[open; here there be catch-all!]

[cmdreffingshepard]

Characters: Commander Shepard, Arthur, Booker and YOU! Yes, YOU!
Date: Throughout November.
Location: Various locations.
Situation: Various. This is a catch-all log for all three of these characters. I'll post at least one open starter for each (plus some pre-determined closed threads). If there's something specific you'd like to set up, feel free to PM any of my character journals or pp me on plurk @ frodabaggins!
Warnings/Rating: Pre-emptive warning for some discussion of violence-related trauma in Booker and Elizabeth's thread. Will update this as necessary.

Comments

hoooooo boy here we go

[washitaway]

"Why do you care so much?" Booker hears himself asking. It's probably only because of the alcohol that he bothers - sober, he'd be much more likely to keep his mouth shut and just let things be. "I saw Monument Island. She was a 'specimen' to be studied. So why'd you change your tune?"

[dashesanddots]

A fair question, he thinks, idly toying with his glass. "Specimen or not, when you watch a little girl grow up, you want what's best for her. Comstock might have looked at her and seen a pawn or a weapon but I never saw her as that."

He'd always been a bit sentimental when it came to living things and studying the sciences. Definitely a preference to inanimate test subjects, and as fascinating as it was to study how the tear had affected Elizabeth, how it had given her a special talent, the way they'd gone about it was wrong.

[washitaway]

"So you grew a conscience," Booker says, still a little skeptical. Which is probably hypocritical of him, considering his own circumstances and feelings about Elizabeth. But something buried in his instincts, under all the guilt and self-loathing and violence, something feels not just protective, but even proprietary of her.

[dashesanddots]

You know what, in all the messy nonsense of universes and time, Robert kept up with all that happened in that façade of nonchalant straight face and proper posture, but behind all of that there was the panic, dis-ease, and so many worries that went unvoiced. Too much tension locked up in those proper shoulders and his proper back and everything was too proper, pretending that nothing was ever wrong when everything was wrong.

At some point, you have to let go.

"Yes, but don't tell Rosalind. I have to keep it hidden in a jar at the back of the kitchen cupboard," he says, slipping away from the seriousness of the topic. The past was important, as was the future, but right now he hoped that none of it could matter, at least for a moment.

[washitaway]

Booker gives him a long, steady look. He doesn't know the first thing about what's going on between those two - he doesn't begin to understand either the mechanics or the emotions of it.

But he's just drunk enough to roll his eyes. "I'm not tellin' Rosalind anything," he points out. "That's on you."

Would you say that he has some trouble... understanding the physics behind it?

[dashesanddots]

Robert scrunches his nose and takes another nice long drink out of his glass. "If you ask me, it's on her. Did I provoke her? No. Was what she did completely ridiculous and totally unwarranted? Yes, yes it was, and I have little to apologize for."

He seriously did nothing and she was trying to publicly defame him, and after all he did to be rational and helpful while she was having a hard time. It lacked manners and sense and ugh, Rosalind, why?

YEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHH

[washitaway]

Booker gives the other man the most withering look he can muster, given how much he's had to drink.

"I don't know or care who started what, or why. Seems to me you two've got something special, though. Something that shouldn't be taken for granted. Seems to me if she's so important to you, it shouldn't matter who started it. You should be tryin' to fix it, before it's too late and the good thing you had is gone forever."

He polishes off his whiskey and waves at the bartender for a refill. "I may not know much, but I know regret. I know what it is to lose a thing."

Re: YEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHH

[dashesanddots]

If Robert were more inebriated right now, he might start crying because wow, Booker that's really sad because you do, and Robert was a part of that. Instead, he takes that in, considers it, really considers it. Really considers the last of his bourbon as he finishes it and orders another glass.

He looks at Booker, and with a sigh and a sage nod he says, "I needed to hear that, thank you."

"Also sorry. About all that losing a thing business."

[washitaway]

"It's not your fault," he mutters. He hates talking about his own past. His mind shies away from it, especially lately. No matter how drunk he gets, he does not want to deal with any of that stuff.

He pounds back the next one quickly, suddenly aware that this is turning into one of those 'get blindingly wasted' evenings. Elizabeth will be angry with him. Oh well, not the first time and it won't be the last.

[dashesanddots]

"That's arguable."

Robert is ready to walk down that road with Booker, as if honestly there were no better company to get completely out of your mind with than him. Robert leans over, shoulder to shoulder with him, with a small grin on his face.

"But past is past in a different place. If we were anywhere else, I'd say something completely different to you, something about past is present is future is malleable is something else, but who cares. Because we're here and there's no Comstock, no Lutece machines, no Fink. No Fink!" He stops a moment like this is the best thought in the world and he just wants to stew in in for a moment.

"Just you and me at this bar and Elizabeth and Rosa off doing whatever they're doing, so on the bright side, I'm going to buy you another drink."

[washitaway]

"Fink," Booker says with contempt. "Crazy sonofabitch threw an army at me, called it a job interview. Whether I liked it or not. Not sorry he's dead."

But he gives Robert a rather jovial slap on the back. Thank you you are now his best friend, well, second-best because Elizabeth always comes first, you know how it goes. "Won't let any harm come to 'em, either," he says firmly. "Comstock, or any of 'em show up - I'll kill 'em."

The way he says that is remarkably cool and calm, given his state of inebriation. Actually it's kind of scary, how desensitized he is to it. He would have exactly zero qualms about killing any of those people, slowly and painfully.

drinks booze from a teacup, no bothers left to give

[dashesanddots]

Robert has a weak stomach, and some of those... failed rounds with Booker and Elizabeth left him feeling more than just mild nausea, so it's with a nervous laugh that he brushes off how dark that was. He shouldn't be that surprised since the lines between Booker and Comstock tend to blur sometimes, and the things that either of them have done up to this point (picking a singular point was still so strange) make one death seem minimal.

Maybe at a different time, Robert would have made a comment about how Booker never did seem to think about consequences too much and that it seemed they were all brought here with intent of some purpose, so even Comstock's arrival would have a relevance of some kind to the tasks this place had at hand. However, right now wasn't the time for that, so he would refrain.

"Personally, I'm not sorry either. I have him to thank for what happened to Rosalind and I, though in the end, I suppose we could have simply ceased and that would have been a worse end. You would never have been there for Elizabeth when she needed someone, as Rosalind or I wouldn't have been there to guide you across." He starts carrying on into things that perhaps he shouldn't carry on about. He doesn't exactly have a sense of when Booker is from.

"Though I imagine long enough, she would have just taken care of herself. She's a strong girl."

he so would

[washitaway]

"So you did hire me," Booker points out vaguely. He's kind of pieced that together, especially after going through their lab back in Columbia. Kind of hard to miss that desk strewn with photos of his office, notes scrawled with his address, that kind of thing.

Really, it's just confirming what he already knew.

He's drunk enough to chalk up the "bringing across" comment to something about rowing, or whatever.

bourbon? no, um, it's red tea.

[dashesanddots]

Imagine if you will, Robert with his glass in hand, bringing it up to his lips and then pulling it away, pointer finger out as if to being saying "Well, actually," and then blue-screening a moment.

Even someone who sober has the mental capacity to comprehend physics and existing in multiple points in time plus states of existence can and will at one point lose the ability to fit together all the convoluted timeline that is their life.

Eventually things come back to some semblance of sense and he gives a quick yes before going back to his previous thought: taking another sip of his drink.

can't. breathe.

[washitaway]

"Well... Thanks," Booker slurs after a moment. "Not for Columbia. Columbia can burn in hell for all I care. But the girl."

Even this drunk, and thus inclined to overshare, Booker can't even really put it into words - how she's probably saved him as much as he saved her, how he's found something to live for in her, blah blah, because he's an emotionally constipated idiot.

Cut him some slack, okay Robert?