Mun: solasbeag
Plurk: cupcakepantry
AIM: kujoismydog

Any feedback or critique is welcomed.

Anon is off.

Comment Screening is on.

[Abstaining only works for so long, especially where addictions are concerned. And drinking was an addiction for Booker, no matter what he told anybody. Or himself, for that matter.

Maybe it was the wedding, maybe it was the Draft. Who knew. It could have been any number of things that triggered this latest slip in a long, uneven line of attempts at sobriety. But he had been trying. That only made this more bitter, though.

He was at Seventh Heaven - which he knew would not be good concerning some people. (i.e: Elizabeth.) But it was better than sitting at home and drinking himself stupid there. Less sad perhaps.

Well, the bendy straw down the neck of a bottle of beer negated some of the angst. The eleven bottles in the trash can didn't help though.

He waits; waits a long time with his journal closed next to him, staring at it in shifts before very suddenly making a choice and opening it up.

It's a drunk choice, so it's a vulnerable and stupid question. But it's something that's been on his mind.]

If you... had to give up something -- something precious to you in order to consider yourself a good person, would you? If you could never have it back, would you?

[Booker pauses and scrubs a hand over his face. Probably lamenting whatever stupid choice he's going to make.]

...I dunno.

Don't think I could do it.

[Oh look, it's everyone's favorite alcoholic dad! ...Except he looks even worse than he usually does this time. The bags under his eyes age him tremendously and there's a lack of of his normal bite that just makes him look off. What the hell's going on with him?]

Still can't sleep. [Booker deflates a little on screen at admitting it. Talking about his problems is not something he just does. But he's run out of options, this is a cry for help if ever there was one.]

Been tryin' everything for it. Everything and anything. But it just.... this isn't somethin' that tea before bed can fix. [He sounds just a little more angry and a little less defeated at that though.]

Those damn dreams just don't want to stop. I can't get them to stop. [They're awful. All of them reminders and none of them offer any relief or goodness. It's all blood and death and faces that he's starting to see when he's eyes are open too. It's getting worse and Booker has no idea that he is making it worse by refusing to sleep or relax.]

I haven't slept in days. Trying to avoid it but I just....

[Except he knows that's not a good idea. He knows people need to sleep. And he's about as normal as they come. No super stamina here. Ignore the Vigors.]

no man can just keep goin'. It doesn't work like that.

How am I supposed to do this? I heard there's someone 'round here who can make you forget...things. Maybe that'd work, but I don't know.

[He both wants that blank slate and is afraid of it. He's lost his memories before and discovering them again was more painful than he cared to admit....but the release might be enough to make the dreams go away. At this point, he thinks to himself, he'd take a lobotomy.]

Don't know much of anything.

[He's etching around actually asking the question so....a deep breath for fortification and:]

I need help.

[And - because he is the most mature - Booker slams the journal shut after that. And runs away from it.]

--

Action

[After making his plea to the public of Luceti on his journal, Booker feels a bit....antsy. Maybe he just wants to avoid talking to anyone in his house at the time, or maybe he just wants to find something to do. He used to be a detective - albeit, a pretty unemployed one - but still. He used to have a purpose. Something to do every day that would offset the drinking by himself and the...well, everything by himself.

He can think of just one thing he could do.

And he heads to the Items' Shop. Since the store is so out of sorts, Booker is left to go through the piles of junk to try and find something. He keeps looking until he finds a - yes! A guitar.

Wait, a guitar? This doesn't look like any guitar he's ever seen. It's...well for starters, it's blue. Like, really blue. And second it's shaped weird. The strings don't sound right when he pluck out the first few random notes of a song he has in his head and...

there has to be a normal guitar in there somewhere. He keeps looking. And keeps making the store look like a damn tornado hit.]

[Booker wakes up sputtering, cold and wet. In a river. Again. He curses and wades to shore quickly - there's a huge difference in water temperature from summer to late winter and he is feeling it. There's no sign of a pile of clothes anywhere near him - at least he's wearing his - but there is his journal sitting on the bank.]

Hallelujah.

[He grumbles and climbs up the bank to grab it before making a post.]

Apparently the Malnosso - or someone else [looking at you Lutece twins.] - got a sick sense of humor and dumped me in a river.

[To his knowledge, he didn't get blind drunk and go for a walk in the middle of the night. And there's no way just one person could drag him all the way to a river he doesn't recognize. Shit, it's going to be hell getting back but...back to business.]

At least they left the journal right by me...

Uh, so. Robert, if you're listening I could use a change of clothes? And a drink. It's damn near freezing out here.

[No, it isn't but wet clothes aren't doing him any favors.]

I'll just... work on figuring out where the hell I am.

[Combined with a lovely memory wipe and a week besides that, Booker has no idea that so much time has passed since he was actually alive. Hell, he has no idea that he died.

Until then, he's going to wander. Not too far from the river - because that'd be stupid. But around, for some kind of landmark. The sun is at 2 o'clock so he has that going for him. But other than that, he doesn't have much to go off of.]

[Booker has gone to war before; he has done the fighting, bleeding and killing before.

With luck, he did the returning before.

Never had he been the one to sit at home and wait for someone dear to him to return from a fight. Suddenly he has a new respect for anyone ever put through this because it is hell not knowing one day from another if the person you're waiting for is alive or not. He tries to tell himself that Gai will protect Elizabeth if it comes to it and she can handle herself well enough.

She kicked his ass enough times. Saved it too. He shouldn't be playing mother hen right now but he just can't help but think of all the terrible things that could possibly befall her. Logically, he knows these same things could happen with him there with her but at least then he could blame himself and not foster it on someone else. Anger was easier to manage within.

Eventually he can't stand sitting at home twiddling his thumbs anymore and goes to Good Spirits for a beer. Or twelve.

He might be about halfway through that before he decides to crack open his journal.]

How the hell do you folks do this?

[He'd wax poetic about how much this is absolutely awful but he can't collect his words. Booker thinks he lost them in the neck of the bottle.]

[Booker DeWitt has found the bar and he is not leaving.

Okay that's only...mostly true (20% tops) but he's seriously in awe of the sheer variety of ways to get yourself drunk here. He's used to beer and whiskey - gin maybe but that was only if he didn't have either of the first.

Right now he's familiarizing himself with beer. Also incredibly varied now. He's not complaining but he's going to try one of everything before he does anything else.

It's beer three or four that motivates him to crack open the journal and flip to a blank page to fiddle with it until he manages to get the video feed working.]

So I've heard that if folks keep an eye out, things from their world can appear in the Item's Shop. That being said I'm missing a few things but right now I wanted to ask if anyone'd spotted a Sky-hook there recently.

It's a.... [How to explain a Sky-hook beyond it's name?] It works like -- See there are these, uh, hook things that...oh fuck it

[Booker gives up on trying to describe it, and vanishes off camera for a few seconds. There's a sound like scratching in the background and when he reappears Booker turns the journal to face the bar and there's something scribbled on a cocktail napkin that looks like this:]

( Cut for image )

[He's not an artist, folks.]

That's what it looks like.

If you seen anything like that pop up in one of those shops...give me a holler.

[10% Filtered from Elizabeth: Hackable.]

Also, I've been hearing a bit of talk about these Drafts we're meant to be going on.

There something for the non-combatants to do or are they just handed a weapon and wished good luck?

[It's a bit sad that the idea is not that strange nor unlikely to him.]