amonglions | Fourth Baptism [Action] (backdated to the 29th)

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Fourth Baptism [Action] (backdated to the 29th)

[December 29th, 1890. It's a date that's forever seared in Booker DeWitt's mind as being a day he takes his drinking very seriously.

When he started drinking, it was to forget what he had done on that very day - another solider handed him a half-empty bottle to help him sleep and the rest, as they say, was history. Booker drank to forget and to actually get through a night without having horrifying, bloody nightmares. He knew he deserved to have them but he couldn't go without sleep without going absolutely insane. Drinking kept him going on a day to day basis more often than not.

He'd done well to avoid people today and consumed far more than was average of bottles of whiskey for him. Normally he would ease back a good sixteen beers through the day, a shot or two of whiskey interspersed - but that was when things were good. Today was probably one of the worst: this and the day he sold Anna were anniversaries he made a point not to remember. December 29th was a whiskey only kind of day.

Unfortunately for the world, Booker never had the Vigors at his disposal on this particular anniversary. Being in a city didn't allow him the freedom to just start doing what he liked because he was bored and... well, call it stubbornness or just simple ignorance but Booker won't go near the Battle Dome if he can avoid it. As such, he's improvised a little shooting range of sorts - setting up old empty bottles as targets to pick off and distract himself by doing so. If he had an unlimited supply of ammunition for his pistol he would use it but seeing as how he just found some genuine Salts in the Items shop before Christmas...

well he decided it'd be a good time to make sure he wasn't getting rusty with them. At least, that was his reasoning.

Three rows of bottles set up, each higher than the other on whatever he could find outside to stack them on. Booker sat himself on a fallen log and tried firing off a couple of practice shots with Devil's Kiss to see if he was at a good range. The sound of his hand igniting and the heat the flames gave off were by now familiar. The imagined pain of it the first time he had watched the flesh drip off his fingers was a distant, unpleasant memory now - one he didn't even entertain as he formed a molten ball of fire in his hand before launching it at one of the bottles.

Or at least, what he thought was one of the bottles. The Devil's Kiss Vigor had an explosive property however, and Booker heard the satisfying crack of glass that allowed him to think his aim was as good as it usually was.

For a little variety, he next brought up Shock's Jockey^*. The rocks - he assumed they were rocks - jutting out of his hands snapped electricity between their points like a whip being lashed and buzzed as if an angry hornet's nest were inside. Booker's veins glowed with the unnatural pale light before he sent the Shock Jockey towards the row - it hit, thank God. But poorly.

He was an outright mess and libel to either hurt himself or someone else if he kept this up.]

^*(ooc [spoilers?] : For my version of Booker, he did not let Cornelius Slate live. That was just the only video I could find for the Shock Jockey. >>)

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[~~Elizabeth's Booker-Sense was tingling.~~]

[Under normal circumstances, Elizabeth never saw much positivity from Booker, but she could tell when his levels of despondent dipped low. He hadn't come back from the bar in a timely fashion, and then when she'd gone to inquire she was told that Booker had already come and gone.]

[She follows the familiar sound of Devil's Kiss exploding, and glass breaking, and finds Booker looking the worst he had ever looked to her (in recent memory, at least).]

Booker! [Elizabeth hurried over to him.] Stop, you're going to set the whole village on fire!

What? Elizabeth it's fine!

[From what he could see, he wasn't doing anything that would be threatening the tress behind the improvised range. He wasn't so careless as to do this near people, so what was she going on about?]

Nothing's on fire! [He felt the need to clarify as he looked back on the broken bottles, hot cinders collected around the remains of one - but true to his word, nothing was on fire.]

Yet! [Elizabeth moves into the improvised firing range to go stamp out the cinders. She's disgruntled, yes, but when she gets over there she pauses and turns her head.]

Wow... [She kneels down, ignoring the embers for a moment, and uses the hem of her skirt to pick up one of Booker's victims. Only because it's something interesting and beautiful.]

Wow... Booker, look! I didn't know it could do this. [She moves back over to him, awkwardly, with the melted bottle so she can show him.]

[Booker grumbled nonsense under his breath as she scolded him, reaching to the still half-full bottle to drink from it. When she walks back towards him with the melted glass, he pauses - sort of amazed at it. He didn't know that could happen.]

Huh - well..I guess these Vigors weren't just made to be useful for folks like me.

[He imagined artisans and people like the Luteces' - scientists - would have a real use for some of these things.

Most of them, he thought too dangerous to have every day applications.]

But somehow I doubt they were made for things like this. [Elizabeth arches an eyebrow at Booker, waves the bottle a little to indicate, then sets it down next to the one Booker's been drinking out of. They look... eerily similar.]

...Booker you haven't drank all of these, have you?

[Dumb question. Elizabeth gets a sad look in her eyes as she looks over at the broken glass. And maybe it's because she's just the slightest bit self-centered still, but...]

This isn't because of me, is it? [She's terrified of asking, so the words are barely audible.]

[He doesn't answer her first question, instead just twisting his mouth shut and looking away - as if he were ashamed of the answer. Every single one of these bottles had been full the night before and this morning. He hadn't done anything but drink for the whole day, in anticipation of...something.

Booker hadn't had a nightmare in years because he hadn't been able to dream in years - drinking saw to that. He could sleep without dreaming and that was what was important to him. Sometimes though, the nightmares broke through the haze of booze and tortured him into waking, shaking and panting as if he'd been running for his life. From what, he could not say.

Her second question is so quiet he doesn't quite catch it, but the look on her face translates what he didn't pick up and he frowns for her - able still to function in a conversation.]

No... no it isn't. It's just --

[This day had never been a good one - always been one he would rather forget than remember. Even with all the bottles in him though, Booker could still so clearly see the bodies he strewn and blood he had spilled, and for what? So he could be called what he didn't want to claim in the first place? It had been so stupid of him, so violently stupid and so utterly unforgivable that he hadn't been able to sleep without seeing their faces. Women that reminded him of his mother and grandmother, and children where he saw his own face contorted in gross, sobbing pain in his dreams.

A solider had handed him a bottle and told him to drink it if he wanted some rest. With months of gruesome nightmares and guilt, he all but choked on it as he poured it down his throat.

He'd slept. And hadn't stopped drinking since.]

--bad day. That's all.

[There is a huge, guilty part of him that wants very badly for her to ask after that - to make him explain himself - so she can really know him. As if he could end the conversation with it, Booker punches out another blast of electricity to burst a few more of the bottles. He hits a tree and one of the outlying empty glass containers. It's satisfying enough.]

[Elizabeth winces when Booker's bolt of Shock Jockey seems to miss most of the targets and hit a tree. This was what she was afraid of--he would be too drunk, soon enough, to aim. Maybe. Elizabeth had seen Booker down some absinthe too fast and sway on his feet, but she honestly didn't know if he could shoot straight despite it.]

[But at least this isn't because of what had happened on Christmas Eve. Elizabeth had thought for a moment that she would have to choose, even if she didn't want to. Booker probably wouldn't ask her to, either, but it would be clear enough that he needed someone who didn't drive him crazy.]

Wait... [She frowns, narrowing her eyes at the grass as she tries to remember something. That rotunda, with the timeline, in the Hall of Heroes. That battle that Booker had been in with Slate occurred in--]

December. Wasn't that battle you were in in December? [It had stuck with her, strangely because the display had been so warm and fiery despite the season it should have been. If she was right, Booker hadn't been quite this scary all month and it would make some amount of sense if he was upset because this was the anniversary of that day.]

[Thank you, runs through his mind at her question but it is quickly squashed under the reluctance he feels whenever he talks about Wounded Knee, or anything he was involved in, really.

He could manage on a few bottles of whiskey, or a bottle of absinthe, to keep his aim steady and keep going. But sixteen verging on seventeen? And that just counting today? So far?

It was gonna get worse.

And yet, despite knowing that, Booker reaches down and takes a swig from one of the bottles at his feet.]

Yeah. [He swallows against the lump in his throat, drinks again to get it to dissolve.] But it wasn't a battle.

[Elizabeth watches, feeling helpless, as Booker keeps drinking. He was clearly on his way to disaster, and she wants to keep him from it but doesn't know how. Short of taking the bottle out of his hands.]

What happened, then?

[If he's going to be talking about this - actually talking about this - he's going to need to finish this bottle and finish it he does. He bears his teeth around the burn of the last of it seeping down his throat and it quickly turns more pleasant and warms him against what he's doing.]

...People died, Elizabeth. Good people, innocent people who hadn't done a Goddamn thing wrong and we just... [I just...slaughtered them like they weren't even cattle.]

we came into their homes and murdered them. And got away with it.

[He doesn't know if he can tell her what he did. Why he did it, what kind of blood he had on his hands...it's sitting in his throat like a lump and he's trying to work around it but it's there.]

I was a lot younger than you are now.....it stuck with me.

[He picks up the second bottle at his feet at that, absolutely refusing to look her in the eye.]

[In their journey through Columbia, Elizabeth had seen more than enough carnage and death and murder. It had been a shocking jump from a quiet, peaceful tower to dodging bullets and scraping for money and salts. But what Booker is describing sounds different, very different. It sounds like what would have happened if Booker had just run through Columbia killing everyone in sight--not just those who shot back.]

[She's trying to wrap her mind around it, but eventually she can only put both of her hands on the bottle Booker is holding and look him directly in the eyes. She's sad, she wants to undo it for him.]

I'm sorry.

[He starts forward, to follow the bottle as Elizabeth holds it away from him, but leans back just as quickly as he went to it.

Looking her in the eye is hard. Harder than most things he's had to do and there's a pain to accompany it in his chest, one that makes him want to drink but with her hands on the bottle he can't do that. But that look in her eyes combats that. It leaves him in a malaise.]

Why? You don't have to be sorry.

[I do.]

I didn't take no pity or give any kind of mercy to those people...

[He realizes, as he swallows down the desire to stop talking and keep his secrets secret...that he can't tell her.

Because he remembers the voxophone.

The voxophone Comstock made. Detailing the women and children he so easily killed, the scalps he cut from their heads and put on his belt. The fires he set to their tepees while they were still inside. The name he earned. The name Comstock earned. The name Booker earned.

If he told her....he didn't doubt she would put things together in an instant. That the truth he was keeping with the intent of revealing couldn't ...couldn't just let slip out like this.

At least that's what he told himself as he swallows the rest of it down and looks away from her sad blue eyes.]

I'm not sorry it happened. I'm sorry you have to carry it, and I'm sorry you carry it by yourself. [At the risk of letting Booker lift the bottle again, Elizabeth shifts one of her hands tentatively to Booker's cheek. She doesn't want him to carry this alone, but she's realizing that nothing she says will make Booker forgive himself. He has to come to it on his own, he has to figure out how to live with it and not let it destroy him.]

You're different now, though. I know that, without any doubt. You may have come to Columbia looking to pay off your debt, but you tried to take me away to Paris at the end. I wish I had listened to you.

[Booker thinks about the literal armies Comstock sent to stop Booker, as he said in the airship. The lengths the man went to try and stop him from taking Elizabeth... would they even have gotten to Paris?]

I don't think we would've made it very far or been able to hide for very long, Elizabeth.

[He'll never know if he could have let go of the bulk of his sins at the river, or if Comstock still felt the guilt the same as Booker did. He didn't really want to know if there were any similarities between them other than the past. A heavy sigh pulls his back into an arch and he presses his hand over hers - it's starting to become a common gesture for them both.

He'll gladly focus on Paris though, step away from the idea that maybe his insistence on Paris the longer they were together was some kind of penance. Just like the brand on his hand, except he could actively try to make up for the fact that he came to Columbia with the intention of just handing her over to some people in New York.]

We would have found a way. We always did. [Elizabeth looks down at their hands, furrows her brow at the brand on Booker's hand. He punished himself so readily, made himself believe he would never do anything good again without a reminder of how terrible he had been before. It broke her heart to see him, the man who had been a fixed point of possibility and hope, punish himself over and over again.]

I won't say anything if you want to keep drinking. But at least come home, Booker. I don't want you to be alone.

[There's a chorus going on in the background of his mind, a whisper that he can tell is going to get worse and worse with each day no matter how much he drinks. It's here now, after all.

Tell her, tell her, tell her, tell her...

Fuck what is he going to do?]

You don't need to bother.

[He doesn't understand the point of drinking at home. It just means people watching him drink himself to sleep and Elizabeth feeling sorry.]

I don't -- Why do you want me there?

[It comes out a bit rushed, more than a little desperate.]

Because you're my friend! [Elizabeth's response is rushed and desperate too. She wants Booker to let her help him, or at least let her take care of him if she can't do anything to help.]

You're my friend, and it hurts to see you punishing yourself like this all alone. I can't stop you from punishing yourself, but I can at least be with you.

I'm not punishing myself!

[It comes out on the tail of Elizabeth's response, riding the building unease as the conversation continues. He doesn't know what else to say. Drinking helps, he doesn't want her to think it doesn't.]

Trust me, this is better. I'm okay like this.

[Elizabeth blinks, shocked that Booker actually spoke over her. The tone doesn't help assuage her fears though, and for a moment she looks hurt.]

[Does she respect Booker's insistence that it was better for him to be drunk and alone? Was that what she was supposed to do, as his friend? Or did she just ignore what he wanted because she thought she knew what was better for him?]

[Where Booker was concerned, Elizabeth wasn't willing to take the risk that he was actually better off without her.]

I trust you with so many things, but I think, given the things I've seen you do, it's fair enough not to trust that you'll take care of yourself. [And then she does the thing she used to do with Songbird: just become dead weight that had to be lugged around if it was going to move. Elizabeth sits down in the grass, right at Booker's feet. If he doesn't want to go home, she'll just stay here with him.]

[He just swallows down any apology he might blurt out for making her have that look on her face and goes about feeling miserable all over again when suddenly she's just...plopping herself on the ground.

What in the world?]

What...what are you doing?

I'm going to sit here until you go somewhere else. [She crosses her arms and settles until she's a little more comfortable.] And when you do that, I'm going to get up and follow you, then sit down there until you decide to move again.

[Someone learned their stubbornness from someone else.]

What, why?!

[Color him confused. He's clearly not picking up what she's putting down.]

Because I don't want you to be alone, that's why! [She frowns up at him, narrowing her eyes as though daring him to tell her to leave.] Doesn't matter if you're here or at home, I'm not leaving you alone.

I'm not a kid Elizabeth, I don't need you to babysit me.

[Booker frowns back down at her, not really challenging her to anything but certainly being stubborn as a mule.]

If I was your babysitter, I'd be doing an awful job right now. [Elizabeth doesn't move from her spot on the ground, still bracing for Booker to tell her to go home.] I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I'm not leaving you alone.

Fourth Baptism [Action] (backdated to the 29th)

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