bigapplesauce | [closed] Temporarily powerless and homeless

Current Location: Gabe's apartment building and neighbourhood
Current Music: June 28th

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[closed] Temporarily powerless and homeless

It seems every day is more monotone than the last, like he's walking around in a zombie haze - though thankfully without any real zombies, he'd prefer not to do that again. But you'd think a city as weird as this would have more going on. That's what he gets for staying out of trouble.

He sighs as he unlocks the door to his apartment, dropping the keys on a table and running a hand down his face. He sits down in front of the telly, but gets bored almost immediately. Perhaps he should simply go out. Or perhaps he should go hang out with Gabe. He hasn't seen him for almost a week, he realises with a small pang.

Usually Gabe shoots him a text or something if he wants to hang out, or Seth just heads upstairs, but that hasn't happened lately. Probably he's just been busy. Yeah, that's what he'll do, maybe that will shake him out of this funk.

Not bothering with the keys just now, he heads for the door again, simply walking through it before heading upstairs. He knocks twice, but there's no reply. Guess not, then. He's about to leave, but then decides if Gabe's out, he might as well check if Scout's there and if he needs something, so he steps through the door.

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Johnny chews his lip and stares at the ground for a moment. He really wants to avoid going down these dark paths, but he did bring it up, for better or for worse. He sighs.

"His name is Zagreus," he says. "He's not really a person? More like... concept made flesh." That's how Gabe had put it, anyway. "I met him in a dream and he tortured me and left his traces all the fuck over my brain, and now I can't get rid of him."

Not the first time. Johnny feels like he doesn't make that clear enough when he tells this story. This is so much like what he's already experienced, it's almost like he can cope better because of that. Nightmares living in his head, eating at him. At least this time he has people he can talk to.

"Gabe and the TARDIS try to protect me but I don't know if anyone can really do anything about him," he says, shrugging, trying to lighten his mood. "It's fine. He's just an asshole. I get the feeling maybe he'll get bored and leave me alone."

Yeah, you keep on believing that, kiddo.

Seth is not particularly good at offering emotional support beyond, well, "Sorry." Particularly not while mildly inebriated. But he has a feeling it wouldn't make much difference, so he just offers some chips again. If neither Gabe nor the TARDIS can do something, chances are Seth can't either. Short of taking Zagreus's powers, but he has a feeling if that was a viable option, he would've been asked? Perhaps he'll suggest it to Gabe later when he comes back from whatever it is he's doing.

"Lots of fucked up shit in this town," he observes. And not nearly enough being done about it, probably because no one's organised enough, and those who are are often part of doing the bad shit.

"Yeah, I'll drink to that," mutters Johnny, taking another fry. He's eager to move on. "But it's not really any more fucked up than my life before. Just a different kind. And it's not like I had anyone like Gabe where I came from."

This isn't really a lighter subject, considering the situation. But it's also true, and important for him to acknowledge.

"I'm really fuckin lucky I met him," he murmurs.

"You and me both," he agrees quietly. And now he's god-knows-where. And they don't have powers. Here's hoping the ones looking for him have lost their powers too.

He falls silent after that, contemplating.

"Yeah?" Johnny glances over at Seth, glad he understands, curious what he's been through. Johnny's shared a lot tonight, and Seth's given back very little - it doesn't bother him, really, since lately that's become his m.o., but it doesn't stop him wondering either. "What'd he get you out of?" he asks, as innocuously as he can.

Seth looks up and spots the hotel with relief. "Let's just say I'm not on great terms with the rebels - look, there we are," he answers, pointing ahead. Perhaps he'll be talkative once he's had his shot. He's just been feeling more and more withdrawal-related anxiety, which doesn't generally lead to sharing.

"I'm gonna take a shower once we get in. Wanna buy yourself something at the hotel bar while you wait?" he offers, pulling out his wallet and extracting a bill, handing it to Johnny. He's pretty sure they had a bar. It's not a big hotel, but he thinks it at least has somewhere that sells alcohol.

"Oh. Sure." Johnny blinks in surprise and takes the offered money, a little bewildered. "Thanks."

So, obviously Seth isn't ready to talk about whatever. He seems a little more antsy than he was earlier, too. Johnny's not sure what that's about. Concern for Gabriel, nervousness about revealing things about himself... something else?

It almost seems like Seth needs a fix of something. Johnny's been on enough dark paths that he knows what it looks like - and Seth's admission to being a pot dealer makes it somewhat plausible, though this would be something more serious. Johnny could be projecting, though.

"I guess, come down and get me when you're done?" Johnny shrugs. "I'll just work on getting obliterated."

"Don't work too hard," he jokes with a smirk. "Don't want to come down only to have to haul you to bed." He hands the chips off to Johnny as they enter the hotel, and splits off from him to check in. He gets two keys for them, but keeps both for the moment, just so Johnny won't walk in on him at an inopportune moment.

Once up at the room, he turns on the shower, strips off his jacket, and meticulously sets about preparing. The little bottle of medical grade morphine he brought has become room temperature a little while ago now. He's lucky he still had the kit in his pocket, hadn't taken it out before heading up to Gabe's. Although it was probably stupid, come to think of it, given Gabe doesn't know, and he berates himself for not thinking about that.

It's part of what gives him an illusion this isn't an addiction; he always keeps track of his doses, he knows his sources, he knows what's in it, and he doesn't go chasing a high. At least he's a responsible drug ~~addict~~ user. (It would be a lot more responsible to let Johnny know and ask him to keep an eye on him while he did it, in the unlikely event he should actually manage to OD despite his small doses, but...)

One who has currently injecting stuff into his veins while inebriated. He takes it slower than usual to make sure he doesn't fumble. He also uses a smaller dose this time, given he's already drunk some, and he plans to drink more. Just something to take the edge off, and he can take the rest later, when it won't make getting pissed be dangerous.

After he shoots up, he lies down on the bed and relaxes through the initial rush. It's mild and wears off ~~disappointingly~~ quickly, but he gives himself 20 minutes before he goes back down, to make sure he isn't too obvious. He cleans up everything, then splashes water in his face, and wets his hair a bit too, to make it look like he's actually been showering. He turns off the shower again, and then heads back down to the bar to find Johnny.

Johnny sits at the hotel bar slowly nursing a vodka tonic and staring numbly into the distance. Without Seth there to distract him, he's back to worrying about Gabriel, feeling less and less comfortable with the situation the longer he thinks about it. It's been days and no contact. Johnny's prayed to him a few times since the initial discovery, hoping for a change, but still, nothing. The dull ache of sadness is beginning to turn to anxiety. He jiggles his leg nervously and involuntarily.

He sees Seth approaching him out of the corner of his eye, and turns, instantly relieved. He downs the rest of his drink and slides off the stool.

"All refreshed?" he says lightly, endeavoring not to convey the trepidation he'd been feeling.

Edited 2014-06-29 23:30 (UTC)

"Yep," he answers, fishing the other set of keys from his pockets and handing them off to Johnny. Despite not actually having showed, refreshed could still describe how he's feeling. A lot more pleasant than earlier. "Decent room, too."

He looks around, assessing the bar. "Wanna stick around here or find somewhere else?" At least he would be easy to stagger up to the room from here, but it's probably also more expensive.

"I think we passed a liquor store on the way here," says Johnny, vaguely recalling. "We could just get a bottle of something and drink it upstairs?"

He's feeling the need to be somewhere private at the moment. Something about the hotel bar makes him nervous, like it's impossible to relax there - it's not a destination, but a spot between coming and going.

"Good call," Seth answers with a nod, and turns towards the exit. Cheaper, and they don't have to worry about being overheard. Seth isn't really in the mood for real socialising right now anyway, just a quiet drink, and then several more quiet drinks.

Johnny follows him out and directs them toward the nearby store, where they settle on a decent bottle of scotch. Heading back, Johnny keeps an eye on Seth, who seems... different since his "shower." Johnny's beginning to doubt he had a shower at all. It's starting to seem like his suspicion of withdrawal symptoms had been right on point.

He doesn't say anything, not sure how to approach that without sounding like a narc. Keeps quiet, following Seth up to their room. It is a nice room, that's true at least.

"Oh," says Johnny as he steps in, letting the door fall shut behind them. "Uh. Cozy."

There's just one bed. It's big enough for both of them, and ordinarily Johnny wouldn't really give a shit one way or the other, but... did Seth arrange for it on purpose? Is this going to be not-anonymous sex after all? Did Johnny miss some cue where that was agreed to?

Uncertain, he crouches down to unlace his shoes.

"It's fine, I guess," he answers, not really picking up on what Johnny's reacting to. He isn't intentionally trying to confuse Johnny, he's just not sober enough to consider it enough to comment on, because the option is not something that would generally occur to him.

He pulls off his shoes and sets them away, then pulls off his jacket and throws it over the back of a chair, unconsciously tugging at his shirtsleeves to make sure they're properly pulled down. (The warmer the city gets, the more frustrating it is to wear long sleeves.)

Then he drops down on the side of the bed closes to the window, leaning against the pillows, and opens the scotch. "Probably should've brought glasses," he comments.

"Who needs glasses?" says Johnny, keeping his tone light even though Seth totally did not make things any clearer. Anyway, fries or not, by now he's pretty properly drunk, so, what the hell, right?

He sits himself down on the other side of the bed, crossing his legs. "We can just drink from the bottle. I don't have mono."

That's fine, right? It's not flirtatious. Friends share bottles, he does it all the time. He's not even sure he WANTS to flirt with Seth. Seth isn't bad looking, but after the abortive proposition Johnny was pretty pleased to settle into casual friendship with the guy. Now, though, he's just not sure. Seth didn't actually decline the offer, as far as he can recall?

This is making it harder to relax. Johnny breathes out and holds out his hand for the bottle. "Thanks again," he says, "for putting me up."

Seth nods in agreement, taking the first wonderfully alcoholic drink before handing it off to Johnny, blithely unaware of the debate going through Johnny's head, and content to just not worry about all the shit going on for a while.

"Well, I needed a room anyway, you can't easily get singles without paying just as much," he answers, propping his hands behind his neck. "Besides, fucked up town, you need allies."

"I do," agrees Johnny enthusiastically, accepting the bottle and taking a lively swig. Oh, that hits the fuckin spot. He takes a minute to savor it, then hands it back. He looks around the room, then leans over to the bedside table, opening the drawer and rooting around. Bible, hotel stationary, pen. He pulls out the pen and the notepad and starts sketching idly, wanting something to do other than sip.

"So what happened to you, man?" he asks after a minute. Maybe Seth's loosened up, what with the bed and the scotch and the "shower." "Why were you in that room for three months?"

Seth accepts the bottle and takes another swig, before resting it between them. And oh, we are still going to talk about this apparently. For a moment he thinks Johnny is about to take notes, but then he realises he's just doodling.

He sighs heavily before answering. "Cause they locked me up in it," he explains bitterly. It's not unreasonable to assume Johnny might find out through Gabe anyway. And it's not exactly a secret, just something Seth is uncomfortable talking about.

Johnny stops sketching for a second and looks over at him. "Jesus," he says. "Romac or the rebels? What for?"

He can kind of tell Seth doesn't want to talk about this, but for the moment his curiosity is overriding his courtesy. And any more information about these factions is good for him to know, he figures. He takes another drink.

Edited 2014-06-30 02:30 (UTC)

"Rebels," he answers, fingering the bottle, looking out into the air rather than directly at Johnny. "I was helping them by redistributing powers. Then they wanted me to do so in ways I found.. morally questionable. So I tried to quit. Let's just say they didn't accept my resignation."

He doesn't immediately continue, but realises that he's already told so much of the story in bits and pieces that he might as well help Johnny fill in the blanks. "Eventually I discovered I could actually use the powers, so when I got the phasing, I escaped. Was barely outside when I met Gabe, he teleported me away and then housed me, helped me out."

"Fuck." Johnny shakes his head, digesting this. "That's messed up."

He hesitates, sort of a respectful silence, before returning to his sketchwork. Starting to take shape now, an imperfect circle with a thick bird's nest of lines running around the rim, little branches crossing out of it in the four cardinal directions. In its center he begins to draw a symbol, abstract, vaguely spiritual iconography. A sigil, or a ward. Protection, he thinks.

If Gabe ever comes back, he'd like to put it on his back, small but prominent, right over his left shoulder.

"I'm glad he helped you," he murmurs as he works. "He's one of the good guys."

He means this exactly as colloquially as it sounds, as well as its more symbolic, archetypal dual meaning.

Seth smiles a little at that. "Yeah," he agrees. "He's uh.. important. To me," he adds, partly thinking out loud, partly just honest from the lack of sobriety. He might occasionally be a bit put off by Gabe's methods, or the extremes he can go do, but there's few, possibly none now, that Seth feels as loyal to as he does to Gabe.

But now his mind is wandering back to those morally questionable redistributions, how many scared or angry or even just confused people he took powers from and gave them to people he had no idea how would use them - or most of the time, what the powers even were. It's hard to shake the feeling of guilt and responsibility, even as he had tried to get away from it.

"Hey." Johnny taps his shoulder. "It's gonna be okay."

He has no idea what's caused Seth's sudden downturn in mood, but it doesn't matter: the aggressive promise that things will be okay is necessary both for Seth and for himself, as far as he's concerned.

He takes the scotch, considers it for a moment, then drinks.

"He'll come back," he says, nestling the bottle back in the crook of Seth's elbow. "He has to come back. He wouldn't leave us."

At least in the case things aren't okay with Gabe, he'll still have a neighbour who's nice to hang out and get drunk with. That's a plus. But no, things will definitely be alright.

He picks up the bottle from his elbow - only barely managing not to knock it over, he's definitely going to be more careful about, even though he'd probably not really care about the bed smelling of alcohol if there was more alcohol inside him - and takes another drink too.

He pauses, still holding the bottle up. Considering whether to say it or not. "He might not have had a choice." Given they were just discussing how Seth had been locked up for months - and he knows at least Romac has rooms that can contain him, perhaps they'd even improved it from last time.

"I thought about that," says Johnny quickly. "But he left Scout's leash on my door. Why would he do that if he was taken somewhere? Why wouldn't he leave a real message?" He shakes his head. This isn't irrefutable evidence, but he refuses to think of any other option. If Gabe had been captured and he hadn't done anything this whole time - fuck, he can't even think about it.

Of course, that doesn't leave behind any other options he wants to think about, either.

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[drug use warning]

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