{{PP-PT-F29}} A Drink That Never Ends {On the House}

[Reytac 0]

It was honestly a bit hard for Reytac to keep from reaching out and clasping a hand on Teion's shoulder when she looked back to him again as they stood in front of the bar. She'd been doing it every so often, as if to make sure that he was still there, and if he'd known her a bit better he might have offered that physical support. Instead - 

"No, I see it too Miss Teion. And.. The other glass that I swear was not there when we walked in here and saw that one. Or, any sign of who put these here." Rey swallowed roughly as he processed that. While the drink that was in front of Teion - and he somehow knew it was meant for her, was in a short glass, befitting whiskey on the rocks - the one that was for him was in a fluted wine glass that he most definitely had not seen when they came in here. It had appeared, innocuously, on the bar-top next to the whiskey when Reytac tore his gaze from the other glass to look to Teion, checking on her.

And there was that blasted screen again. The words were fuzzy, not quite right but he couldn't place why they felt wrong. Worse was the fact that the window couldn't be closed - and that unlike normal menu screens, this one didn't turn smoothly with his focus. Instead it staggered, lurched, like it was... off kilter, or getting stuck in the air somehow. The brunette ground his teeth together and stepped forward. 

This was easily the oddest quest, environment, he'd ever been in, and at this point he wanted to get this over with and get them out of here. He grabbed the glass of wine, the scent of plums filling his nose as he lifted it to his moouth and took a drink. Originally, Reytac inteaded to finish the glass off in one go and get them moving - that intent fell to the side as Reytac coughed slightly, his eye going wide as he lowered the glass to stare at it. Something felt - wrong. Off. Different, new. He pulled open his character menu and his eyes shot open. A new debuff was there, one he had never heard of.

 

<<Lightweight>>

 

"Miss Teion wait-" He tried to stop her from taking a drink and getting that debuff. An impossible debuff from the effect description. He didn't know if he was in time as he turned towards her, stumbling slightly - it had been years since he'd been hit by this. And even before then, he only drank sparingly -

 

<<Player feels the effects of consumed alcohol as per physical world.>>

 

Spoiler

Roll ID: 255060  CD: 6 :: Plum Wine

 

Edited October 15 by Reytac

[Teion 0]

Reytac was less cautious with the glass posed for him. Or maybe he was just in more of a hurry to get it over with. Teion plucked her drink from the counter and pulled it close to her face. The scent hit her, sharp and inviting all at once. She didn’t have to take a whiff to feel the prickling in her nose.

The last time she consumed something carelessly, it led to a less than favorable experience. Then again, nothing about their circumstances was anything like that time. Giving in to curiosity, she brought the rim of the glass to her lips moments before Reytac called out in warning. She drained some of its contents with a sip. Warm, then hot, it burned the back of her throat with an oaky weight that made her scrunch her nose. She breathed out through her mouth, eyes still squeezed shut as the familiar but not accustomed sensation washed over her.

”Yep.” She stopped herself from coughing the word out. ”That is just straight whiskey. Whoo.” She breathed out the last of her reaction to the aggressive taste, noticing Reytac nearly trip over himself beside her. ”Hm?” She cocked an eyebrow. Was he upset over something? Maybe—

She opened her mouth to ask a question, but stopped herself. She stood in silence, took her eyes away from Reytac, and narrowed her brows above them. It was like she was waiting for something. Pondering something.

Teion blinked, wondering if her imagination was getting the better of her. She brought the glass back up to her nose and sniffed it one more time, the alcohol burning in her nostrils. She didn’t seem satisfied by whatever she was doing. Finally, she paid attention to her questing companion. ”You okay?”

She’d listen to whatever answer he might have, but multi-tasked while she did. Setting her glass back down on the bar, Teion took a few steps to wade into the mess of the main tavern area and fish out a couple of stools that were intact enough to hold them. She placed one beside the bar in front of Reytac, then planted hers a couple of feet away, taking a seat and swiping open her menus. She navigated to her messages and typed something up, sending it off and returning her full attention to whatever this was.

Spoiler

To: @Ryo
Subject: Hey
I’m at a seedy tavern on F29. Might be the place you mentioned before? Can you check on me if I’m not back in like, an hour or two? Thanks ♡

 

Edited October 15 by Teion

[Reytac 0]

Reytac's shoulders slumped down slightly as he dropped himself into the seat that she'd pulled out for him, mumbling a 'thanks' as he did so before rubbing his face with one hand. He hadn't been in time. He hoped the debuff would clear out quickly for both of them. 

"Check your stat panel for a new debuff." He finally said, leaning back and running one hand through his hair. "Just one more on the list of impossiblilities this floor has thrown at us. I'm sure I'll be feeling it soon, I never was much one for drinking. Always just a social drinker, y'know?" He turned and gave Teion a wan smile before shrugging. He turned back to the table and frowned when he saw that something that bothered him. Bothered him immensely. 

The blue panel for the next stage of the quest was back, and it still seemed unresponsive as he tried clearing it away. It hung there, in the air in front of him as he frowned at it. But worse than that was the fact that the text of the message was garbled - he could make out what it said, but the fuzziness from earlier had given way to distortion, stretching and twisting the letters beyond their normal shapes. Far beyond. And beyond it - on the counter-top, was another glass. Different from the wine glass he'd drank from before, but somehow - as he blinked, it shifted into something else. A different alcohol. He tried it a couple times, testing it, and each time, the glass, and the liquid inside of it changed to his eyes. Once, he even swore it was blood, another time it looked like juice. 

"Uh.. Miss Teion? Did the quest panel pop back up for you - but distorted?" A shiver was running up and down his back as he stared between the distorted panel, and the shifting, warping, drink that was the different each time he looked at it. 

[Teion 0]

She did as he suggested, directing her sights to the upper corner of her vision, pushing past the actual environment to regard her HUD where the two of their names sat next to green health bars. Now she finally noticed there was something new next to either of them. She squinted a little and focused on the icon until it revealed its secrets to her and she read the effects of the «Lightweight» debuff. An expression washed over her like she’d found what she’d been looking for.

”You’re fucking kidding me.” She whispered out the words under her breath, disbelief mixed with pure amusement. Teion cracked a smile, chuckled softly, then took her glass and slammed the rest of her drink. Her head rolled back just long enough to down the whiskey and then she lurched back forward, setting it back down in front of her. Her reaction to the volatile liquid was just as bad as the first, and she coughed lightly through the discomfort.

As if at his summons, another dialogue window appeared in between her and the glass she still held.

 

«Ĥ̵̛̳͍̣͍́̇͂͗͛̐͛̏̆͋͝ave a drink, it`s on thh̵͉̲̠̪̪͚̱̞̫̜̞͙͙͆̒̂͌̃̈́͘͝ě̸̢̧̛͙̝͎͕̯̮̈́̾̉̽́̂ house»

 

”Yep.” Again absent of a prompt to dismiss it, Teion tried to wave it away with her free hand. Her fingers merely passed through it, but beyond the message the lone ice cube sitting in her glass shifted around the new serving of amber that seemed to fill from its bottom. She eyed it suspiciously, trying to peer over the edge of the prompt, until it disappeared with just as little warning. She was met with a fresh glass of whiskey on the rocks. ”I’ll be honest, this is the first and only time I’ve ever seen this place…misbehave.” She planted her arms on the bar and leaned forward on them. ”And I haven’t the slightest idea if that means something really wrong is happening and the servers are about to crash, or if this place was just designed to act buggy.” Maybe waving it all away as a scare tactic would keep her sanity from unraveling.

”Why do you always call me ‘Miss’?” She blurted out the question, turning her head to Reytac with a raised eyebrow. ”How old are you, anyway?” She squinted at him a little.

Edited October 15 by Teion

[Reytac 0]

"Huh? Oh, just upbringing, be polite ta people you meet. At least until they either indicate a desire for something else, or do something that earns a different kind of attitude. The golden rule and all that." 'Treat others as you want to be treated'. For Reytac, that meant he tried to treat others kindly, or politely, until they had told him they didn't care for it - some liked more casual interactions - or if they'd doe something that showed they didn't deserve that politeness. It didn't hurt him any to do that so far. As for his age.. Rey scratched his cheek as he looked up, thinking that one over. 

He had to add a couple of years to the last birthday he'd had outside - and try not to think about the fact he'd had two birthdays he didn't think about, without his wife. Finally he focused his gaze back on Teion as he picked up the glass - it settled on wine as he did - and took a slow drink before shrugging. "Thirty.. Four? Well, in a week or two, I think, if my calender is right. I wasn't really in a place to keep track for a while, but I'm fairly certain that's about right." Sitting down like this, with the two of them drinking slowly, was the calmest this floor had been - minus the storm howling outside, or the fact that the screen that hung in the air beside him was slowly getting more distorted the longer he sat looking at it. 

"I got this game as a surprise for my wife and I. I was testing it out on launch day so I could help her get adjusted to it the next day, when I popped the surprise on her. Whoops, bigger surprise, I guess, when, well, none of us came back out." He stared down at his drink as he slowly swirled the glass around, watching the purple wine spin in the fluted glass. For a moment he looked up at the ceiling, then back down and paused when he saw that the drink had flickered to something else, but the glass stayed the same in his grasp. That was, somehow, odder than the glass and drink shifting together, but a blink, and the plum wine was back. 

Right. Rey was gonna do what Teion was doing, and try to ignore the oddities, chalking it up to deliberate moves on the game's part. 

[Teion 0]

Teion mulled over his very normal answer. She gently turned the glass around in her hand, walking her fingers against its cool surface up until he took a stab at his own age. Then it was like she’d swallowed her own thoughts.

He was so much older than her. Not that this place didn’t make her feel like she’d put on a few years, both in pure stress and in forcing her to grow up fast in some aspect or another. Thinking about it, he started to remind her of someone. A friend she hadn’t seen in some time. At first she thought Shield might be dragging her out by her collar if he were here, but that wasn’t quite right. He’d probably be stubbornly poking his nose into whatever cursed nooks and crannies this floor might be stashing away treasure on. She never actually knew his tolerance for horror.

Reytac rolled along their mild conversation with his circumstances for arrival. It left her quiet, both of them sitting with the somber thought and memory. Teion’s first thought was a cynical one: how she hadn’t really left anyone behind back home. But that wasn’t true, and she knew it. She just hadn’t lost a wife. ”Sorry to hear.” She finally offered, weak and shallow. Another few moments passed. ”A friend told me about it.” She kept her eyes on her glass and her voice stayed low. ”We were going to start playing together. We did, for a bit.” She shrugged. ”He changed. Things changed for a lot of people in here, I suppose.” Painfully true for her just as well. At least she had someone to go home to.

She nursed her drink now, holding it by the rim with her hand clawed down around it. That little fuzzy feeling started to creep in at the corners of her mind. She didn’t let herself stop to wonder whether or not this was a good idea.

[Reytac 0]

Saying things changed for people here was an understatement for sure. Reytac rocked back on his bar stool, staring up at the flickering bare light bulb hanging above them for a long moment. He wasn't so far gone yet that his balance was bad enough for him to worry about falling over - he just had wine, unlike the whiskey that Teion was knocking back. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and gave a shrug. "Yeah, that's no joke there. I mean, most people don't live with a day to day threat of death anymore - but all of a sudden, in here, we do. I know a lot of people just kind of.. Gave up? I did, too. For long time." He clinked his glass down, doing his best to ignore the fact that it was full again, despite him having finished it twice as they talked. "And now I'm being dumb and headstrong, years late to the party. I don't know if she's even out there waiting for me, but hey, I'm still gonna try. I lost two years to this place. Now.. Well, now I've seen a bunch of forests, and something that would fit in a horror movie." He let out a chuckle as he spun himself around on his bar stool. The creak that came from it was - not right. Instead of metal on metal like he had expected, it was more like.. The creaking you'd feel in your bones, but as a sound. Or glass grinding against itself. Reytac grabbed onto the counter to stop himself abruptly as that sound made his teeth ache. 

"Yeah not doing that again." He shook his head, swaying slightly. This was exactly why he didn't like drinking too much - and why he wasn't gonna touch another drop. Along with the fact that he wasn't sure what exactly he was drinking - not with the way it kept changing. 

[Teion 0]

”No kidding.” Teion muttered dryly. It was unclear which piece she was agreeing with exactly, if not all of it. Still, the chipper attitude he followed up with had her exhale sharply through her nose alongside his chuckle. ”Hey, you know where you need to head next?” She picked her head up from where she’d been sinking into her shoulders with a sudden confidence. ”Floor 24. Not a forest in sight, as far as I know. It’s all islands, beaches… It’s even got a vaguely Greek thing going on, with a colosseum and all that.” She waved lazily at the last part, as it wasn’t her main draw. ”Unless the ocean’s not really your deal.” Her nose scrunched a little with a thoughtful frown, her mind hunting for a backup locale.

”If you’re a city guy, Taft’s practically the default past floor 1. I’ve–” She stopped to pick out better words. ”I’ve been around there a lot lately. Big white castle, very cottage-Euro-fantasy.” Teion nodded lightly at her own summary, which sent her brain rattling just enough to feel it. It reminded her to lift her glass and take a sip of that second round. No drink like a free drink, after all.

”What else…?” She breathed out. The taste was getting a little easier to swallow. ”It’s hard to recommend a whole floor, since most of them have some corner or two that will try to kill you. Uh, I guess 22 is good.” She immediately came around with the memory of the largely-peaceful layer. ”Big lake, big forest.” She shrugged. Her fingers tapped on the bar top while her other hand held her drink idly in front of her chest. ”Haven’t heard a thing about the new floor yet. I was planning on taking a peek after this, but this place kind of wiped the floor with me.” She grimaced, reaching her free hand back to tousle her hair. Her bangs were beginning to dry, still pushed back out of her face, but the rest of her just looked generally disheveled from the day’s events, if not soaking wet anymore.

[Reytac 0]

"It'd be nice to see something that isn't just more trees. I feel like, that's nearly everything I've seen here? I know there's a desert floor, but I skipped it on accident. I saw the snow floor - floor four, I think? But.. It was just a snowy forest. More. Trees." Reytac snorted and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He turned to ask the bartender for a glass of water to go with the alcohol, pausing, when he remembered that there was no one here but the two of them. That the alcohol that they were putting into their systems was  just there with no source. He exhaled, and pulled a water canteen out of his inventory, glad that that was working properly, and took a long drink before continuing. 

"At this point I'm kind of curious. I think I saw that the tenth floor is some kind of underground cavern floor, filled with ghosts? So that's got my attention. A bit of a different vibe from this place which is more... Eldritch, that's the word." He snapped his fingers before chuckling. He still felt like a dog that had been left out in a storm for too long, but, at least they weren't still getting rained on, and now that they were only dealing with some... Environmental skulduggery, as opposed to things actively warping on them yes he was ignoring the drinks that kept shifting every time he looked away it wasn't as bad. He was purposefully ignoring the fact that he swore he could still faintly hear a heartbeat that didn't exist coming from beneath them, where the cellar was. He blinked as she pushed her bangs back from her face, then snapped his fingers and pulled open his inventory and searched for a moment, before pulling out a hand-cloth and tossing it over to her. 

"Here, made sure to pick up some of these a while ago. no point to them earlier, but when we actually have a moment, might as well." He pulled another out and wiped down his face, then wrapped it around his neck so that the water coming out of his hair went into it instead of adding more to the sogginess of his clothes. It was more of a thing for his own stability more than actually trying to get dry, but even that feeling of having something that wasn't sopping wet around his neck was comforting. 

[Teion 0]

Teion leaned back and nodded again. ”Okay, yeah, if you’re into regular horror that opens up so many options.” Another sip. She made the mistake of setting her glass back down on the bar. No sooner had her fingers left the rim, than the drink refilled itself again. ”I’ve got a soft spot for fae stuff, but I haven’t found much that really gives me anything to do with it.” A frown and a shrug, and then a plain white hand-towel landed in her lap.

”Never thought a rag would come in handy.” She murmured, leaning her head and gathering her hair to one side. She clawed her fingers through a couple of times, then bunched it up at the base of her skull and wrung out the last free water droplets that squeezed between her fingers. Then she grabbed the cloth, wiped her hands dry, and placed the whole thing against her face, letting it rest on her skin for a few moments before she went on to wiping it down. Her cheeks held on to a bit of the warmth from that whiskey sitting in her chest. Both the heat and the dry face felt nice.

”I live on the fifth floor. The desert one. Well, not as much anymore. But my shop is out there, and I basically lived in my shop for a long time.” She explained, running the cloth down along and around her neck. An amused little chuckle escaped her. ”My boyfriend hates it there. He’s been trying to get me to check out some festival on four. That reminds me,” She swiped a hand through the air again and navigated back to her messages. ”I can’t believe he didn’t tell me about this place!”

Quote

To: @Ryo
Subject: rude!
you’ve been here before, right? why didn’t you tell em there was a spot that gives you free booze and lets you get plastered??
love you ♡

Some time had passed since Reytac and Teion had gotten situated in H.P.’s. She was two drinks in, and bravely going for a third. ”How do you decide if you wanna get married, anyway?” She planted her elbows onto the dimly lit bar and leaned forward. The glance she cast towards Reytac came sidelong, like she was sizing up his worldly experience. Which was undeniably greater than hers, and she didn’t like that. She couldn’t say why. She didn’t have the brain power for introspection or delicate social graces right now. ”Like, I’ve done a lot of dating stupid people. I’ve got that bit covered. And now, for once, things are going pretty good. Like, really good. What are the rules to figuring out what comes next?” She wrinkled her nose, turning her gaze back to the ice cube that shifted in its glass. ”I didn't think I’d make it this far.”

Edited October 16 by Teion

[Reytac 0]

Reytac blinked once, then twice and tilted his head to one side, then the other. "I know that there's something to do with fae on one of the floors that has to do with the faerie king? I saw that one had been a a floor boss, so might still be something there." He'd heard about that one a while ago, but didn't remember what the floor that was on had been. One of the many he hadn't been to just yet, probably. He sipped on his canteen again as he listened to her talk then closed his eyes. How did you know if you were ready to marry? 

"I .. bear with me here. I may ramble a bit. But - there isn't really .. one thing I could say. It's.. the collection of little things, more. The warm feeling when you wake up next to them, wanting to see them when you're apart. How you want them around, even when you might be a bit frustrated with them. When they're the first thing you see as you open your eyes, the last thing you think of when you're saying goodbyes." Reytac closed his eyes, squeezing them shut against the hot sting of tears that had crept up on him. It was..not easy, to forget her, to put that to the side when he was busy, active, moving. But like this? Slowed down, taking a moment to breathe, and talking about life like this? Her hair, her laugh, her smile. One hand reached out and he downed the glass of - wine? Wine, still. Before opening his eyes back up to look at her. "I knew, when I tried to think of my life without her in it, and I couldn't think of it being worth doing. The things I did that made me happy, I was happier when she was beside me. The things that made me sad, didn't hurt as much when she held me. I wanted her to succeed, wanted to see her grow into the amazing person I knew she could be, and I wanted to be right there beside her every step of the way." He set the glass back down and took the canteen back up and drained it before tossing the empty canister back into his inventory.

"But just as importantly, she tried to do the same. Encouraged me to be more than I was. Knew I could be more, and tried to help me achieve it. Saw a future with me, a family." A family. They'd talked about trying. He had no idea if they'd succeeded - he hoped they hadn't. Gods, he hoped they hadn't. For her sake. 

 

Edited Friday at 01:16 PM by Reytac

[Teion 0]

✧♪✦⋆♫⋆✦♪✧

She fell silent while he spoke. Eyes hazily locked onto the contrast of the bright, spotless glass sitting atop the dingy, stained wood counter.

Teion’s head swam through his words that sank in through her skin like a heavy blanket over her shoulders. The muted colors of fireworks danced across her face while ghosts writhed in the inky abyss below, unseen but unburied. Their shadows reached up and up, searching and grasping. And her limbs felt so heavy. Drifting, alone, her head fell back to watch the light shimmer against a surface that grew farther and farther away.

Then something brushed against her cheek. A hand took hold of hers, kind but firm. It gave a gentle squeeze and she looked beside her with bleary eyes. She wasn’t alone, was she? That face smiled at her without a care in the world–a huge grin full of life, and joy, and an unshakeable confidence. It was like that smile was loudly proclaiming, ‘everything will be fine!’ And then it softened. The way he looked at her, how she watched him getting lost when their eyes met… A tingle reached the back of her throat.

Teion’s hand reached up and wiped away the tear before it had the chance to roll down her cheek. The corners of her mouth had turned up into a small smile without her knowledge. ”It got so bad,” Her voice was low and somber, yet somehow that smile persisted. ”I knew things were changing. Even if we got out of here, it would be so…different.” Her friends’ faces flipped through her head like a picture book. Tired. Haunted. ”And then Beat, and then Aereth… I just gave up.” Her shoulders slumped. A moment later, she moved to lean back in her seat again. ”I gave up on people. I gave up on the game.” Suddenly, she threw a hand in the air, ”But in the middle of it all he came waltzing in, and… he just… didn’t.” The momentum left her just as quick as it came. Her bottom lip quivered and a breath burst out from her chest in a singular laugh. ”I didn’t want a repeat of it all. A knight in shining armor who’s gonna save everyone.” She chuckled as a tear spilled over and ran down her chin. ”I was so sick–" Her palm landed on the counter with a dense ’thud! "–of people throwing themselves into the grinder and saying it was for someone else.”

”But he’s…” Teion’s gaze drifted a bit on its way to where Reytac sat. For the briefest of moments, lucidity gleaned back in her eyes and she sucked in a short breath, following it with a quick sniffle and both hands working to wipe her face dry. ”Ugh, God, I’m so sorry.” She said through her palms. ”I don’t mean to unload on you. That should probably take a few more hangouts, or quests, or near-death experiences.” She laughed again–this time a kind of forceful awkward laugh laced with embarrassment. Alcohol always did make her chatty.

”I don’t know many people who are married, or have their life together. Or had their old life together.” The words fell into a mumble, left with nothing but hope that she wasn't driving a stake too deep into the wound. ”So, thanks for the insight. It…painted a really nice picture.” The smile that settled on her lips was genuine.

[Reytac 0]

"There's nothing wrong with being talkative - alcohol will do that to a person. I don't mind, trust me, far from the first time I've listened to someone vent some of the stress that's been piling up on them." Rey ran the tip of one finger around the rim of his glass, staring down at the faint purple liquid sitting inside. "Nor is there anything wrong with.. Having to give up. the flip side of loving someone like I do, is that losing them hurts in a way that's hard to grasp, or explain. When I realized we were trapped in this damn game," his hand tightened into a fist, clenching hard enough to drive his nails into his palm, "I shut down. Lost it. So... My life might seem together, but that's just.. A product of living a bit and having to learn from mistakes." He exhaled explosively, pushing tension out of his body before he turned back to Teion, his expression softening. 

 

"But it sounds to me like, you already know the answer to the question you asked me. And just needed some reassurance that it's okay. And it is, okay. Even in here - you found someone, or he found you. I would say to seize that, run with it. Whether you two want to put the full name of 'marriage' onto that? That's a choice between you to. But, would it change anything about how you feel?" He leaned back on his stool, swaying slightly as the alcohol burned in his system.  Rey planted his elbows on the counter and rested his chin on one palm, losing himself for a moment in thoughts of her. An odd creak from nearby roused him from his reminiscing. He frowned and looked around, his eyes darting around the inside of the tavern. Something was bothering him but he couldn't quite put a finger on it. And that stupid, blasted, quest screen was still hanging there, more distorted each time he took a drink, but never actually saying anything else. 

[Teion 0]

«H̷̢͕̹̯̯͛ͅa ̸͖̟̐̌̓̽͝ve̸̩̒̈́̽̔̇̉ͅ ̶̫̲͓̘̳͊a d̸͕͉́/rin̶̼͖̅͂k̴͍̗̼̼̓̓̈́̾͐͘, ȉ̴̹̎̎͘͝ţ̶̹̩̩͎̰̋̓͠`s̵̥̦̟̾͑̉̂͘ ̵̰̣̪̲͂̒̚ȍ̴̰̙͛n ̴̨͖̮̿͒̑̈́͝ṯ̵̨̦̖̈́̑̏̒ͅh̷̡̡̦̪̝̼̽͌e̴͆̌͜ ̵̱̠̣̞̠̱͂̃͒̊̔́Họ̸̣̗͚̝̓̏̆ủ̶̡̟͓̳̝̽̿̑̇͝s̴̡̰͍̤͊͂͘͠ e̸̹̘̯̓͊»

The text sat undisturbed between them, nearly unreadable anymore. Any time it flickered or faltered went unnoticed by her. Who was she to question the source of their bottomless elixirs, anyway? ’Just one more.’ She told herself, emptying her glass and then pushing it away across the counter. It refilled itself all the same, a pristine new poison inviting her right back in. Her judgement had rusted and crumbled a while ago–as evident by not cutting herself off sooner–but she held strong this time.

”Good on you for still getting out here.” She placed her cheek in her hand, arm firmly propped up by an elbow planted on the countertop. Despite their different experiences, she knew how easy it was to close the door and keep it shut. When taking just one step outside was agony.

”Hmm.” She hummed softly at his closing remarks. ”You feel it too, don’t you? Like this place isn’t just far away, it’s more like a whole other life.” No doubt she had her hand around the knife, that soft smile still playing ambivalently across her lips. Her cheeks were hot and the words fell out of her mouth without allowing her stumbling brain any chance to check them over. ”Sure, we go on dates, and I’ll stay at his place. But what’s it gonna be like if we get out? I’ll have to pray I don’t forget his name when we all wake up. Maybe memorize his phone number? I wonder if we’d still have the same numbers. Maybe my phone plan shut itself off at some point.” She placed a hand down on the counter and leaned towards Reytac. ”You know we’ve got a total language barrier and everything? That’s going to be fun to figure out.” The dissonance between her tone and the words that she spoke strangely lessened, like she was genuinely amused imagining of the two of them trying to navigate life without Cardinal’s constant assistance.

Teion rambled on in her drunken stupor and the knife turned slowly. ”Did we all get displaced? If I owe any back-rent, it’s all over for me.” She laughed, that grating disharmony shunting back to the forefront. ”I’ll have a gap on my resume and have to figure out how to get to Japan someday.”

Her chuckling subsided, a grim painting of life disjointed in the aftermath of returning to the real world hanging in the air. Yet she continued without much care, leaning back in her seat and tilting her chin up to squint at the bare lightbulb strung up between them.

”Will it be like starting over?” The question was rhetorical, as she didn’t give him much time to think about it. ”Sometimes I dunno if I wanna deal with all that fallout, y’know? My job, my apartment… will my body and my brain still work right after all this?” Her foot kicked softly against the bar a couple of times. ”Like, this life is finally going great for once, all things considered. Why go back?”

Her eyes fell back on Reytac with a dumb silence, her head miles behind the words that spilled out of her. Yet the distance closed in an instant. ”Wait.” That glint of brief clarity reached her eyes one more time and anxiety swelled up in her chest. ”No, wait, that’s not what–”

Edited yesterday at 04:54 PM by Teion

[Reytac 0]

Reytac held up one hand, his gaze distant, not really looking at Teion as he looked through her, past her. Cutting off her stumbled, panicked realization that she might have slipped up, said something to upset him – after all, she was wondering if leaving would even be worth it, when leaving was all he could think about. He pulled out one of his canteen of water and placed it in front of her – he’d seen her push her glass away slightly, cutting herself off, and having something else, especially water, would probably be a good idea. As for what she’d said – to not wanting out… 

”But is it, though?” His voice was soft. ”I absolutely cannot speak for you, or for your love in this, it is something you’ll have to figure out yourself – but, what about your families? Not just you, and him, but – your parents, or any siblings? Or, further down the line, children? Trapped here, in this shitty death game – we can have friendships, loves, romances – but there is no future here.”  He exhaled sharply, breath leaving him in a sharp burst as his eyes misted up. He looked at her, ignoring the liquid that wasn’t rain water running down his face, as he blinked, emotion running thick as he spoke. 
”I can’t blame you, for feeling the way you do. Struggles waiting, if we ever escape, and there isn’t anything wrong with cherishing happiness now that you’ve found it. I know you aren’t the only one to feel that way – that maybe, just accepting our lives in here is the smart thing. The right thing. And maybe, for you and him, it can be and is. But for me – this place is a prison. I try not to think about it all the time, try not to remember her, try to distract and busy myself so I don’t miss her with every breath I draw. ” His hand came up and clutched at his breastplate, digging against the leather above his chest.  After a time of silence, forcing himself to breathe and try to calm down, he took a shuddering breath and wiped his eyes. 
”I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do, Miss Teion. Please, don’t blame me for wanting out of this place. I hope we can be friends though.”

Edited yesterday at 07:31 PM by Reytac

[Teion 0]

The knife twisted, yet he did not retaliate. Her fingers hovered above the wound, unsteady and uncertain, yet he reached out with a staunch kindness. A kindness that had to hurt even worse.

Teion had opened her mouth to speak, to stutter out an apology or to try to make sense of the feelings that led her there, but Reytac challenged her in a way that she couldn’t expect. Her jaw closed in a hurry when that tightness surged inside her chest. Firm, pained words wrapped around her heart and gave a meaningful squeeze.

”That was…a stupid way to say that.” She muttered something like a correction, ”Stupid thing to say.” She pushed herself off her stool to land on her feet and the ground underneath them went sideways. Teion slammed into the stretch of bar that lay between them with an embarrassing lack of elegance that left her catching herself with one arm before her legs might come out from under her. ”Shit.” Frustration was sharp on her tongue and she glared down at the bar, shadowed by her own silhouette, as if trying to force sobriety back to her senses. It was a hard ask.

At the edge of her vision sat his canteen. She took the olive branch with a hesitance that quickly ushered her wounded pride out of the equation. Teion stood, leaned over the bar and clutching the canteen in both hands while silence washed over them both.

”You’re a nice person.” She quietly broke that silence, closing her eyes and planting her boots firmly against the floorboards. ”And you’re right. And I’m kind of mad that you’re right, but I also don’t want you to think that I don’t give a shit about getting out, it’s just–” She forced herself to stop. It was so easy to dump words out from a slurry of thoughts. Head hung, brows pushed together, she pressed on. ”I wanna try to keep the other foot out of my mouth, but…” A sigh, thinly laced with agitation.

”It’s scary.”

“Maybe it’s been so long–or felt like it’s been so long–that’s what I meant that it feels so different.” She shouldn’t have drank so much. She gave up on her strategy and opened her eyes again, turning her head to look to Reytac. ”It’s like, thinking about what happens when you die.” A faint grimace came through with the most direct way she could put it. ”Has it been years out there? When we open that last door will we all wake up? Will we forget any of this?” The unknowable questions spilled from her and every ounce of her cognitive thought gripped her to stay in place, both physically and emotionally. ”People might try to study us. I can only hope my cat is okay–”

Like a twig snapping underfoot, her voice broke. Teion tore her misty eyes away and pushed herself up with the base of the canteen still sitting firmly between her hands. Straightening up she finally brought it to her lips and took a long drink. She fought to steady her breathing afterwards, reigning herself in as best she could. ”I know,” She started, unprompted. ”I know it doesn’t do any good, I know that you’re right, and I don’t blame you in the slightest because you’re right.” She punctuated her small tirade with a heavy exhale and another swipe of the side of her hand across each eye.

”Glad you wanna be friends. Sorry for getting shit-faced.”

[Reytac 0]

”I can understand that, so very well. Life is scary. I’m terrified myself – that when I get out, that she won’t be there. That I’ll be alone, that all of my effort will be for nothing.” Reytac wiped his face as he turned on his stool so he could lean with his back against the bar stool, giving Teion some level of privacy as she got herself back together. His hand was still on his chest, pressure from the outside helping with the pressure inside. The stool creaked beneath him as he tilted his head back to stare up at the ceiling, that damn light bulb shining harshly above them. 
”But – I think I’m more scared of staying trapped in here, and she’s out there, waiting for me still. That – that she’s put her life on hold, hurting, holding onto hope, not knowing if I’m alive or dead. That she might be hurting like I am, missing me like I miss her – that scares me even more than the thought of her leaving.” He closed his eyes, letting the faint creaks and the sound of the unceasing rain outside wash over him as he corralled the rampant emotions running through him. He took in a shaky, shuddering breath, and exhaled, tension leaving his frame as his shoulders sagged down. Slowly he turned his head to one side so he could look to Teion. 
”At this point, though, if – if time has passed the same, and we aren’t in some fucked up temporal fuckery where our perceptions have been messed with – we have to already be getting taken care of. Someone cared enough, to watch over us. That’s what I have to believe.” The thought was there – that if they had been trapped in the game like this, what was stopping it from being permanent – what if his body out there was already dead, and he was just a copy, a digital version of himself that had outlived the death of his corporal self? He shook that morbid, grim thought from his head and gave her a slight smile that crinkled the corner of his eye that she could see. 
”You don’t need to apologize for having a  bit too much to drink, Miss Teion. I’d wager you needed it to let down your guard and reach out for help you didn’t realize you needed. I don’t mind.”

 

Edited yesterday at 09:31 PM by Reytac

[Teion 0]

Teion snorted a chuckle that caused her shoulders to bob for a few seconds. Her eyes glazed across that same message:

 

«Ȟ̴̫̗̫̙̻̜̙̘̦̳̓̓͛ͅa ̸͖̟̐̌̓̽͝ve̸̩̒̈́̽̔̇̉ͅ a̷̗̿͒̈̐̎̾̔̓͠ ̵̧̨̛͙͍͍͈̲̱͍͍̑̿̾͐͒͑͋̀̈́͝d̸͕͉́rin̶̼͖̅͂ k̴͍̗̼̼̓̓̈́̾͐͘, ȉ̴̹̎̎͘͝ţ̶̹̩̩͎̰̋̓͠`̴̡̺͈̜̟͎̬͖̐̿͊͐̍̿̉̀̿̾̇͐̋͐̓͘͘̚͘͜͠s̵̥̦̟̾͑̉̂͘ ̵̰̣̪̲͂̒̚ȍ̴̰̙͛n ̴̨͖̮̿͒̑̈́͝ṯ̵̨̦̖̈́̑̏̒ͅh̷̡̡̦̪̝̼̽͌ h̵͙̯̋͋̍̄̒͘e̴͆̌͜ H̸͍̬̩̺̤͉̀̇̑̒̃̊̀̽̓̍̀͗̌̚o̷̪̮̥̫̲̳̗̫̫̻̺̽̎̒̑̇̑́̀ us̴̡̰͍̤͊͂͘͠ e̵̡̤̰̞̺̥͖͚̝̜̲̖͆̎̅́̃̀̓̇́͐̄̑̕»

 

”Honestly? I just really missed having a drink with friends.” A smile, bittersweet, settled wistfully on her lips. ”I didn’t take the time to do it much back then, either. Guess I just went overboard.” She chuckled again. ”Sucks that the busted-down bar in the middle of nightmare land is the only place to get a drink. She squinted at the distorted letters. ”And that it’s a glitchy mess.”

Her head swiveled and cast a glance towards the door. The sudden motion caused another swirling bout of dizziness that would have thrown her to the floor had she not had the bar directly in front of her to crutch on. ”But…even though this is a great bonding experience,” she was only being a little facetious, ”maybe we should get out of here soon.” As if brought to mind by her own words, a thought occurred to her that quickly became audible. ”No safe zone means that I don’t trust actually passing out at the bar.”

Teion paused with an afterthought. Her eyes trailed back to the bar, past the broken dialogue window, and landed on that pristine glass of whiskey. They flickered up, searching for something that wouldn’t be found. Not unless she was willing to trudge back into that basement, anyway. So they came back to the glass like a magnet, and she reached through the blue screen that shuddered at her touch. Teion shifted the canteen aside and retrieved the glass, staring it down amid bits of muddied memories. More than a moment passed in quiet, and then she picked the glass up and held it past the counter. Tilted to one side, its contents spilled out in an imperfect stream that dribbled against the musty floorboards. The ice cube crashed into the tiny puddle that splashed her boots with the smallest droplets. ”I don’t think he would’ve liked whiskey…” She started, turning the emptied glass in her hands and placing it back, upside-down on the counter. ”But, there’s one for a friend.”

She took another purposeful swig of water and then held Reytac’s canteen back out to him. A quick thanks and she steeled herself to walk in a straight line. It was also a hard ask. Putting focus into it, she made it across the bar and to the door without stumbling. A little wobbly as she pulled the door open and revealed the immortal drizzle on the other side, a grimace took over her. ”Wishing we were stuck anywhere else but here.” She muttered, flashed Reytac a thumbs up of feigned confidence, and trudged back into the rain.

They’d have to cross roughly half of Ilridge to make it back to the teleport gate. Abandoned buildings, wet cobblestone, and the skittering of probably rats were all that stood around them, at least as far as they could tell. Teion squinted against both the rain and her self-inflicted haze. Cold flecks softly smacking against her cheeks and atop her head and shoulders strangely helped, she thought. ”You gonna make it?” She called to Reytac, unsure if he was having a better go of things. She only remembered him slamming one of those wine glasses…but who knew if his tolerance was holding him steady.

The caw of a crow. The creak of sagging wood. The clinking of chains on an old, broken signpost. The sooner they got to knowable safety, the better.
 

Edited 3 hours ago by Teion