If I'm Out of Line, Just Show Me the Door [CLOSED]

[ownperson]

Who: Agent South Dakota (ownperson) & Agent North Dakota (gooddefense)
What: Unresolved tension boils over
When: Mid-December, pre holidays
Where: North's farm, Northwest Hollow
Warning(s): Excessive alcohol/alcohol abuse, ongoing mental health crises, discussion of betrayal/fratricide by proxy, possible references to past emotional abuse/neglect, others added as necessary



She doesn't mean to get back so late.

One drink turns into two drinks into five into ten and, outside the Oak & Iron's windows, the world turns black and white as night creeps in and snow drifts down from clouds overhead. Midnight is already long behind her by the time the bartender finally cuts her off so they can close up, ushering her out to brave the chill as she curses herself for losing track of time. It's a long walk back from downtown to the farmhouse even on a good day and, between trudging through snowfall and her own drunken clumsiness, this is not a good day. Should've left sooner. Should've been back hours ago. It's just—

Been getting harder and harder to spend time in the house without wanting to scream, the last few days—fuck, the last couple weeks, really. Hours will go by where everything seems okay and then something will happen, something small, something she barely even notices, and everything gets weird again. North gets weird again. But then she doesn't say a word, and, eventually, things go back to normal. Until the cycle repeats. Over and over and over again and—

She just needed to get out of the house. Needed a drink and to clear her head. That's all. That's fucking all.

Her pale skin is red and her hands are shaking as much from the cold as the alcohol, by the time she hauls herself up the porch steps and fumbles with the lock on the door. It's not quiet, it's not considerate. When it finally clicks open, she shoulders the door and stumbles inside, shoving it back shut behind her. Her boots thud heavily against the wooden floor and she grunts, huffing as she fights to get the stupid things off so she can drag herself to bed.

Comments

[cyansoldier]

"It did just happen last night. He might need time before he's ready to get into everything. Whatever change happens, it's going to be slow for both of you. Be prepared for that."

Butter sizzles and froths in the shallow basin of her pan. She cracks two eggs and lets them do their thing, spoons coffee into her drip maker. Quiet for a moment, Carolina picks through her words. There's a dark blotch in her understanding of things, and she'll be no help to anyone if she's missing important information. If South will actually tell her, well...

Then there's the issue of whether her story is accurate. She'll work with what she's given.

"If I'm going to help, it's probably best I know the full story. We'll eat first, then talk. Is that fine?"

[ownperson]

Slow, South's never been very good at slow. Never had the patience, the discipline, to completely resist her impulses or to slow down long enough to breathe. Hates that she can't skip the part between the pain and the resolution, can't blink and be better already, be back with her brother and confident that she won't let this happen again.

Hates it because she knows it's impossible, knows the work has to be done, clawing tooth and nail out of the pit she's in, and all while she's so fucking tired.

She keeps her head down through the smell of eggs and coffee. It hides the wince when Carolina mentions the full story. Doesn't want to, doesn't want to expose just how fucking selfish she was, but— but does she really get a choice, now it's in the air.

"...s'fine, I guess."

[cyansoldier]

Good. Good. She probably realizes there's no way out of this except forward. Can't not say anything. Can't sweep what she's done under the rug and hope Carolina won't noticed. She's in her house, her rules— and she doesn't own a rug. This will be a process like pulling teeth without anesthetic; slow and painful. The rot runs deep and it needs to come out.

But first, breakfast. She plates two eggs with toast and fills a mug with coffee, sugar, a little milk. "I don't care if you like it. Drink it." Spoken in the same half-sternness she'd used last night. Carolina repeats the process, makes breakfast for herself and eats standing in the kitchen. She'll clean later. Maybe talk Gerry into doing it for her, if she's feeling bossy.

When she's finished, she comes over to the sofa and sits. "Whenever you're ready."

[ownperson]

South grunts a thanks when given her meal, and picks slowly at it over the course of the next... however long, she doesn't have a good sense of time. It's not a deliberate delaying tactic—not a conscious one—but feeling as dogshit as she does, her stomach as unsettled as it is, it's the only way she's going to keep that promise not to hurl. But it does buy her the time to sit with herself and think, as she nibbles her way through eggs and toast and begrudgingly drinks most of the coffee.

She carefully sets plate and mug down on the coffee table when she's done, then wraps her arms back around her knees and pulls tighter in on herself. Feels like such a fucking child for it, for behaving this way.

...she still doesn't know how she's supposed to start. Even after being forced to figure it out the first time.

"...where do you want me to start." (Stupid, stupid, stop putting the responsibility on other people for fuck's—)

[cyansoldier]

"How about..." Carolina thinks on it for a second, staring up into the ceiling and patting her own knee. "...When you made the decision, then go from there. Give me the facts. What the plan was, how it played out, where things went wrong. Take your time."

[ownperson]

Inhale, exhale. (She doesn't want to fucking do this again—)

"...I had the idea a couple months before it actually. Happened." Can't look at her. Can't meet her eye, not right now. Hates the way she can't face people, like this, had to force herself to even look at North in the end. "Command kept me updated on where the Meta was. I didn't get the beacons like Wash did, they wanted me to be, y'know. A secret. But they told me about it. And I knew— I knew I couldn't keep us out of its way forever. Not so long as North had Theta."

It would always come for them eventually, if Wash didn't find a way to stop it before it got that far. So long as they were on that stupid planet with that AI in North's head, they were a target. Being attacked was an inevitable outcome. But she...

"And he just— he wouldn't give him up. No matter how many times I begged him to let us actually fucking leave, he— he wouldn't. And I just— I just thought. If I set it up so the Meta found us when I was ready. I could use what I knew and— and just let it take it. Him. Theta."

It's worse, somehow, trying to tell this a second time. Knowing, now (almost accepting, now) that North saw Theta like a real child, like his child, and yet still struggling to understand it.

[cyansoldier]

Carolina is careful not to let any one expression betray her, or else run the risk of pulling the pin on this bomb of a subject and having it explode in her face. Hearing Maine be referred to as the Meta, however, sits in her about as comfortably as ammunition from a Needle Rifle. Is she the ridiculous one, or has everyone else forgotten that Maine is a person they knew? Maybe she's too forgiving. Maine did kill North, even if it's something Maine would never do.

So, Theta's the problem. South never really did engage with him, from what she saw. It was never about not having an AI, Carolina suspects, in the same way her experience wasn't all about being top of the leaderboard. There are nuances. Interpersonal conflicts and motivations. Maybe it felt like she wasn't North's person anymore, with Theta around.

How to fix that?

By doing anything other than luring in Agent fucking Maine. Relying on Maine, unpredictable and augmented, as the key component in your plan.

Of course things went— well, south.

"And then?"

[ownperson]

"It— it caught up to us quicker than I expected."

Not sure if that was her own miscalculation or Command feeding her bad intel—it's not like she could rule that out, is it, not with the way they always were, not with how prepared they were to have her play along with their little plan with Washington. Too prepared, maybe, but she can't prove anything. Can't know either way.

"But it still should've worked. Louisiana fucking survived and she was on her own, she wasn't me. Us. I had all the data Command gave me. I knew what it could do. So I— I went ahead with the plan. When I realised it was coming, I kept out of sight and... and I waited. I heard him— I heard him shouting for me and— and I waited, because so long as he was shouting he was alive, and—"

She can't do this. Can't relive this. Can't— (has to, has to swallow it, has to face it—)

"I-I wasn't quick enough. Timed it wrong. Froze up. I don't— I don't know, I just know I got only fucking made it down to him in time to watch the blade sink in."

She can still smell the iron and malodour of the wound, the killing blow. Her stomach churns and she starts looking pale, almost green at the edges.

[cyansoldier]

"Louisiana is one agent." She hears her own voice come out slowly, carefully. "So a few of us survived. The odds were never in your favor. To rely on Maine to act in a way that made sense, believe whatever Command was saying—"

Is stupid? Naive? Bad planning? In part, she wants to shake her. Ask how— how— she thought the logistics of using Maine as tool to get what she wanted would ever work out in their combined favor. What happens in the aftermath? Where do they go? Does she lie to North for the rest of his life about what happened the little kid he was raising in his head? Selfishness to the deadliest degree. Desperation in the cold, hard shape of a blade. A bad plan.

In other ways, she gets it. Fell victim to her own poor planning, dragged Epsilon down with her. Moved on instinct— on vengeance— desperate to make something happen, or else render every death in her life, every mistake she's made, every blow at the hand of another person into nothing. Dust flung through space. And her, useless in the end.

"Why did you want Theta gone?"

This might be a shot in the dark, and she suspects she already knows the answer— but try, she will.

"And don't say Command."

[ownperson]

South bristles, shoulders pulling into a tight, square line as Carolina points out the flaws in her logic. Wants to bite back, tell her she's not fucking stupid, that she knows her own fucking abilities, knows she could've done it—

But can't find the words.

She's quiet for a long moment.

The tension doesn't fade, if anything she closes herself off more, pulling her knees in tighter, containing herself as much as possible within the boundaries of the single couch cushion she's sat upon.

"...he was replacing me."

God, she sounds so fucking stupid. Because she is, she is so fucking stupid, thinking this way, being like this. Jealous of a fucking computer program, of a child—she's not sure which is worse, which way of seeing him makes her the most ridiculous. (Does it even matter?)

[cyansoldier]

There it is. Raw and bloody and vulnerable. The worst thing a person could be subjected to, in South's mind; ditched by the center of your universe for something less than human, but somehow more important than you. It'd be easy to say, No, he cares about you, that wasn't his intention, but to what effect? Disbelief will rise and charge forward like an angry wave— you don't know what you're fucking talking about— and she'd be right, mostly. Carolina can only guess and listen. The work will come later.

"And you were more willing to put your lives at risk than let that happen," she says, making sense of it all. "You were confident. Overconfident. And scared beneath that. You thought it would work out, because why wouldn't it? And when it didn't— when you heard North— maybe that was so surprising, you froze."

A long pause.

"What made you feel like he was replacing you?" The sideways tilt of Carolina's head entreats her to talk. Talking is a first step forward.

[ownperson]

Her knuckles bloom white where she clenches her fists hard in the material of her pants; her jaw matches them, tension for tension. "I wasn't fucking overconfident, I wasn't— I'm good, I'm fucking good, I'm as good as fucking any of you don't you—"

Stop. God, fucking stop it, this is fucking embarrassing. She buries her face in her knees again, forces herself to breathe slow and bite down on the reflexive, defensive protests that feel wrong in her mouth even as she spits them out. (It should've worked. It should've worked. But it didn't, it didn't work and there's only one person who's fault that can be and—)

Breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

"...h-he was never there anymore," comes out, eventually, low and thick. She won't cry again, she won't, but the emotion still wells in her throat. "H-He was always there, and then he wasn't, and suddenly everything was about Theta. Training. Meals. Free time. He wouldn't even fucking pull him to let himself sleep. I-I couldn't get a fucking second with him without that stupid lightbulb—"

Wince. She bites down on her own tongue; forces herself, with great effort, to rephrase:

"—without. Theta there. Even when you couldn't see him he was there, they'd be talking inside his head and— North didn't have time. For me. Not anymore." She swallows. Her left hand is tremoring, even where she clenches her fist. God, she needs a drink, she needs a fucking drink, but she doesn't dare move from Carolina's gaze. "He— h-he even admitted it, that he was 'giving me space'. Focusing— focusing on Theta. But— h-ha, it was my fucking fault. It was my own fucking fault because he— he thought that was what I wanted."

Bitter, she laughs emptily. "A-And I can't even say he's wrong, because I know exactly what I said that made him think that and— and maybe I thought I wanted that, maybe I thought I could— could get by without him, but I can't. I can't. I can't I can't I—"

Stop it. She breathes in so hard it hurts and out so hard she feels hollow. Control yourself, for fuck's sake control yourself.

[cyansoldier]

"Yes, you were," said firmly. "Two things can be true at once, South. You overshot and underprepared. It doesn't mean you aren't good. You were responding to an emotional flash point, unassisted and on a time restraint, against near-impossible odds."

It would be inaccurate, she thinks, to call North's death entirely South's fault. Isn't a murder— nor was it wholly an accident. Theta wouldn't exist without the Counselor, the Director, the Project— if things hadn't tailspun, if the Project was normal to the extent military experiments can be normal, none of this would— and she stops herself. No shying away from responsibility now. We all played our part.

A thought, involuntary and rotten; we're all, probably, terrible people.

Carolina breathes. In, out. Easy, like a machine. Sets the pace for the rest of the room— empty, apart from herself and South— and thinks shapelessly how alike they are; how losing an important person's— the person's— attention can feel like plunging through a trapdoor into ice cold water, with no time to brace yourself. Either seize-up and drown or fight the current.

An excess of energy— of rage, frustration. I can't I can't I can't turned into flesh and fingers and knuckle. She's seen it before, felt it herself— fists parading against lockers, into walls. This will be the first time Carolina has seen it like this. A private display. One she's seeing by virtue of this being a private space— maybe the only space South can feel freely like this. The woman's fingers fold at the middle knuckle. She drums her open palms hard, once, against the sides of her head. Dull thnk of skin against muscle against bone. Carolina lifts a hand, halfway to reaching out— hovers there.

She lets her breathe for a long minute without saying anything. Then;

"So you wanted one thing and realized later it wasn't what you needed. It happens. The things we need aren't what we want, because they suck. They're hard. People like us— we don't want to need anyone. Well. Turns out that's what keeps us from committing acts of mass stupidity. Who would have thought?"

She shoulders her lightly, sighs.

"Whether you believe it or not, South, he needs you too. You aren't grasping at thin air here. He'll reach out for you when he's ready. And he will be, eventually."

cw: self-harm

[ownperson]

"Y-You say it happens like the only fucking consequence of being wrong was hurt fucking feelings. B-But it wasn't. He died. I-I killed him."

Maybe she didn't sink the blade into his body, maybe she didn't shoot him in the back like Wash, but got him killed no longer feels right, feels fair. She killed him. She killed him and she's got the nerve to still feel like she's drowning in the grief she caused herself because she killed him.

"I-I killed him because I'm fucking stupid, I'm fucking stupid and broken and selfish and I'm— I'm not even that good!" Her voice cracks as something in her brain does, too. "I was never fucking good enough, I-I just fucking told myself I was like that'd make it true and it wasn't, it fucking wasn't, I'm a bad fucking soldier and a bad fucking sister! The Meta had fucking seven AI and five fucking enhancements, what the fuck did I think— how could I be so fucking— stupid stupid stupid—"

The heels of her hands slam against her skull again, and again, and again—childish reflex she thought she was so far beyond, by now, that no one else was ever meant to see. Hated to even let Dmitri see, hated to lose control so badly in front of him he had to grab her wrists to stop her hurting herself, hold her until she stopped thrashing. It was all that really helped.

One more sharp hit and she curses, forces her own arms down to push herself up off the couch and tear toward the kitchen. "I need a fucking drink. I-I need a fucking drink—"

cw metaphorical dismemberment

[cyansoldier]

South propels herself onto two feet and feints toward the kitchen. What she doesn't know is that the cabinets have already been emptied, wine and a small selection of beer sequestered onto a low shelf in the basement. It doesn't feel good. She feels like— she doesn't know what she feels. Like she's holding South's head underwater. Like she's halfway through sawing off a septic limb, with more still to go.

She follows a few steps behind. Doesn't stop her from searching.

"South. South, you can't spend all day drinking. Wrap your fists. Go beat the bag. Anything else."

[ownperson]

"You don't actually get to tell me what the fuck I should do anymore, boss," comes out of South's mouth almost without her say so, makes her taste iron for how hard she bites down on her own tongue to stop it—too late, no use, already in the air. (Why can't she stop doing this? Why can't she stop lashing out at people for trying to help?)

She searches the cabinets, manners be damned (cringes at herself on the inside, even as she does). Finds nothing. Starts over, pulling open the most likely doors like maybe she missed something, but no, no bottles anywhere.

With a sound too like a growl, she pivots back toward Carolina. Her hands are shaking where they clench to fists at her side.

"Where the fuck is it? I know you're not fuckin' dry, Lina, I've seen you on fuckin' shore leave, you drink."

[cyansoldier]

Calm in the face of South's frantic rummaging— calm when she whirls on her, fists clenched, teeth gnashed so hard she can see the band in her jaw flex; the muscles in her temples protrude— Carolina doesn't break. If 'boss' scratches her up inside, her face betrays nothing.

(The impulse to say, My house, my rules is immediate. She swallows it. The last thing she wants is South finding any excuse to leave.)

"No." She crosses her arms. "You aren't doing yourself any favors going on like this. You want to work on things? The work starts here."

[ownperson]

...she went and fucking hid the stuff, didn't she? Who the fuck does she think she is? Does she think South's a fucking child who needs to have things locked away from her so she doesn't fucking kill herself?

Pain radiates up the side of her skull where her jaw clenches so hard it aches.

"You can't be fucking serious right now," she pushes out, restraining the explosion trying to blow its way out of her chest behind the bars of her teeth. "You want me to go through this fucking sober? Are you insane? I-I can barely even fucking sleep without it, I can't— you can't do this. I can march right to the fucking bar, right fucking now."

But she doesn't move. Doesn't go to do that, easy as it would be.

cw emeto mention

[cyansoldier]

"I am." This will be good for her. A step forward. It's what she needs. You have to be the bad guy. You can be the bad guy. Carolina muscles up, stands straight. "That's the problem, South. It's a crutch. A deadly one. And you aren't invincible. Do you want someone to find you messed up, choking on your own vomit? If you don't think that's a possibility, there's problem number two."

Harsh, maybe. But necessary.

[ownperson]

"If I was gonna fucking drink myself to death, it would've been in the three fucking months my brother was actually dead!"

The words are like a death throe of this burst of desperate energy, fading down to near nothing as she sags back against a kitchen counter. Hands over her face, breathing hard again. She fucking hates this. She fucking hates this.

"...I-I need to fuckin' sleep. I can't— this is only gonna get worse if I can't fuckin' sleep."

[cyansoldier]

The bomb erupts. The energy depletes. It'll accumulate, she knows. Flux around until it's ready to burst out again, but for now she watches South slump. Carolina slides into the kitchen, leaning back against the countertop on both hands. The lightest contact, side-to-side.

"I know," a little softer now, the sternness of her half-melted under a heat-lamp. "You'll sleep. You aren't going at this by yourself. If you can't, I'll do something so excruciatingly boring you have no other choice. You know there are actual books here."

[ownperson]

She doesn't laugh, but there's a rough little snort despite herself, muffled in her hands. It wouldn't work like that, she's sure of that—if boredom alone could overcome whatever malfunction refused to let her sleep without a bottle of booze in her stomach, she'd never have got this bad in the first place. But Lina's just trying to break the tension, isn't she.

"...I-I know it's bad. I— I know that," she says, after a long moment of nothing but slowly levelling breathing. "B-But I need it. Needed it. E-Everything's worse when— when I can feel it all."

If this is how bad she is when she's numb at the edges, how much damage is she going to do if she stops?

[cyansoldier]

She hums a small acknowledgment, looking down at the scuffed tiles beneath her boots.

"Try. Just try, yeah? And if it really, really is a bust, we can figure something else out."

[ownperson]

South nods, sharp and tight, without lifting her head. Breathes, slow and steady as she can manage, into her hands for another half-minute before she drops them and hugs herself instead. Still can't look at Carolina head on.

The stupid fight only even started because she was so drunk.

"...okay," she relents, clearing her throat. "...sorry. I-I didn't mean— m'not actually. Angry. At you."

Lina's trying to help her. She doesn't have to do that, but she is, and she keeps yelling at her because she— what? Doesn't know how to do anything else?

About ready to wrap?

[cyansoldier]

Something inside her settles down on its hunches, relieved. Now the real work can begin— whatever real work looks like. Redirecting anger. Talking, listening, productive distracting. She's never nursed an alcoholic out of their alcoholism— hasn't found the grand, glittery solution to a guilty conscious— and refuses to balk because of this. And anyway, South's her— well. _{What's the word for a friend you can't call a friend for veritably stupid reasons?}

"I know," she says, turns her head to peer through the kitchen window. Work to be done in the yard. Fence posts with no fencing— an ambitious pile of wood.

"...Wanna give me a hand out there?"