faderift | Down On Skid Row [Closed-ish]

Entry tags:

Down On Skid Row [Closed-ish]

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."

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?"

"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.

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.

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."

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

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

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?"

That question has a surprisingly simple answer, as far as Athessa's concerned.

"I just...want to be your friend and for you to be mine, too," Then, wryly: "And maybe sometimes for you to speak plainly."

"Why?" The question is asked a bit quietly. "What does that gain you?"

She frowns, because that's...not an angle she ever thinks about.

"A...friend...? I don't—" Baffling. Truly baffling. She splays her hands open in a questioning gesture, shoulders hunched slightly. "I don't befriend people to gain anything, By. I just care about people and whether or not they're happy. And please don't make fun of that, I know how childish it sounds."

A small gesture. More specifically: "Why try to befriend me, if you think I am the sort of man who would mock that sentiment?"

What a stupid question. "You might've noticed by now that I have a soft-spot for jerks."

She's friends with Kostos, for fuck's sake. And was friends with Deimos, before he fucked off.

"Grand," he replies dryly, and takes a sip of wine. "A pleasure to be added to the collection."

She blows a few more smoke rings, aiming the last one to carefully whiff past his ear. There is an argument she could make, that it's the jerks who more often than not need to be shown kindness, but every attempt to tell him he's worthy or deserving of such things has blown up in her face before.

So instead:

"You're welcome."

He lets a breath out through his nose. Not a laugh, exactly. Then, without looking at her, he says, "I don't wish to be some scourge you use to punish yourself. I don't want to be the person you come to each time you want to be made miserable. It does not give me pleasure to - watch you cry." He spreads his hand out on the table. "I know I seem a proper beast, but it does not give me pleasure to watch anyone cry."

"Why would I want to be miserable?" Incredulous. And this has been officially too long spent sitting like a normal person in this chair, so she pivots to sit improperly, one knee bent to provide support for her arm and the other stretched out to rest on the base of Byerly's own seat.

"I hate crying. And maybe even more than that I hate to be seen crying. The fewer people who see me in that state, the better. So why the fuck would I seek you out to be more likely to cry? You're not a beast, but you can be pretty fuckin' obtuse sometimes."

Athessa reaches for one of his hands to prop the joint between two of his fingers, because that's a less vulnerable act than reaching for his hand to hold. "I'd actually appreciate it if you could conveniently forget you ever saw it."

He takes it, even as he turns a sharp look on her. "Because everyone loves to be miserable." A drag off the joint. "Or everyone loves watching other people being miserable. Why else are jerks like me kept around? We'd be driven out of society otherwise."

He taps the ash off the end of the joint and looks away again. "I don't give a shit if you cried," he says. "And I don't think you're weak for having done it."

"Well thanks, but I still hate it."

She too looks away, but hers is less of a sullen aversion of her gaze and more to keep an eye on the barkeep and the mercenaries he's talking to. That might get interesting.

"And I don't like seeing other people being miserable. You know since I've been his friend I've never seen Kostos smile once? Not once. At this point I just wanna shake him, ask: what can I do to make you happy?! Stupid."

"Why do you care?" Again, that question. "Averesch is a miserable sack of nothing. A few sparks of magic contained in a humorless shell. His jawline isn't terrible, but that's about it. I'm allowed to say that, because he is technically family." A shrug, a sip of wine. "Besides, no one can make someone else happy."

"I care because he's my friend," she insists, and drops her bent knee to better lean and flick his ear.

She could bring up Alexandrie. Didn't she make you happy, when she bloomed into your life like a rose? She could even bring up Derrica, and cite their time together as the happiest she's been in a long time. But she doesn't. "Are you not personally invested in your friends' happiness?"

He wrinkles his nose in vague protest, and rubs his flicked ear.

"You know perfectly well I have no friends," he says, a pro forma protest, but then he goes on - "and the ones I would have, I of course would care about their happiness. But that doesn't make their happiness under my control." A shrug - "I'm a miserable bastard; do you consider that to be your fault?"

"No, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't bother trying to lessen the misery, does it?"

The bartender is pointing in their direction now, and the mercs are looking over. Nothing decided yet, judging by them only looking and not moving; probably haggling over a reward for acting as de facto bouncers.

That catches Byerly's eye. He sighs rather mournfully, then tosses back the last of his wine.

"Looks like we should head out," he says. "I'm still rather hurt from the last time I was accosted by something angry while dining. Shall we?"

Athessa's own sigh is more disappointed than mournful; a little that the bartender is so petty, and a tad more because she would've liked to fight those brutes. Oh well. She puts the cork back into the wine bottle and stands up with it in hand.

"Still?" Had he not gone to the infirmary?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject