Apponitments - [ IC ]

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December 9th, action

[amonglions]

She's gone!

[Yeah Booker doesn't care that he's just barging into your "study" unannounced Robert - even if he did learn to knock during the mission.

He feels sick, his stomach won't stop turning and it like he's falling and there's no way to stop it. He saw Elizabeth get taken by those machines and all he could hear since then was the promise he made to her. That he would protect her. That promise was ruined once in Columbia, but Booker thought he could manage to keep her safe here at least.

It turns out he was wrong.]


I need you to open a te - [He's reminded instantly that they aren't the same ghosts he dealt with in Columbia. They can't open tears at will, they've been trying to work out how to since they both arrived. Booker feasibly couldn't do a damn thing but wait now.]

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I know.

[Robert is standing when Booker comes in, leaned over his desk with the journal open.

He saw what Booker saw, heard it, and... now he can only stand without a thing he can do. Like opening a tear. He doesn't have the technology or the ability here.]

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[So do something! He rages in his mind, outwardly doing nothing more than standing there with the same shell-shocked look he had when he burst in. Why are you just standing there, why don't you open a tear why don't you kill me for letting her be taken again why don't you act human why don't you do something.]

...Do we wait?

[He needs help, an answer of some kind because this is Robert Lutece. He has all the answers. If he can tell Booker what to do, by God he'll do it. If Robert told him the only way he could see Elizabeth again was to burn Luceti to the ground, he'd raze it all.

The realization makes him feel sick.]

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What else can we do?

[The words are very, very quiet.

Robert hasn't turned around, is still standing at his desk, his hands on it, braced. He hasn't gone to Rosalind yet, much as he wants to. Because he wants to be able to do something. To tell Booker even just to be patient. He wants to know how this ends.

But it's empty. He can't see anything beyond the present moment, can't be sure of what's coming. Or even have a sense of probability.]

I don't have our machine. There's nothing I can do, DeWitt.

[And it's eating at him, a slow, gnawing sensation.]

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-- Booker, Robert.

[He spits it out, grasping for the normalcy that they had developed in some strange way as housemates and through their mutual attachment to Elizabeth.

Beyond that, he would let Robert call him Comstock if he wanted to and if it meant he wouldn't hear his name DeWitt in that voice. It haunted his dreams for years and continued to do so still. He couldn't hear that now. He just couldn't.]

Jesus Christ.

[What had burst out like the crack of a gun finished in a whimper that had him sliding into the nearest chair with a hand running through his hair, trying to pull himself together but failing spectacularly.

He needed a drink, he needed it badly.

Several, in point of fact.]

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[Robert finally turns his head, looking at the man.

They both needed a drink.

No, they both needed to start over. To shed at least some of their burdens. Luceti offered a kind of chance to move on, yes, but only from an artificial point, not what they both knew was the end.

A few moments later, with the quiet sound of rattling glass and liquid pouring, Robert sets a tumbler of neat whiskey down next to the other man, one in his hand as he slides into a chair of his own.]

Booker, then.

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[It feels familiar in a way that it shouldn't. That fucking shift that made him think he had a family here and that Robert and Rosalind were apart of it still sticks out in his mind sometimes. In moments like this, the fabricated memories come back. One in particular of Robert offering this same silent kind of comradery when his wife and Robert's then sister had died.

He doesn't like it. In many different ways he doesn't like it, particularly though, in that it makes him feel as if they're mourning Elizabeth. And she is not dead.]

Thanks.

[He mumbles curtly, too focused on the drink set in front of him to really be gracious and he doesn't waste his fucking time pouring it down his throat. He wants to be drunk he doesn't want to enjoy the slow burn. Not right now.]

Early December 12th, action

[quantumgrammar]

[Rosalind returns to their room, when her conversation with Elizabeth is finished. She returns with what remains of the teapot, adulterated with an entire half of a lemon and too much honey and a nip of whiskey. The pot goes on the nightstand, the cup with her, from dresser to dressing-screen to bed. It's the sort of warm comfort she does not advertise her appreciation of to the world - as is the way she slips beneath the blankets with the predawn dark still lingering outside the windows, once she's again in her nightgown, and curls with feline self-assurance around the quiet form occupying the other half of the mattress.]

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[Robert wasn't fully asleep. How could he be, after his talk with Elizabeh? He'd made another promise he wasn't sure he could keep. Still, he was asleep enough that he didn't really stir when Rosalind curled to him.

But he was awake enough that his hand went up, curling around one of Rosalind's, holding it snugly. She's definitely getting to the point of slight illness, and... no doubt he'll get it next. But that's hardly much of a concern.]

[quantumgrammar]

Mmm.

[There's appreciation in that hum, even if there isn't an overabundance of happiness. It's a sound of simple satisfaction, perhaps, as she twists her hand in the grasp to interweave their fingers. Being allowed the grace of subtlety is one of the finer parts, she thinks, of being essentially the same person.]

A long night, then.

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Very.

[He looks down at their hands, at the asymmetry of their fingers woven together. Both thin hands, long fingers, but one decidedly more feminine. Constants and variables.]

The start of a long week, I think.

[Nothing he could worry about overmuch. After all, he couldn't alter it now, but that didn't mean there wasn't a bit of doubt in his mind.]

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A long week of morbid fancies, if rumours are to be believed.

[She twists higher on the bed, not as lithely as she might have years ago (or even days ago, without aches stitched through her sinews), but familiarity and practise necessitate a far lower expenditure of effort. There's a quirk to her lips as she looks down at Robert, hair tumbling over her shoulder, wavy from pins and twists.]

Was our first death not satisfyingly Shakespearean for you, brother? Would you dream us a second, strewn with even more strife and treachery?

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Can you blame me?

[He looks up at her, his voice quiet and warm while his fingers find a curl of her hair. He twists the piece between two of his fingers and smiles faintly. A bit tired but focused.]

She is a very powerful woman who has been deeply wronged.

I'd be equally -- more, actually -- afraid if I'd so wronged you.

[There's no shame in admitting it, either. Rosalind is an intelligent, powerful woman. Anyone who had done her wrong? Would have cause to be afraid.

And she didn't have the power to open tears of her own volition, without machinery.]

Late March 20th, written

[amonglions]

I need a favor.

[Hi, Robert. Booker is either too jumpy right now to bother going to your door and knocking on it or he doesn't really feel like going near you right now since you two spent a fair amount of time sucking face recently for reasons.

Either way, preamble is for babies. Plus he trusts you, as much as he could considering your past dealings.]

written

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[It takes about an hour for Lutece to answer. He has far too much to work on at this point; the hours he spends in his laboratory aren't generally given to checking the journals as well.

Still, he finally sees it.]

What is it?

written

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I might have found a way to actually fix my problem.

[Waking up in the middle of the night screaming, not getting any sleep no matter how much drink he poured into himself because the nightmares were so pervasive. You know, the usual.]

I need someone to supervise me while I'm asleep. Just the first time.

[Why doesn't he write everything? It sure takes the stammering out of his tone.]

written

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What does this way entail?

[Because, well, the scientist is curious.]

written

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A girl offered to help. Some kind of magic, I'm not even going to try to explain it to you.

[Booker knows that in translation, the actual message would become mangled. Booker would rather Robert hear it from the horse itself. The magic horse.]

But from what she told me [A short pause as Booker rubs at his eyes to keep awake.] it might be worth trying.

written

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I'd be willing to speak to her about it.

July 26th, action

[amonglions]

[Ever since the last draft, Booker has been trying to figure out how to tell Elizabeth everything. The things he doesn't want her to ever know because it means her knowing. He would ask Gai how to do this, but he doesn't know the kid that well in the first place. There's one person - okay, persons - who know everything.

So when he knows Robert isn't doing anything, Booker raps his knuckles against the door-frame of his room - study, whatever you want to call it - while worrying an envelope in his other.

Booker DeWitt doesn't usually look nervous but - well, now he's practically vibrating out of his skin with it.]

You busy?

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[The last draft left two very stark impressions in Robert's mind, and those have collided and twisted together so many times he's no longer sure what to think. Because he has no way to test his theories, and, without that, no idea how to proceed. It's maddening.

None of this is real.
There is no escape.

One or both could be true. This could all be some mass dream, multiple subconsciousnesses all vying to control the group mind, resulting in the strange distortions of reality known as shifts. And/or something far more potent could be pulling the strings.

The sound of Booker's voice is, in a way, a relief.

He doesn't have to think about Elizabeth in this place or Rosalind or the... hope, possibility, and impossibility of a child. He can, instead, focus solely on DeWitt.]

Not terribly. Nothing I can't take an hour away from.

[And just like that, he snapped the journal he was writing in shut.]

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[He ignores the journal being pushed aside, ignores the impulse it presents to him to just walk away and put this off some more. Because he doesn't have to ask for his help.

But he wasn't really asking for help, was he? It was more asking....advice. At least that was how Booker saw this.]

Good.

[Deep breaths. You need to do this.]

I need to ... I need to tell Elizabeth. Everything.

Before she gets married.

I -- [Why is this so hard? If he couldn't explain things to Robert, how could he be expected to tell Elizabeth.]

I need help.

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Everything.

[It's a weighty word, but...

DeWitt has a point.

Marriage is, culturally and metaphorically speaking, a new beginning. One life ends, and another begins. It is, therefore, a time to reevaluate. To cull or cultivate, especially relationships with others.

He makes a gesture toward the chair near his desk.]

Please, have a seat.

[...Strangely polite today, it seems.]

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I don't wanna keep lying to her. I...

[Again with the pulling of teeth, Booker. But he sits down. Too distracted to comment on the bizarre appearance of manners.

But it's not so much that he doesn't want to keep the truth of who he is from her - far from it, if given the actual concrete opportunity he would never let her know. Never let her discover who he undoubtedly had the potential to become.

But, with how her powers had been unleashed on the draft, Booker suddenly felt the pressure of time sinking down onto his shoulders and reminding him that she could find out at any minute. Any second she could know the awful truth and he would never be able to beat her too it.

It wasn't so much lying to her as making sure he was the source of the truth. Not...reality.

But coloring the truth wasn't what he wanted to do. Far from it.

Perhaps it was more personal than that. Which, honestly, seemed impossible.]

I don't want her regrettin' nothing after she gets married.

[He doesn't want her doing something stupid like involving him if she discovered she didn't want to.]

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[Everything.

The impossibility of that word weighed on Robert's mind as much as it did Booker's. Because "everything" didn't just entail what DeWitt had done in more than one universe, what he could become. It included the details of how Elizabeth had come to be. The source of her powers and the manner in which Comstock had gotten her.

It wasn't just the truth about Booker DeWitt that would come to light.

Robert Lutece would have to be held accountable for his role, too.]

She deserves to know.

[He hates to admit it almost as much as Booker does.]

Everything.

[That damn word. And all it threatens.]

How can I help?