metalogs | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who: Bethan Costigan

nogodsnoheroes and OPEN (one prompt closed to Angela

hevenly)
What: Bethan returns to Central City, gets in a fight, and goes to find a friend
When: Throughout December
Where: Central City
Content Warnings: Alcohol, violence, unreality/dissociation

[ I | Central City, early December | OPEN | CW: excessive alcohol consumption ]

[This is a rough time of year for someone whose only solace, back home, is family. Thanksgiving was hard. Christmas coming up is even harder. It's haunting her, that loneliness - making her wonder if it's worth risking a little trust in the Guilds, if it means she can get home long enough to tell her parents she's okay.]

[She's not really okay. Even by her own very loose standards, Bethan isn't doing well. She's been on her motorcycle for the past two months, riding aimlessly wherever the road takes her, trying to find...]

[Something. She doesn't know what. Whatever it is, she hasn't found it, and now she's back where she started, on a low rooftop in downtown Central City, trying to outrace her superhuman metabolism before she runs out of stolen cash.]

[Which is to say, she's on her third bottle of cheap vodka, swaying very slightly where she sits, humming Christmas carols. She looks like she's been crying.]

[If you so much as glance at her, she'll fix the full force of her glare on you, chugging down the rest of the bottle.]

Fuck you looking at?

[ II | Central City, throughout December | OPEN | CW: violence ]
[Alcohol costs money, and it doesn't last long. Justice... Justice doesn't cost a goddamn thing.]

[Which is the nicest way of saying that, as soon as she runs out of vodka (and subsequently sobers up about an hour later), Bethan is looking for a fight.]

[Or, rather, the Bandit is.]

[She's no respecter of boundaries, especially not those set by the Alliance, so if you happen to be patrolling the city, you may find that there's an intruder on your turf, running around on the rooftops. Her face is hidden by a motorcycle helmet with a mirrored visor, her motorcycle leathers padded and zipped up to the neck.]

[It isn't always easy to find crime to stop, especially when there are this many superheroes about, but a determined vigilante can usually find someone who's (at least apparently) up to no good.]

[Hence the screams echoing down the street, as the black-clad Bandit interrupts a mugging in progress with a swift kick to the mugger's knee, and proceeds to start beating the shit out of him. It's a pretty unpleasant sight, all things considered: blood on the snow, a leg bent at an unnatural angle, and a merciless assault on a mugger who, criminal or not, is absolutely the one crying out for help at this point.]

[Someone might want to step in, before this upgrades from assault to manslaughter.]

[ III | The Opherium | mid-December | CLOSED to Angela ]
[She's been putting it off. She knows that. She's been putting it off for months, since she met Sephiroth and had that conversation with him, and she's definitely been putting it off for the week or two she's been back in the city.]

[But shit keeps pointing her back here. The mention of the Lokis. The card in her pocket, which she somehow hasn't been able to throw away. Her own curiosity. Mostly that last one.]

[She's terrified. She's actually a bit afraid she might throw up, or have a panic attack, or both, standing in front of the address on the card.]

[The woman she's looking for knew her. Maybe not this version of her, but a version of her. Knew her name, knew her face... what else did she know? What had she already told people?]

[Had they really been friends, in some reality?]

[Bethan can't deal with all this thought of different realities, different hers. It hurts too much, and it's too confusing, and it's hard enough to keep hold of the reality she's living in. But she has to know. She might have put it off for months, but it's been gnawing at her. She just... has to know.]

[She raises her hand, takes a deep breath that hangs in the air like frozen mist, and knocks.]

[ IV | Wildcard ]
[[Hit me up for toplevels/plotting at

jormandugr if you'd like!]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I come to this city regularly enough.

[Because of his special someone. He absolutely doesn't recognize her jealousy, he's used to being on the other side of that. He's always been the one without connection, until lately.]

But their chocolate is supposedly quite good.

Yeah?

[She almost says Guess I'll check it out, but then she realises how silly that is. She's not going to check out a chocolate shop. She's going straight back to the liquor store as soon as she's got a few bucks in hand. She doesn't have anyone to buy for.]

[She sighs, flopping backward so that she's lying on the roof, only her legs and feet visible from ground level.]

Sounds more like my brother's kinda place.

[Sephiroth hesitates, not sure what to do with the mention of her brother or her flopping back. Family relationships can be complicated, he's observed, and it's difficult to suss them out from a mere mention. Does he like her brother? Hate him? Miss him? Is he even alive?]

...

Did you want to speak of him or would you prefer I left?

[This is where she should tell him to fuck off. Would, if she was sober. But she does want to talk about her family, and even with the enhanced metabolism she's still got a lot of alcohol in her system, and she's tired. She's so fucking tired of being alone.]

He's gonna be nineteen this year. It was gonna be the first time he came home from college, this Thanksgiving. I think he might even've been planning to bring his boyfriend. Bet he didn't, though. Not with me gone.

[She props herself up on her elbows, sighing loudly.]

But... yeah. He goes apeshit for good chocolate. It's funny, no-one else in the family does.

[Okay, if they're going to keep talking then he is going to jump up onto the roof to join her. Should a normal person be able to jump that high and land that softly? Probably not.

He sits down in her general vicinity, not too close.]

I'm not terribly fond of it myself.

...you may not have missed that moment, from his perspective. Those I've spoken with about their temporary trips home have stated they returned to the moment they left.

[She sits up sharply at that. Too sharply - it makes her head spin, and for a moment, she looks pale and more than a bit sick.]

[But, even so, the hope's apparent in her face. And hope, she knows all too well, is a dangerous thing.]

Seriously? You mean they might not know I'm gone?

If you're fucking with me about this, I'll end you.

[He arches an eyebrow at her attempt to threaten him.]

I doubt that.

But no, I am not fucking with you. It's a small sample size, but it's possible.

[She glowers at him, in a way that would be more intimidating if she didn't still look so green around the gills, but she doesn't actually say anything. She's thinking.]

[More precisely, she's feeling.]

...That's something. That's...

[She sniffs, and looks down at her empty bottle. The tears are welling up. Goddammit.]

That's actually a lot.

[A long pause.]

Thanks.

[Sephiroth turns his attention to looking straight ahead across the street, pretending he doesn't notice the tears. Out of discomfort more than politeness. He barely knows her, what's she doing crying in front of him? That's awkward.]

...think nothing of it.

[For what it's worth, she's even more uncomfortable with it than he is, but she's also drunk and can't stop. She can only scrub at her eyes, scowling at herself for crying, and hunch her shoulders up.]

[Her tone, when she speaks, is both a little bit thick and a lot defensive.]

It matters, okay? They worry. They worry a whole fuckton.

Don't look at me like that.

[...Bethan, he's not even looking at you at all.]

I'm not looking at you.

[Unless she's somehow the building across the street.]

...it's not a situation I'm familiar with. I don't have any siblings.

[Or family worth mentioning. He's never been homesick and there's no one who'd worry about him. It makes no difference to him whether anyone is aware of his absence or not.

So it's... strange, to him, that people react so strongly to this information.]

It's better if you don't, honestly. Or parents. Or uncles.

[She tosses the bottle from hand to hand, mostly just to distract herself, until it slips out of her decidedly unsteady grip and shatters on the street below. She flinches noticeably, fingers clenching, then lets out a low, shuddering breath.]

That way it doesn't matter. But if they love you... [She shrugs.] Fucking sucks. You can't disappear.

[Sephiroth watches the bottle shatter, not particularly concerned by it. He's wearing boots.

But he lets out a faint scoff.]

You think it's better to be without connection?

[That gets him a glare, through red-rimmed blue eyes that aren't entirely focused but thoroughly intent.]

What did I just fucking say?

[She flops backwards again, staring up at the sky. If she thought about it, she would realise that this is the most she's opened up to someone outside her family in... probably ever, and it's pretty fucked-up that she needs to be apocalyptically drunk to do it. When she sobers up (in about half an hour, tops), this is going to be painful.]

[Right now, she's just desperate to talk to someone, even if she'd never admit it. And she can't call Dara the way she does back home.]

I think it's better when you're a crazy mess of a person who sets everything on fire 'cause she's too fucking pathetic to get over it and she can't move on the other way. Yeah. Who the fuck wants to be connected to a black hole?

[He could be dismissive. Tell her she is being pathetic and to get over herself. Despite the way she says it, it wears at an old envy. Or maybe it's in part because of the way she says it.

He used to think himself a void, his only talent the destruction he'd been raised to. He didn't form connections because there was nothing in him for anyone to connect with. He carried a private anger towards others because they had something he thought he never could.

Who would let go of that?]

...I think you may not be in a position to judge yourself objectively.

You have those people, so clearly they feel differently.

Exactly!

[She huffs, still staring up at the sky.]

You're not fucking listening! They feel differently, and it's ruined their fucking lives for twenty fucking years. And then when that happens, you can't even let them off the hook, 'cause then it hurts them if you leave, too!

...You know what, though? This is perfect. If what you're saying's true, this is fucking perfect. If they don't know I'm gone. I can...

[Do something. She doesn't know what, because take the time to get better doesn't seem like an option - if she hasn't gotten better in seventeen years, she's not going to manage it now. And staying here isn't better, because that means they're still stuck, and eventually they'll either miss her or get her back. But at least if the universes don't line up, maybe there's time to think.]

...leave them, without leaving them?

[It might be perfect, from her perspective of being terrible for them. Nothing changes for them, and she gets to feel she isn't ruining their lives.

Of course it's absurd.]

Yeah.

[She laces her hands together in front of her face, closing her eyes, and sighs heavily.]

Yeah. That. At least for a while.

They deserve better.

And I deserve another drink. Can I borrow five bucks? 'll pay you back next time I see you.

No.

You can resolve your "cashflow problem" on your own.

[Completely missing his point has not earned her any drinks.]

Wow. Fuck you, then.

[She closes her eyes, heels kicking against the brickwork.]

...'S your fault I'm even here, for fuck's sake.

How is it my fault you're drunk on a rooftop?

[He's not following that one in the slightest. She was already here when he came across her.]

[In his defence, she's currently probably as drunk as she's ever going to be, and not particularly coherent even by her standards.]

[This doesn't stop her glaring at him like he's said something incredibly stupid.]

In the city, dumbfuck. You and your stupid Lokis.

You came here to see Loki?

[...and then get wasted? Maybe he shouldn't be surprised if the interaction went poorly, given her general... everything.]

Yeah.

[Ugh. Why is honesty so tempting right now? (It's the booze).]

...I mean, kinda. I'm gonna try and talk to him. But, like...

No. No, I guess I came here to see Angela.

Ah.

Your minotaur?

[It makes more sense that that could be a difficult encounter, and maybe he did sort of suggest she look into that.]

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additional cw: self-directed ableism, suicidality

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