some of the rest. Saw the stain he left. And on top of all of that, I betrayed your trust in some stupid attempt to make Lexie feel better, and only made things worse."

Athessa lifts the glass to her lips and drinks, pausing to look down at the dark liquid before she shrugs a shoulder and brings this list of stressors to its end.

"It was just bad timing that you happened to be mean to me while I was already dealing with all of that."

[bouchonne]

It's a legitimate list of grievances. Of course it is. And he can certainly see her perspective on it. And yet there's still that feeling in him, that thing he can't give a name to, like nausea and like pain. It doesn't dispel any of it.

So he doesn't respond. He just looks away, and says -

"And you think wine will make it better?"

[sulahnan]

"No," Of course not. She sets the glass down and stops slumping in order to rest her forearms on the table.

"But you know how I felt about it, and why. So I thought maybe you'd wanna see that I'm...I dunno...better, in some way, even if I'm not in others."

Not that the wine tastes good, even if she can stomach it now. Athessa slides the glass back over to him and motions for the joint.

[bouchonne]

He's quiet a moment as he hands over the joint. Then he agrees, "I am glad that you can handle it. But that doesn't mean you should. Particularly not for - " He gestures faintly towards everything here: himself, their meeting, the circumstances.

[sulahnan]

With a shrug, Athessa takes in a lungful of smoke and holds it. Looks around at everything here, as he pointed out, then puffs out a few smoke rings. One of them bursts open on the wine bottle, the others drift until they dissipate.

"Oh well."

[bouchonne]

He shoots her a look. "Oh well?" he echoes. "That seems an underwhelming reaction."

[sulahnan]

"How would you prefer I react, then?" She looks at him with raised brows and feigned surprise that he found her actual reaction wanting.

[bouchonne]

He shakes his head in response, because he has no easy answer. What would he prefer? Certainly not more weeping. Certainly not more pain. Certainly not anger, or boisterous laughter, or anything like that. He doesn't know.

So instead, he asks her a question. "What do you wish of me, Athessa?"