quatre † as the patron of difficult cases

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quatre † as the patron of difficult cases

fourth wall day, backdated } video

[This is probably a bad idea. She doesn't have the wherewithal to face Olivia right now, in all likelihood. But if Peter's out there, it might be good to see - just to see - how things went, after she was disposed of.]

[Her irritation at her own decision's apparent, though, the second she starts speaking.]

I'm looking for word of the Rumanceks.

spam } pub

[The next day she loiters outside the pub until someone lets her in. Frankly she doesn't give a shit who it is; she'll follow anyone in. If she knows them, so much the better.]

spam } dean

[They don't have a routine, exactly, but they have an understanding. She hasn't touched base with him since before his pairing with the boy - the wolf's friend - and she thinks it's about time, after the fiasco that was yesterday. They should be acting. They should be moving.]

[Dean's door is not locked, and he is not, as it turns out, moving. He's curled up, half-on and half-off the cot, a bottle by his hand where it dangles on the floor.]

[She stares impassively for a moment. Then she closes the door behind her with a quiet click and crosses the floor to kneel at his side. Two fingers on his neck reveal a pulse. His breathing is steady, if slow. There's no way to gauge how much he's drunk.]

[After another moment, she turns him on his side and pinches his nose shut.]

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[Nominally, Dean is in bed. He started in bed. He meant to stay in bed, as much as he meant anything. He can't swear that he did, not the least because he can't actually remember making the decision to do anything, including not make any decisions.

It's been a long time since he was this fucked up. It is in fact its own litmus test, its own self-evidence, like the peculiar gritty feeling of physical pain versus the otherworldly sear of damage done to the soul; this kind of aching, black hole of grief can only have one source, recognizable even when Dean can't remember what.

Sam. Sam and the dozen, gradual stages of losing him over. And over. And over.

So he crawls down into his determination to stop feeling anything at all, and he hides there dead to the world, the closest he can get to actual death, until he can no longer breathe.

He can't breathe.

Long before his mind connects anything of the sort, he automatically takes a clumsy, unaimed swing towards whoever has hold of him completely on muscle-memory.]

[She raises a hand to block the blow, knocking it aside without a second thought; she doesn't even flinch. Just holds his nose closed and leans over him, monitoring his breathing carefully.]

[She doesn't want to take him to the infirmary. She probably would rather let him die. At least then he would be able to stay in his room for a while. But she's dealt with worse than this.]

Dean.

[Her voice is low and hoarse, insistent.]

Wake up. Sam needs you.

[This has happened before. Apparently, it's just as destined as everything else to happen again. The one time he'd experienced the glitch as an inmate, he'd gotten Dee, but that doesn't change the impact of seeing her face again now. He flashes her a broad, beaming smile, eyes bright.]

Hey.

[And then it dawns on him that she's broadcasting out, and his eyes go wide. For all that he hates the Barge, if the Admiral's picked her up, if she's alive...]

Oh my gods. Are you a warden now?

[There's no light of recognition in her eyes. She only looks at him impassively, searching his face and picking apart his words to see if any of it could conceivably be useful to her. To see if he even heard what she said, much had something helpful to say in response.]

[It seems not. Her lips thin.]

I've been told that I'm not.

Did you hear me?

[If he were remotely close to consciousness, the short exchange of blows would have been longer, he would have retaliated or indeed even registered the block and her shove away. He shifts, heavy and ungainly, like he's buried in gravedirt from the ribs down but he doesn't rouse. Not really. Not even when his breathing becomes more labored, when his mouth drops open and then there's something blocking that, too.

She'd let him die; he might have suffocated in a room full of air, without even the fight to wake up and shove her off, without the energy to give a damn. But then something else happens. Something he doesn't even have a choice in, something ingrained on his bones even all these years and all these fractures later, when so much else has been scratched and branded and welded in over top of it.

He coughs, then again more strongly, and chokes on a throat closed over no air. His eyes open and he groans, trying to roll away from her, confused and groggy but automatically curling over to protect his gut.]

[Her lips curve in a small, grim, satisfied smile. She hadn't been sure, not one hundred percent sure, that it would work. But it was the right choice. As usual, her instincts are dead on.]

[She tips her head up and removes her hand from his nose and mouth, leaning slightly away to rest hunched over on the edge of the cot. For a moment she just watches him, the way he curls up as though being attacked, automatically defensive; then she snorts and pins him by the shoulder, keeping him from rolling away.]

Stay.

What'd you do? [Words to fill the silence. She knows what he did. She can smell it, taste it on the back of her tongue. She wants to do it, too.]

[If he knew, if he hadn't woken up to exactly that gnawing feeling - Sam needs you - a hundred times over the course of the past few years, she'd be getting punched. He might not even bother to stop, not until she stopped fighting or stopped him from fighting. Not with the way things have been going lately. As it stands, he barely catches up with himself in time to realize that there's someone else here, and that they're speaking to him.]

Get off. [He doesn't even try to make sense of her words, who she is - she's not actually hurting him, she can't be an enemy or he wouldn't have woken up at all, or maybe he would have - because the next thing he realizes is that he drank entirely too much last night.

Shoving himself clumsily to one side, he reaches for the trashcan beside the bed, and proceeds to reject whatever's left from yesterday that his stomach refused to digest.]

[Duke cares for the pub the same way he cares about his boat. It's a place he feels at home, where he tries to foster a sense of coziness through fastidious upkeep and a keen eye for comfort. And food. It's Wednesday, which means he's going to make vegetable pitas, and he wants to start early.

Someone's already waiting for him when he gets there, though. Duke nods at Clementine before unlocking the door.]

Good day for a drink?

[It's the impossibility of that situation that lets him know she's not who he thinks she is. The lack of recognition, the impassivity, he could drudge up an explanation for -- she's from before, or she's from the New Caprica days when she wanted nothing to do with him -- but it's simply impossible to him that she would be an inmate. Not Dee. Not ever.

His face falls completely.]

It's... not a group I've come across.

[She's been in the pub a couple of times already, when Dean hasn't been around to mooch off of. She knows who Duke is, even if she hasn't directly spoken to him. So she cocks her head in recognition and locks her hands together behind her back, nodding.]

Aren't they all?

[Something she's said has disappointed him, whoever he is. Her expression twists, and then she looks away. She is not totally unfeeling; she doesn't enjoy people being hurt. But he's nothing to her. Less than nothing if he can't help her.]

[He can't help her.]

[Maybe Peter is dead. She pushes on.]

A family by the last name Godfrey, maybe? Out of Pennsylvania.

[She barely moves when he reacts to sudden consciousness as she more or less expected he would. It doesn't matter to her. She's been elbow-deep in nastier things than the regurgitated contents of a human being's stomach.]

[Still, she doesn't touch him. Doesn't bother to make sure he hits the trash can, even. It's his room. It's his floor. He can clean it up later if he needs to. Just sits with her hands folded neatly in her lap and waits for him to be done.]

[What Duke notices is the familiar woman's gesture, hands behind her back. That's anticipating trouble of some kind, whether the movement is intentional or not. He unlocks the door without remarking on it, holding it open for her.]

There aren't a lot of bad ones.

[It's good that she doesn't touch him: he's focused on sorting himself out, a routine not remotely unfamiliar to him, but it does take all of his attention to manage with anything approaching efficiency. Not that he'd be concerned about efficiency if she weren't there. Her presence scrapes at his skin as he vomits, wipes his mouth with the back of one hand, vomits again; scours against his consciousness like a not particularly strong but unrelenting, sand-laced wind as he manages to settle himself upright, hunched over the trashcan and waiting to see if he can move yet.

And then he does move, abruptly and unsteadily but without hesitating, shoving to his feet. There's a bathroom here but no faucet, there was never any running water, but he has a bucket and he has a sink stopper and he cleans out his mouth and douses his face and presses his fingertips into his eyes. He has aspirin. He just needs to remember where it is.

Needs to remember what happened, if he can, and where any remaining bottles of liquor might still be in the room. He's leaning heavily on his hands on the edge of the sink, head slung low between his shoulderblades, eyes mostly closed except for what's required to watch for the blur of movement where he knows she is; his knees aren't going to hold him if he tries to move but it's difficult to tell that from outside of where he's aware of the buckle of his joints: each of them is folded together against the other, the trifold secure moment just before the entire structure comes down, and he breathes out.]

What? [The question is harsh, his voice harsher, completely without shame or concern, the unvarnished remnants of a man who has no idea who he is, where he is, or why - and no real interest in sorting any of that out. The answer to some questions are not what anyone wants to hear.]

[Clementine always anticipates trouble. Here more than anywhere she's ever been. She pauses before nodding to him, glancing - checking - through the door, then heading into the bar.]

That'd be a very lucrative attitude for a barman if you actually stood to make any money here.

[She understands human behavior almost as well as she understands animals'. She knows that in a situation like this, company is far more likely to hold one together than any internal desire for composure. She knows this not only theoretically, but from experience.]

[So she keeps her cool eyes on him as he crosses over to the sink, as his knees almost buckle. She watches him steadily, keeping her consciousness pressed up against the edges of his in the way that she is sure will be most grating. Her ability to be unsettling often works to her disadvantage, but she can make it work for her in certain circumstances.]

[Then again, part of her is sure that if Dean were capable of being unsettled by the likes of her, he'd have had a much different, much safer life. Or much shorter.]

[She raises her eyebrows at the question - barely a question, barely even a word - and crosses her legs at the ankle.]

I was looking for something to drink.

[So transparently truthful that it must be a lie, only it isn't. She is telling the truth, or what was the truth. Now she's here because . . . look how wrong he is. She has no desire to nurse him back to health, but she's perfectly capable of commiseration. And she wants to know more. He is flayed almost raw now; so much to learn, nearly at her fingertips.]

[Dean is not unsettled, at least not in the traditional sense of the word; she is someone else, she is someone looking at him, she is someone lying to him or at least not telling him all of the truth, and none of these things allow him any peace. Not that he knows what that is, not that he thinks he could touch it if he did, but he does know that if Clementine were anywhere but here he could at least go back and lay down.

He snorts, regrets it immediately, then ignores himself utterly.]

Bullshit. [He believes she was looking for something to drink when she came in here. He doesn't believe that she doesn't know what he was asking, that if that were really her answer to the question he WAS asking she knows where to find the alcohol already, and:] Don't have to touch me to drink.

[Dean hates repeating himself on a good day, which this is not; in addition, though he knows she could have killed him without him ever knowing differently, he's beginning to remember exactly how he did wake up. It makes the glassy hazelgreen of his eyes darker, and he turns his head slightly to look at her. He doesn't ask again. He doesn't bother warning her off or towards anything. He just waits, fingertips tightening on the sink until his grip chases the blood from his skin back up his fingers.]

[She looks at him, and now there is this ghost shard of a smile, this ugly little skeleton grin. Like he's sharing a secret with something dead. But then they both are anyway.]

I don't like drinking with a dead body in the room. Or close enough to dead.

[She probably didn't actually save his life. She probably hasn't actually helped him at all. She probably should get him to the infirmary. That would be the sensible option. Right?]

[Probably.]

[She stands up and begins to gather liquor bottles. They are, after all, allegedly what she came here for.]

Besides, you're marginally better company when you're awake.

[It's an odd phrase, one people don't even think about. Save his life. As if his life is salvageable now, as if the simple act of keeping his body from ceasing to function more or less as it should can represent saving. As if all there is to life is drawing in a breath and pushing it back out, is keeping more blood inside the barrier of skin than outside. Organs and electrical processes and muscle and bone and that's it. That's what needs to be saved, that's what is necessary.

It couldn't be further from the truth. Any of it.

Dean grimaces when she begins to move, a baring of teeth and a curling of lips, closes his eyes and realizes he has to sit down again. Sit down or fall down, and it's not that he's too good for the latter, it's that he is sick to death of it. The moment he shifts his weight over to slide down the wall by the sink, though, his left knee gives and lands him in a queasy heap of which he immediately begins pulling himself into a more compact version.

He doesn't care, right now, what she gets into, what she takes, what she does. His insides settle, mostly unharmed, and he considers calling her a liar again but he does so hate repeating himself.]

Feel free to find a different room to drink in, then. Bring me my communicator. [If she's going to ransack his room, the least she can do is follow one order. Propped upright against the bathroom wall, half-wedged under the lip of the sink, he slits his eyes back open to find her through the open, doorless doorway.]

[The slightest raise of her eyebrows. She hadn't realized he was in any kind of state to give orders. She obeys automatically, though. That's what she does, for him. If he gave her an order to let him die, she might just do that.]

[But he didn't. And since it wasn't an order, just emphasized like one, and it doesn't matter in the long run anyway, she won't be finding another room, either.]

[She does fish his communicator out, considers throwing it across the room to him, then crosses over and places it in his hand instead. Then, crossing back, she deliberately does not leave, but sits down on the edge of his bed and unscrews his bourbon, takes a deep swig from the bottle.]

You've been out max a day. Probably a lot less. Few hours.

[He hasn't been in any kind of state to give orders since he crawled out of his own grave, but the world didn't wait for that; he became even less fit as time went on, he knows that, but somehow he seems to have lapped himself. Now if he's breathing, he can issue them, and he doesn't stop to think about it. Doesn't say thank you when he pulls his hand down into his lap, when he has to frown in concentration as he shifts his entire, splintered focus over to the device.

He flinches when he finds the conversation he's after, but he ignores it, or possibly doesn't even notice. It's painstaking, silent work as he marks the entire thing private - it isn't Sam, it can't be, it's not it's not it's not but he has no interest in any other part of this hellish clusterfuck seeing how completely he was taken in - and then sags back against the wall, arm across his lap, and tries to remember what she said.

He can't, though, and that's both frustrating and completely unsurprising. He doesn't protest the bottle in her hand in the least, nor indeed even seem to notice.]

What?

[It takes him too long to answer her. While she waits, she wonders if she ought to bring up the conversation she saw. What she said to him - what finally got him to respond. In the end, she decides probably not; he's too unpredictable, and he was too upset, and a man like this, he's a gun cocked 24/7, it's no good dicking around in situations where he might just go off. Which is all of them.]

[No, she'll keep that to herself. For now. Maybe someday, if they survive that long.]

[She frowns sharply when he drops out of the conversation entirely, when he doesn't follow her where she's trying to take him. It hurts, in a distant way, like a long-severed limb. To her credit, she treats it as she treats most crisis situations - with almost robotic competence.]

I said, you've been out max a day. Probably a few hours.

[He would have gone off. He knows he still might. He's not proud of it, not remotely, but that doesn't mean he can change it; just like he can't change the fact that she repeats herself and it still takes him several moments before it clicks into place what she's even saying.

Christ, he just wants to sleep. No, more than that, he just wants to stop. He doesn't want to decide what to do with that knowledge, with the communicator in his hand, with her, with anyone. Just...]

I hate this place.

[She actually laughs at that. Not a big, wide, joyful laugh, not a belly laugh; she isn't capable of those anymore, she thinks, they got burned out of her real early. Call it a dry chuckle. Dry as the fucking desert; it takes a lot out of her, making that sound. Humor's tough.]

You wanna cry about it? Everybody hates it. Nobody gives a fuck.

[It's all the compassionate warning she can give him. She is not a shoulder to cry on. She is not his friend. She's, at best, an occasionally useful nuisance. She doesn't know how to be more than that.]

[It had been an earnest complaint, one he'd never allow past his teeth if he were sober, one that his sodden tongue let loose into the air. He'd have ignored it, forgotten about it, never even heard it if she had, but she laughs instead, she tells him something he absolutely already knows, and like a rubber band he goes the other direction.

He snarls, every bit as unable to stand up straight now as he had been a moment ago, but anyone walking in on them now would be hardpressed to tell.]

I didn't ask you to give a fuck and I didn't ask for your opinion. You wanna cry? I'll make it happen.

No you won't.

[She's dispassionate now, running her fingers along a low-slung shelf like she's inspecting and hoping to come away with dust. Doesn't bother looking at Dean anymore, just walks her eyeballs across the shelf one inch after another, listening with her back to him, waiting for attack if it's gonna come.]

With the way you look, you won't even be walking for a little while, much less making me cry. Which, I gotta tell you, is a much harder task than you might expect.

[An attack doesn't come. An attempt to stand does, his clumsy fingers finding the edge of the sink, the lip of molding along the wall, and he hauls himself up out of sheer determination and pigheadedness, ignoring completely when his shoulder slams into the metal from beneath, when his knee bangs into the floor.

He makes it upright. Somehow. He always does. His fingers are white where he's hanging on to steady himself out of sheer instinct and no thought at all.]

That's what they all say. 's what they all think, believe, whatever. News for you: it's not.

It's always just one - nightmare - away. [He can't sustain it. He's angry, that never goes away, he's hurting, that stays too. The drunk will go but for now, he lists to one side until his shoulder is again against the wall, and he braces himself there, but that's it. That's the best he can do.

It's pathetic. He knows it.]

[Someone else, in some other situation, might ask, Are you threatening me? But she knows he isn't. That's the thing, Dean doesn't waste time with threats. He's just saying how things are, how things have always been, how things will continue to be. It's nothing new; she just said the wrong thing, the inaccurate thing, and he's setting her right.]

[In a way, it's almost soothing. Not pathetic, not by any means. He's half-dead but look at him, still telling the truth despite everything. She feels a distant sense of pride in her, pride for him, the sort of connection she feels capable of forming with people these days. Affectionate exasperation. Look at the way he stands and spits in the face of death. Like he cares. Like he hasn't already given up.]

[Just look at him, hunting past his expiration date. Somebody trained him well.]

Not afraid of you. [This is just another fact, and the way she says it acknowledges in its ironic twist of the tongue that this is, perhaps, very stupid. She might should fear him, because he is dangerous. But she doesn't. So it goes; he should know the stupid things about her, just like she should know the stupid things about him. They're both fucked, so why not anyway.]

Shouldn't be.

[This slips out without even an ounce of his notice; he didn't mean to say it, an exhalation from a life that he didn't leave behind so much as by which he was left behind. One he gave up, maybe, if he's allowed to claim agency. He didn't know he'd live to regret it. He didn't know he'd live.

The two words aren't an argument, aren't a correction, aren't anything but a private observation that gets past the gates. She shouldn't be afraid of him - he shouldn't be someone that others are afraid of. He used to help. He used to hunt the right things, used to save people, used to be better than this. Her lack of fear shouldn't be something stupid. Once upon a time it would have been... appropriate.

He swallows, doesn't notice, either, that he's half-slumped down the wall again. Doesn't notice when gravity and his dead weight do the rest and he's right back where he started, and part of him doesn't care because this is familiar. Part of him wants to burn with shame to be this pathetic in front of her, and part of him doesn't care about that either. Part of him...

There are too many parts of him, all opposing each other. He isn't a man anymore. He's pieces of one dropped in a sack and flung down the road. She isn't going to comfort him, and that...

That gives him his first solid handhold yet. He shivers, and knows exactly what to do with that. Soldier up. Knuckle down. Stop whining. Whatever motivational phrase one chooses, he needs to rub some dirt on it and walk it off. His features close - not hardening, not strengthening, not yet, but he can turn the tourniquet tighter. He can stop bleeding.

Just not... yet. Just a little longer. Please.]

Okay.

[If time is what he needs, time is what he gets. For now, and recognizing that that is a luxury. It's only that dying isn't an option, and giving up isn't an option, and bleeding forever, those aren't options either. He has to survive. If she has to survive - if she has to acknowledge the possibility of her own permanent dissolution at the hands of God or man or monster - then he has to do the same.]

[A little longer. But not much.]

[She claps her hand on his shoulder. One more minute, little boy, and then you've got to get up.]

Okay.

[Nothing else needs to be said, really. They understand each other, in all their neuroses and psychoses and damage. They know what they aren't and what they are. They know how to kill monsters.]

[She slides down the wall next to him and invites him with her eyes to hit the floor, just for one more minute. Just for a little bit longer.]

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quatre † as the patron of difficult cases

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[Fourth walllllll]

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